Can you spot Restaurant ERP Solutions at HITEC Orlando 2022?

Digital innovation has transformed experiences for both customers and restaurateurs throughout the years. As Orlando focuses on gearing up for the HITEC event, restaurateurs arrive seeking enterprise cloud solutions that will help their businesses technologically rejuvenate.

After months of quarantine, social distancing, and following pandemic regulations, Covid-19 has not only been devasting to the hotel industry. However, it has also been a significant challenge to the restaurant industry as well.

The hardest-hit industry – the restaurant business- is now making its way from survival to revival by following a few strategies for sustainability, as regulations are operating more relaxedly.

The pandemic impacted restaurant owners in many ways leading them to shut down operations temporarily or, even worse, for good. A few identified factors like inflation, work from home policies, labour shortages, and supply chain delays are factors contributing to the fall of restaurant businesses post-covid.

As covid regulations are becoming more relaxed and businesses are returning to normal, restaurants are also bouncing back, adapting to the new normalisation strategies. Amidst the pandemic, these industries quickly learned that they must adapt to survive. Despite the pandemic, many have survived to live with the new adjustments, and their long-term potential is more apparent.

Businesses in the restaurant industry have learned their hard lesson and will hold onto these changes even after the pandemic fades. The industry will emerge from the pandemic on a new level, and here's what that will look like:

Health and Safety Protocols

Overall, the industry is taking cleanliness more seriously, going beyond meeting FDA regulations and taking a proactive approach to disease prevention. This is the most apparent change attracting customers to a new-normal method. It can also be considered as a confidence-building measure as restaurants focus on disinfected kitchens, socially distanced seating arrangements, hand sanitiser stations, hand washing stations, frequent disinfection, etc. According to McKinsey & Company, slogans like "go safe" and "show safe" must be ensured by highly displaying hygiene and safety protocols throughout the restaurant.

Restaurant Enterprise Solutions

Technology has established itself as a crucial resource for restaurants amidst the pandemic. The industry is leaning towards a tech-centric approach by offering digital menus, online-based reservations, online orders, and many more. Efficient tools and solutions will significantly improve the operating style and create an ultimate customer experience.

• Use of mobile ordering and table ordering solutions help restaurateurs manage labour shortages. This also eliminates the need to sanitise menu's ever so often.
• Restaurants need to look at comprehensive solutions that provide the complete life cycle of a guest from online discovery, ordering, table booking, POS, kitchen order management, kitchen display, billing and guest feedback.
• The rise of channels in F&B business like DoorDash, Meituan, Postmates, Zomato, Swiggy, Uber eats, FoodPanda, Grubhub, and Deliveroo are widely utilised by consumers. However, it is inefficient to manage orders coming in from channels that are not integrated with the POS. Manual management of orders can create delays in creating KOT or even delay in order, causing high dissatisfaction. Hence, POS partners must ensure seamless channel manager integration for restaurants, including google, table bookings and walk-ins.
• Despite existing F&B Channels, an in-house online ordering system can significantly help restaurant businesses reduce subscriptions, surcharges, commissions, taxes and more costs. The right technology can also assist the restaurant in managing other requirements such as advanced ordering, payments, delivery and offers. An all-in-one in-house system will handle all these aspects and reduce costs. This is what restaurateurs are leaning towards today.
• Catering services attached to restaurant businesses are also booming as more and more people are coming out to become social again. In order to ensure a smooth operation of services, restaurant businesses must implement a complete solution - that takes care of all features from the booking diary to billing and settlement. Cloud solutions are ideal as most offer to note down and track changes made to the catering order.
• An effective in-house financial system will also help restaurant businesses successfully manage their revenue and centralise multiple locations with the reconciliation of intercompany transactions. This will help restaurateurs to monitor and analyse their recovery through reports and other information.

The pandemic has changed how restaurants operated two years ago. Most high-end restaurants now provide an above and beyond in-house dining experience, including online ordering, pick up, home delivery, etc. Unfortunately, Stand-alone POS solutions have not matured enough to handle these industry changes and hence Restaurant ERP providers are providing technological solutions to help businesses bounce back.

Automation and Modern Restaurants Concepts are pathways to benchmark the high-tech hospitality industry and provide an ultimate customer dining experience for the future sustainability of restaurant businesses. Looking forward to HITEC Orlando 2022 offering a learning platform in Restaurant ERP Solutions for post-covid recovery.

About IDS Next

IDS Next is the largest hospitality solutions provider in emerging markets, offering comprehensive full-stack ERP solutions for hotels, restaurants, wellness, and banquets and events sectors. Today, the company powers 300,000+ rooms, 220+ hotel chains, 25,000+ POS outlets, 300+ wellness and leisure venues, 6500+ banquet venues across 50+ countries. Seamlessly integrating with 350+ world-class technology partners, IDS Next leverages deep industry expertise, a customer-centric approach, and autonomous AI-powered customer support to deliver cloud-native, mobile-first SaaS solutions that help clients stay competitive in an ever-evolving global market. Trusted by renowned hospitality brands such as hospitality brands, including ITC Hotels, Taj Hotels, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts and the Louvre Hotels Group, IDS Next spans Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Rim. For more information, visit www.idsnext.com.