Why is your catering software not working well?

Since the mid-1990s, the pace of chain operation of catering enterprises in China has obviously accelerated. With the rapid development of the domestic catering industry, catering services and management have been continuously strengthened, the quality of catering industry management personnel has been continuously improved, and the popularity of office automation has become The status of catering management system in enterprise management has become increasingly prominent, and more and more catering companies recognize the importance of management systems. As early as in the 1980s, the catering industry in Europe and the United States began to use software for management. Under the dual role of real needs and foreign success stories, domestic catering software has gradually developed.

I. Current status of the catering industry

1. Status of catering enterprises

At present, there are 5 million catering enterprises in the country, the number of restaurants is as high as 5.1 million, there are 22 million employees and 8 million chefs. According to industry-related data released by the Ministry of Commerce, in 2014, the national catering revenue was 278.60 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.7%, an increase of 0.7 percentage points over the previous year. However, specifically, although the overall development of the catering industry is better, there are still some restaurants facing business dilemmas, mainly concentrated in small and medium-sized restaurants with less experience and resources. Through the optimization of management and cost control, the correct use of catering-related management software and the improvement of the quality of employees, effectively improve the efficiency of restaurant operations and increase profit margins, is the top priority of the work of catering executives.

The cost structure of a restaurant can be divided into two categories: direct cost and indirect cost.

l The so-called direct cost refers to the specific material costs in the finished food products, including food costs and beverage costs, and is also the most important expenditure in the catering business.

l The so-called indirect cost refers to other expenses incurred during the operation, such as personnel expenses and some fixed expenses. Labor costs account for a large proportion of the cost structure. In addition, the cost ratios of other types and sizes of restaurants are different in other aspects, such as the proportion of labor costs in small restaurants is obviously high, and the positioning of relatively large-scale restaurants compared to small and medium-sized restaurants requires rent and decoration. Invest more costs.

2. Status of catering software

At present, the main domestic catering software includes Tianzixing, Tiancai Shanglong, Chensen, Sixun, Kemai, Meal Health, Two-Dimensional Fire, and Mi Mi. among them:

l Tianzixing: Xiaofeiyang, South Beauty, Diou Coffee, Ava Mountain Village, and Quanjin City have applications.

l Tiancai Shanglong: Typical customers include Lu Yin Ge Western Restaurant, Jin Hansi Grill and Barbera Italian Casual Restaurant.

l Two-dimensional fire: The cooperative merchants include Baguo Cloth, Shangdao Coffee, Kanda River Ramen, and New White Deer.

The author has visited thousands of restaurants and talked with catering owners and high-level catering software. No matter how big the restaurant is, there is also a problem: catering software is not easy to use. The financial director of Bige Pizza said: Now we are leading the catering software company to run forward. What features do we want to develop for me? They have not been able to go to the front of the restaurant, and have made achievements in improving efficiency and improving management.

Second, the problem of catering software

1, function and demand do not match

As a catering company, what is most troublesome for them is the information technology developed by the manufacturers and the information technology used by the catering enterprises. It is often difficult to achieve seamless docking. Even if you choose a customized product, as the enterprise develops, there will still be a mismatch. In actual operation, perhaps the initial software development and design is based on the requirements of the enterprise, but with the development of the enterprise, the development of the software company. Thinking often can't keep up with the thinking of the restaurant, which leads to the inability of the software upgrade to keep pace.

2. The software function lacks depth.

Lu Qiang, CEO of Beijing Maiford Restaurant Management Co., Ltd., which has more than 100 stores nationwide, pointed out that some software companies are pursuing “big and complete”. Some software is based on a focused strategy, but due to market squeeze and user personality requirements. Will unconsciously add a lot of functionality to their software. However, this "big and complete" mostly flows on the surface, and often only builds functions according to the mechanized model on the basis of the original. The software system thus constructed has some functions on the one hand, which seriously affects the use; on the other hand, it is the function. The poor connectivity is not able to effectively allocate information resources and exert economies of scale.

3, implementation and service operations are complex

A good implementation and service team is the foundation for the proper functioning of the catering software. Nowadays, some catering owners often complain that they are dependent on the software they purchase, resulting in a higher overall cost of ownership of the software. In addition, the complexity of deployment and implementation has seriously affected the development of its products. According to the co-founder of Beijing Xinxiao, the leading brand of Chongqing Xiaobian, according to the different stages of development of enterprises, the consideration of software selection will mainly be made in terms of price and deployment. Decide.

4, software vendors do not know enough about catering companies

How to guide the catering enterprises to develop software products in terms of improving the efficiency and reducing the cost based on the fundamental needs of catering enterprises is a topic that every software manufacturer should study well. This requires catering software manufacturers to penetrate the grassroots level of catering enterprises and understand. The dynamics of each link use its own technological advantages to help companies solve the problems they will face in the future, rather than the firefighter role of a single headache.

Third, the root cause of catering software problems

The catering software is not easy to use. In addition to the development and design of the software itself, it is also related to the complexity and particularity of the catering industry itself. Summarize a few glimpses, throwing bricks and jade, please enlighten me:

1. The catering industry is not standardized enough

l The form of eating can be divided into dinner, light meal, fast food, buffet, hot pot, etc.

l In the catering industry, there are Chinese food, Western dinner, Chinese fast food, Western fast food, casual tea, coffee bar, delivery, and group chain.

According to the characteristics of the business, it can be seen that the services provided by different types of catering, the people they face, and the functions they have are different, and thus the differences in processes and management methods are also caused. The requirements on the software are also different. There should also be a distinction between the use of the software in order to fit the demand and achieve the growth of revenue. For example, the system of casual teahouses and fast foods should have different emphasis, and the fast food system pays more attention to the short time. Even in the same format, the difference in the form of eating will affect the choice and use of the software. For example, the demand for hot pot and buffet is obviously different. If the catering software is used without distinction, it will inevitably give customers and staff in actual operation. Inconvenience, affecting business management.

2. The catering industry is a labor-intensive enterprise. The cultural level of employees is limited. According to an investigation of the talent reserve of the catering industry by an institution, 62.5% of the catering enterprises surveyed have 5,000 employees, and more than 5,000 people have large catering. The proportion of the group is about 11.5%. In terms of academic composition, the number of students with junior college degree or below is mainly 71.7%, the undergraduate degree is about 23.6%, and the master's degree or above only accounts for 4.7%. In addition, the catering industry employees are highly mobile and the work stability is relatively poor. These factors directly increase the training cost of the food enterprises, the learning cost is high, and the cost of replacing the software is higher.

3. The catering industry involves more modules depending on the format of the business.

l Front cash register system

l warehousing system

l Logistics system

l Personnel system

l Member management

l Supply chain system

l Customer information experience

Every software company hopes to use its own products from the cashier at the front desk to the back office management until the supply chain management, which affects the in-depth development of the catering software company. In the end, it can only be a module with strong functionality and widespread and shallow phenomena. . For example, fast food and light meals usually pay more attention to the cashier system at the front desk. The food and beverages with fresh food as the selling point need to be supported by a good logistics system, while the long-term consumption and wide distribution of chain catering also requires member management... The delivery of branded pizza to PizzaNow CEO Lu Tiancai said that none of the current catering software on the market is 100% in line with our requirements, because pizza to PizzaNow is a takeaway pizza brand, management methods and processes are common. The catering mode is different, so Pisa to PizzaNow invested millions of dollars to develop a catering management software to improve their strategic deployment.

In the promotion of most catering software, in order to attract users as much as possible and maximize the benefits, they usually emphasize that they have comprehensive functions and can cover the whole process, but in fact, in addition to individual software companies with rich development experience and strong overall strength. In addition, most software companies cannot provide relatively comprehensive catering software:

lThe celestial star is relatively perfect in classification, and it is divided into the dining version, the fast food version and the food square version according to the basic characteristics.

l Two-dimensional fire, more targeted catering software, more emphasis on the functions of cashier and account management, two-dimensional fire also added the functions for customers and waiters, trying to build a comprehensive system and complete system of boss-employee-customer Process;

l Meal health, in recent years, the chain of fast food O2O business has proliferated, the software has increased the e-commerce platform module, the US group take-out, Baidu take-out, hungry and other platform data directly into the business backstage, to some extent reduced manual input The amount of work.

l Mi Mi, the fast-rising catering software brand in the past two years, free of charge is a major advantage, as emerging brands have certain advantages in technology applications. According to the author, I understand that Mi Wei is divided into a comprehensive management system for meals and a chain management system for light meals according to the catering industry.

However, a truly deep and focused product should be able to improve its core modules and meet the needs of the construction. For the payment, for example, different formats have different requirements for this aspect. The main demand for fast food stores for payment is the payment method. Convenient and diverse, that is, to help customers achieve fast payment in a variety of ways, but at present, there are still some problems in this link, such as catering software is not enough to expand the payment method, and the statistics and analysis based on collection data are not Keep up with, the depth of data mining is not enough, and the supporting facilities are insufficient.

Fourth, the trend of future catering software

The possible development trend of future catering software is the systemization of content and function and the specialization of service: through the Internet means, catering software is the core of catering management system, from food procurement, ordering, checkout, customer service, network marketing They are all completed in one platform to build a networked catering management system with a complete ecological chain, and raw material costs, labor costs, management costs, and marketing costs will be further reduced. The specialization trend is that catering software is serving restaurants. In addition, it is more targeted and can be adjusted according to the different formats and scales of the restaurant, so as to further improve the efficiency.

1. Catering software should make a difference in improving human efficiency and improving management.

In terms of improving human efficiency, catering software should be easier to operate, simple interface, clear instructions, clear steps, and clear functions, so as to better realize human-computer interaction, software-assisted people, rather than people adapting software, by improving user experience. In order to improve the human function; in the management, the information system of kitchen and food control, customer relationship management and warehousing logistics distribution is the focus of catering enterprises and the core of application and promotion, the future Catering software should strengthen the management of this part of the link, and form a well-structured system while focusing on functions, presenting a clear and complete system architecture, thereby improving management.

2, the development of self-service ordering machine

In Japan, due to the high labor costs, many restaurants use self-service ordering machines to save money, and the self-service ordering machine has become a standard equipment for Japanese fast food restaurants. Inspired by the current situation of the use of Japanese self-service ordering machines, Beijing Bingu Technology has independently developed and developed a new type of self-service ordering machine, which fully realizes the functions of customers' self-ordering payment, and supports WeChat and Alipay. Bank, card and other payment methods, Beijing has signed more than 1,000 well-known chain brands including KFC, Yipinsanxiao, Hehe, Fu Nitang, Qingfeng Baozipu. Generally, the labor cost is about 30% of the overall cost of catering. As a labor-intensive industry, it is difficult to recruit workers, keep people difficult, and high labor costs have been plaguing traditional catering enterprises. The idea of ​​using self-service ordering machines is a solution. According to the data of the restaurant in the use of the restaurant, the self-service ordering machine has been able to complete 40-60% of the work of ordering meals, greatly reducing the pressure on labor costs.

3. Objective analysis of mobile phone ordering

l APP order status

On the one hand, mobile APP is an important part of the trend of food and beverage information. Compared with ordinary a la carte, mobile phone ordering has a significant effect on saving manpower and improving efficiency, which is conducive to the flow and management of data information, and because mobile phones are in people. The important role played by daily life, mobile phone ordering is crucial to the realization of CRM member management marketing. However, at present, the mobile phone ordering is not optimized from the ordering effect and the offline process, and the good offline meal taking experience still causes the confusion of the checkout counter and the confusion of the take-out mouth. Because user habits are not developed, it still needs to be costly to cultivate. A mobile phone APP ordering data shows that in July-September 2015, the three-month single-store subsidy amounted to a total of 33,244 yuan, totaling a monthly single-store subsidy of more than 10,000 yuan.

l WeChat endpoint meal status

However, individual catering brands have made great efforts in their own processes and mobile design. Everyone is focusing on Hunan Ooki's catering O2O project. CEO Liu Zheng said, “The ideal catering company should cut all unnecessary, Cut down everything that restricts development, and put all the savings into improving the quality of ingredients!” Customers order from orders, orders, and payments through WeChat platform. It takes only 7 minutes for customers to order from order to meal. The efficiency is extremely high and the user reflects it well. The most prominent feature of everyone is the full exploitation of WeChat function. We use WeChat payment to transfer customers from the current physical entity to the online. Through the background data, the user composition can be accurately analyzed, and the taste and service of the food can be monitored and adjusted. Successfully realized the deep exploration of catering O2O in the era of "Internet +".

【in conclusion】

The improvement of catering software requires the joint efforts of software companies and catering enterprises. Catering enterprises should fully communicate with software suppliers, have a clear understanding of their own requirements and planning, and choose to choose software according to the characteristics of enterprises and actual needs. When developing software vendors, they should put the real business process of catering enterprises in the first place. When developing software, reserve the standard data interface for secondary development. At the same time, modularize each function and freely combine various items according to the actual situation of the merchants. Module to meet the individual needs of the business. The system should focus on short and lean, adapt to personality, easy to upgrade, and easy to change, but in this change, combination, upgrade, and expansion, ensure data integrity, and seamlessly connect business and data.

In summary, the relationship between catering software and food enterprises, looks like a couple who have been married for many years, there are various kinds of disharmony between husband and wife, but based on the high cost of divorce, it is only necessary to pass, even if it is divorced, not sure about the next one. A partner can be 100% fit, and if the other party grows faster, it is more likely to cause communication barriers and unequal status. You may wish to vomit at the dissatisfaction of the software used by the home, where it is done very well, share it with everyone, and learn from it.