The New England Patriots’ Bill Belichick just won his sixth Super Bowl championship, the most ever by a head coach in the NFL. Belichick and the Patriots built a dynasty that has lasted nearly two decades, which validates one unmistakable fact - great coaching is critical to the success of any sports program. The same is also true in the restaurant world. Great restaurant managers are critical to the long-term success of your business.
Of course, Belichick has coached many great players throughout his career, including future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady. But throughout his historic run, Belichick displayed important qualities found in any football coach or restaurant manager. Most notably, he didn’t make decisions without having the best possible information at his disposal. This is essential for ensuring that the decisions he made resulted in the best possible outcomes.
It’s all about the data
Coaches in any sport have a lot of difficult decisions to make. These involve what plays to run and which personnel packages to use. When the stakes are raised their decisions are magnified and the ramifications for their actions are amplified. While restaurant managers might not have the pressure of fans judging their every move, they do face similar challenges with their guest satisfaction scores.
Like coaches, restaurant managers have to make tough calls and are held accountable for their actions. Their decisions involve the most important components of the restaurant. This includes inventory management, food preparation safety, and labor management, just to name a few of the things that need constant oversight. And like coaches, they have to make decisions in high-stakes situations, too.
Coaches, like restaurant managers, need quick access to information to win.
When determining how much food to prepare ahead of your restaurant’s big game watch party, having access to the best production forecast information is critical. Playing the wrong personnel and mismanaging the clock can lose games just like scheduling the wrong team members in a given shift or mismanaging inventory can hurt profits and cost sales. Managers with easy access to critical data have a better chance of winning.
Fortunately, decisions don’t need to be made alone. Coaches have assistants who provide insights to the decision making process and those nifty NFL Microsoft Surface Tablets. Restaurant managers may have other team members to help with decision making, but they can also turn to different resources, like back office operations technology platforms. Investing in back office software provides critical insights into all operations and helps ensure restaurants are optimized for growth. . Mobile reporting applications allow restaurant managers to measure the performance of real-time KPIs for sales, food and labor costs, and forecast variances, among other key insights, keeping instant access to all critical metrics on their person at all times.
Like professional sports, the restaurant game is incredibly competitive. To succeed, managers need the most information, the best information, and the quickest access to actionable information to win.
This post is sponsored by CrunchTime! Information Systems