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How supply chain technology helped 2 brands save money, drive profits

With the proper software, restaurant management can provide predictive and actionable insights into entire food supply chains, enabling greater visibility, control and savings.

October 20, 2016

By Jeff Dorr, chief customer officer, ArrowStream 

The foodservice supply chain has become increasingly complex, due to increased customer demands for fresh food, food safety issues, changing palettes and volatile changes in product prices. For years, restaurant chains were stuck managing their spend and inventory positions manually, which often created price audit gaps, product waste, and delays in making timely supply chain decisions. They needed a real-time technology that eliminated the need for traditional data mining, by bringing specific challenges to the forefront, providing the means to understand the root causes and take immediate action. Now, many successful, well-known restaurant chains are leveraging supply chain software to meet that need.

With the proper software, restaurant management can provide predictive and actionable insights into entire food supply chains, enabling greater visibility, control and savings. The industry is also seeing a surge in demand from other industries that need a solution that helps manage supply chain visibility and compliance. Intelligent, innovative software has been proven to improve processes and generate positive results for the industry. In fact, many supply chain executives speak candidly about their positive experiences with SaaS-based software solutions.

Ric Scicchitano, EVP, Food and Supply Chain at Corner Bakery Cafe, uses SaaS-based software solutions and believes that it has greatly improved his brand.  

"It provided us with a very easy platform to work with and brings sophistication to our supply chain processes, while also providing a quick return on our investment," said Scicchitano. "In today's world of managing risk, spend, and inventory, implementing supply chain technology has been a proven platform that works tremendously for our brand."

Eric Sheen, CEO of Restaurant Partners Procurement, has also seen dramatic results. Since implementing SaaS-based software, Sheen has seen a seven-figure savings throughout RPP's entire system.

"We used to load all of our contracts by hand and do all of our auditing internally, and when we aligned everything and integrated the system, the software highlighted the inefficiencies, or the holes in our profit bucket," said Sheen.

Achieving product-quality compliance

SaaS-based software solutions can also help businesses achieve product-quality compliance. Consumer expectations for fresh food and variety have never been higher. Today's restaurant chains and their supply chain operations face the multi-faceted challenge of delivering an elevated dining experience while also ensuring stellar food quality at a fair price for their guests.

A new level of supply chain visibility and cost control is paramount for meeting this challenge. The ease of use of the software makes internal operations run smoothly, so the front and back- of-the-house are able to work in sync with each other.

Operators are able to easily check inventory and quality issues within their restaurant. With alert-driven product issue management, resolution workflow and quality trend analytics, operators will not only recover more credits from suppliers, but pinpoint overarching issues with a specific product or supplier before they spread. This is vital when it comes to customer satisfaction and loyalty to a restaurants' brand. It also improves the collaboration between a brands' suppliers and distributors and ultimately delivers an improved supply chain which helps everyone. 

In conclusion, implementing the right software solution can drive hard savings and provide a variety of other positive benefits for restaurant chains and their purchasing organizations. SaaS-based software solutions have proven time and time again how they can help restaurant brands achieve sustainable success.