In the United States of America alone, the hospitality industry has a market capitalization of $899 Billion+. To say that the restaurant business is lucrative would be an understatement at this point.
Nonetheless, it must be remembered that running restaurants is still an operation with razor-thin margins and cut-throat competition. From erratic sales, high-operational costs, and a sudden pandemic, nothing seems to be going right for restaurants!
This is where critical restaurant technologies come into play to provide much needed-push to businesses. These technologies range from a cloud-based Restaurant Management System to Contactless QR menus.
Top 4 Must Have Restaurant Technologies You Need To Know About!
Now that you have an understanding of what restaurant technologies are and why they are important, it is time to know more about them. Here are the top four restaurant technologies that you need to know to guarantee success:
#1 A Robust Restaurant Management System
A Restaurant Management System or RMS platform can provide a solution for nearly all modern operational requirements. While a good RMS platform can make things, a bad one can break them. In essence, an RMS platform is the culmination of multiple subsystems that work in tandem to provide a uniform operational advantage to businesses.
A good RMS platform would provide you solutions for multiple issues that you might encounter. For example, here is a breakdown of the features a good RMS platform must have:
- Order Management & Tracking
- Website Integration
- Table Management
- CRM Tools
- Payroll Management Tools
It must be noted that all the above-mentioned features, aren’t the full picture as there are many more features that are required to make a robust RMS platform. Nonetheless, these five features are critical for ensuring longevity and success for your restaurant.
#2 An Online Food Ordering & Delivery Platform
During the national lockdown and social-distancing measures put in place to combat the COVID19 pandemic, online food ordering & delivery platforms became the lifeline of restaurants.
Nearly 95% of restaurants surveyed by the American National Restaurant Association have said that they saw a proportionate increase in online deliveries and a subsequent decrease in physical demand.
But all is not well in the world of online food ordering & delivery platforms. Did you know that third-party online food ordering aggregators hold individual restaurants hostage?
Platforms like DoorDash, Uber Eats, Postmates, etc. are notorious for employing predatory pricing structures to keep their profit margins higher than their partner restaurants.
So what can you do about it? The only solution is to embrace the future head-on and design and develop your online food delivery apps.
#3 A Contactless QR Code Menus
OR Code menus are an amazing tool to have for a restaurant that wants to thrive in today’s environment. QR code menus not only dramatically reduce the clutter in information transmission but also drastically reduce the need for physical contact hence inhibiting the spread of infectious diseases. (i.e. COVID19)
The QR codes of today are two-dimensional and can be scanned by regular smart mobile devices. The data of your menu is encoded side-to-side and up-and-down to improve scanning accuracy and provide a seamless user experience.
#4 An Integrated Restaurant Website
Lastly, you need to have a well-developed restaurant website that has incorporated all the above-mentioned technologies. A fully integrated solution to provide your customers with truly frictionless and unified user experience.
A good restaurant website will not only act as a cornerstone for your establishment’s online presence but also as an engine for future growth. With an integrated restaurant management system, online food ordering, contactless delivery, mobile apps, etc. you provide a one-stop solution to hungry customers.
In Conclusion
The above technologies are the next-gen that the hospitality industry has to offer. But one must remember never to get complacent. While these technologies are today’s cutting-edge, tomorrow, they will lose their sheen. Hence you must keep yourself and your business updates to match the evolving times and get an advantage in a highly competitive industry!
