Restaurant Technology Outlook: Does Your Application Strategy Match Your Infrastructure?

Although not very glamorous, "plumbing" is an accurate term for network infrastructure required to support the bulk of restaurant based applications that rely on data flow between key vendors, corporate headquarters and store locations. Leading IT objectives, such as improving productivity and efficiency, reducing costs and improving the customer experience, are not typically aligned with the identification of an appropriate wide area networking solution. Planning separately for applications and infrastructure can severely impact the success of application roll-outs targeting critical business initiatives.

With an historical tendency towards technological conservatism, the restaurant industry is gradually moving into the 21st century in terms of the adoption of technology to support operations. IT spending as a percent of total sales has traditionally averaged about 1%. However, between 2002 and 2004 spending was higher on average as the result of investments in point of sale systems. A 2005 Hospitality Restaurant Technology Study suggests that spending as a percent of sales will stabilize in the next two to four years as restaurant organizations focus on system enhancements, new innovations in technology uses, and system maintenance. Given that projection, getting funding approval to replace or completely overhaul network infrastructure is unlikely. The message--get the right plumbing in place today to provide your organization with a long term solution that frees IT personnel to focus on adding and supporting mission critical applications.

The restaurant industry is highly competitive due to the fact that products are easily duplicated. It can therefore be a challenge to achieve and retain a competitive edge. In addition, profit margins are narrow. The affect of this dynamic is that a great deal of business innovation and effort is focused on maintaining a competitive edge. However, there is evidence that these same business innovators are more cautious when it comes to investing in technology to support those innovations. Restaurant innovators tend to be followers rather than leaders in regard to technology. In fact, the study also showed that 25% of the respondents claimed that their technology strategy was not integrated into the organizations business plan. Isolating technology makes strategic planning that combines applications, business objections and infrastructure impossible.