Infrastructure optimization: Enable technologies, drive business success
In the restaurant industry, a wealth of new technologies is available to help simplify, standardize, and modernize business processes. These innovative products help increase productivity, simplify information technology (IT) management, and expand and adapt systems as businesses change and grow. Investing in these systems empowers people with the tools and actionable data they need to make better business decisions and provide the kind of service that increases customer loyalty. But historically, the restaurant industry has been slow to adopt these new technologies.
For most foodservice operators, adoption is slowed by the lack of an integrated IT platform. As a result, systems do not talk to each other, and people cannot get a single, real-time view of information. In the 2006 Restaurant Technology 25 Study conducted by Hospitality Technology magazine, every large restaurant organization surveyed indicated that it prefers to be a leader from a business perspective, yet none wants to be an IT leader. According to the study, these organizations view IT investments as separate from business practices, rather than as a way to improve them. However, an integrated infrastructure can in fact fuel business processes and enable people to make better decisions. This article discusses infrastructure issues at foodservice organizations and shows how solutions from Microsoft partners can help you optimize your infrastructure and implement new technologies that help drive business success.
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Key to strategic vision
Despite the overall lack of emphasis on IT innovation, the restaurants surveyed indicated strong movement toward integration. Fifty-five percent of all surveyed firms expect to be fully integrated by 2008 year-end, and 38.7 percent expect to be partially integrated in that time frame. According to "Master Data Management: Worldwide Software and Services Forecast, 2005-2009" from research firm IDC, the market for master data management (a single view of products, customers, accounts, or locations) will reach US$10.4 billion by 2009, a compound annual growth rate of 13.8 percent from 2005.
In moving from a "basic" infrastructure, which involves continually putting out fires, to a "rationalized" infrastructure, the costs involved in managing desktops and servers are at their lowest and processes and policies mature to play a larger role in supporting and expanding the business. Security is very proactive, and response to threats and challenges is rapid and controlled. According to Tom Litchford, retail industry solutions director for Microsoft, "When organizations move from basic to rationalized infrastructure, they move from IT [as] a cost center to IT [as] more critical to their strategic vision. Implementing a rationalized infrastructure enables organizations to use the infrastructure as a business partner that helps generate revenue." Through optimization, infrastructure becomes key to driving business processes.
Manage from headquarters
IT departments have to manage many different computers across multiple locations-and large corporations might have to monitor thousands of computers across hundreds of restaurants. Given the difficulties of administering so many computers at individual restaurant sites, there is rising need to centralize the management of compliance and security updates, patches, and software deployment from headquarters. Organizations with basic infrastructure find that their environments are extremely hard to control, have very high desktop and server management costs, and have very little positive impact on the ability of the business to benefit from IT. Generally, all patches, software deployments, and services are provided "high touch and high cost." Although optimizing infrastructure might appear to require a substantial investment, an integrated infrastructure can actually lower the cost of ownership in the long run. Recently, the Friendly Ice Cream Corporation, owner of the Friendly's chain of restaurants, migrated its file and print servers to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Active Directory and implemented Microsoft Windows Server System integrated server software. "Administratively, we're saving about two to three hours per week. That's time better spent focusing on new opportunities rather than on fixing problems," notes Stephen Manning, senior systems support programmer at Friendly Ice Cream. Adds Litchford, "Infrastructure optimization can help restaurants work smarter, innovate solutions, and provide a better guest experience. Having a solid back-end system allows for better reporting, connects franchises, and reduces IT spend."
Implement new technologies
IT administrators need to proactively monitor the health of workstations and equipment-raising alerts or shutting down systems when a problem first occurs to prevent it from escalating. Without an integrated system, the performance and health of equipment such as point-of-sale devices, mobile devices, kitchen equipment, and workstations are difficult to track. Implementing new technologies and monitoring systems helps prevent shrinkage and loss and reduces costs.
Management-enabled equipment gives managers real-time visibility into what's going on in each store and is capable of interacting with the system. The equipment sends out information that can be captured by IT administrators monitoring the business solution. For example, if temperature drops in the refrigerator or increases in the oven, an alert can be sent to the main system, which in turn regulates the equipment or alerts someone to take care of it. Such monitoring and interaction not only can increase food safety but also can save the expense of having kitchen staff monitor temperatures and carry those numbers manually to the back office, where someone must enter them into the system. You can also monitor sales stations in real time. If headquarters notices that one of the sales stations is ringing up more promos than another, it's possible to investigate and take action.
"Implementing a rationalized infrastructure can help eliminate the difficulty of managing distant locations," Litchford says. "With the disparate systems inherent in a basic infrastructure, devices and stores seem far away. With the implementation of a rationalized infrastructure, they seem very close-so distance is no longer an issue."
Track performance
Lack of integration between headquarters and restaurant sites makes it difficult to understand operations fully. By taking advantage of the highly productive infrastructure of Windows Server System, IT administrators can implement evolving technologies, such as key performance indicators (KPIs) to track mobile devices and laptops, smart equipment, sales, and employee performance. And you can monitor all of these technologies in real time from a central location. Without an optimized infrastructure, you cannot take advantage of these capabilities. "Rationalized systems," explains Litchford, "enable KPI management capabilities, which help to streamline processes and increase the financial health of the business."
KPI functionality can help managers monitor workflow, including drive-through service time (sending out alerts if the service time increases) and sales per associate. KPI functionality also helps track performance at the individual and restaurant levels. You can track inventory turnover, high-profit products, meal preparation time, supplier costs and performance, shrinkage and loss, and labor as a percentage of revenue. Implementing KPI functionality provides your people with the information they need to help increase customer satisfaction and ensure the business is operating as profitably as possible.
Connection, connection, connection
By optimizing your infrastructure to connect the servers with the kitchen, the financial systems with operations, and the restaurants with headquarters, you can take advantage of the newest technologies to reduce costs, create innovative products and services, and tie your operations more closely to those of your vendors and suppliers-all of which can help you provide the service and innovation that keep your customers coming back.
At Microsoft, we can optimize your infrastructure to help you implement new technologies that help you drive business process optimization and throughput. We offer integrated systems that deliver value to the business segments they support, including Windows Server System, which helps simplify branch server management, improves identity and access management, reduces storage management costs, provides a rich Web platform, and offers cost-effective server virtualization. Windows Server System includes:
| • | System Center Operations Manager, which helps improve infrastructure manageability by providing comprehensive event management; proactive monitoring of workstation health, servers, connected devices, equipment, and applications; and reporting and trend analysis-all of which assist in reducing Help Desk calls. |
| • | Active Directory service, which helps you manage identities as well as set policies and updates from a central location. |
| • | BizTalk Server, a business process management server, which helps optimize systems through integration. Microsoft BizTalk Server comes with out-of-the box adapters, processes data using XML and Web services, and is a cost-effective alternative to enterprise application integration. And BizTalk Server's reusable integration services speed deployment time, helping to reduce IT administrative effort and improve workflow processes. |
| • | System Center Configuration Manager , which helps manage point-of-view control policies and deploy applications and mission-critical patches and security updates to your people from Microsoft and non-Microsoft vendors. It also manages the desired configuration of installed devices. |
To find out more about integrating your systems, contact a Microsoft Certified Partner.
