The F&B (Food & Beverage) industry  seems to face very high competition today as many people are involved in this business due to the high-profit ROS (Return on Sales).

Not all businesses can be successful, even those entering the market for a few years. If the business cannot create its own identity or manage the activities in the restaurant chain effectively, the possibility of being forced out of the market is very high.

So how could restaurant owners manage effectively? We have compiled a list of tips for food and beverage management. Are you tempted to know? Let’s get the ball rolling.

Restaurant chain management

Difficulties in F&B Chain Management

Since the scale of the F&B chain is quite large, the pressure placed on the arms of the management level also increases. Some common difficulties when managing a chain of food and beverage stores include:

• Staff management: In the chain restaurant business, a manager needs to know the number of employees at each store, their working hours, and their working efficiency.

If the chain of stores is large, the management level needs to manage a much higher number of employees.

• Raw materials and merchandise management: When the number of stores increases, managers need to strengthen control of the source of raw materials and goods to supply the entire system fully.

Additionally, the quality management of raw materials is also important to ensure the best quality of service and experience for customers.

• Financial management: As with any business, optimal financial balance is always a management concern.

The management of revenue and expenditure becomes more complicated, requiring management to have an appropriate financial control method that can quickly calculate revenue, profit, or loss.

8 Tips For Effective Food And Beverage Management

#1. Understanding Customers

One of the top criteria in business is understanding customers, as they are the main source of revenue for the business. Customers are conventionally interested in three factors: product quality, service, and price.

Therefore, chain restaurant managers must pay maximum attention to the quality of food and drinks, ensuring that diners always have a good culinary experience when coming to the store.

The service quality of the staff is equally important. In addition to ensuring a neat appearance, service staff must have a welcoming attitude and a professional service style, significantly contributing to retaining customers in the chain of stores.

Staff with good attitude can retain customers

When you gain a high percentage of loyal customers, the net profit will be higher. According to an article shared on LinkedIn, citing research by Invesp, the cost of acquiring a new customer is five times higher than retaining an existing customer.

Meanwhile, the average probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, compared to just 5-20% with a new customer. The data also shows that existing customers spend 31% more.

In addition, the customer survey will help supervisors understand the current service quality. Not only that, but the food chain could also grasp the customers’ needs and trends to take quick action.

#2. Track Multiple Stores In One Place

Managing multiple branches in chain stores on the same platform will give you better control over data and reports. You will no longer need to check different data in many different resources.

Instead, all you need to do is to visit one platform to search and then have all the information you need.

#3. Consistent Service Standards

Customers could visit many different branches of the restaurant chain to enjoy the cuisine. Let’s imagine how “chaotic” it would be if each store had a different way of serving.

In addition, the customer experience is also greatly affected by this lack of consistency. Therefore, to manage a chain restaurant effectively, one important criterion is ensuring consistency in service and merchandising throughout the system.

Ensuring consistent service quality at F&B stores

So how to do that? One of the solutions applied by many restaurant chains is to use management software to provide effective operating activities.

#4. Consistent Food Quality At Every Branch

When running a restaurant chain, food quality is still a prerequisite that needs to be taken care of. To be able to serve delicious dishes to diners, the management-level personnel should pay attention to the following issues:

• Quality control of raw materials: Fresh ingredients will help the food taste better. Therefore, supplying a large amount of food throughout the system requires management to closely monitor the number of goods available and the supply to the restaurant chain.
• Ensure the savoriness of each dish: You must set standards to ensure the same food quality at all branches. You could apply a consistent recipe system-wide.
• Kitchen staff training: you also need to organize training sessions for all kitchen staff to update the processing standards to ensure the food’s deliciousness and the restaurant chain’s safety and hygiene.

Supposing that the restaurant has only one kitchen to deliver to the branches to ensure the same taste, you will need to pay attention to the handover management between the stakeholders to ensure that the food is not affected by the transportation process.

• Building the most suitable menu for customers: A chain restaurant needs to flexibly update the menu to be able to serve customers in the best way.

For example, the restaurant may introduce summer dishes to relieve the hot feeling on hot days. On the contrary, hot foods will warm the hearts of diners coming to your restaurant chain in the winter.

A suitable menu creates a better customer experience

#5. Consistent Design Across Restaurants

A consistent design helps customers identify if they are sitting at the right branch in your chain. Depending on the store area, you will design a different space and furniture layout.

However, ensuring that the design reflects the brand’s style that you want to work towards is still important. For example, if your chain of restaurants deals in Western cuisine, all branches need to be designed around that theme.

For a uniform design, you could use the same types of furniture, including tables and chairs, cabinets, etc.

#6. Building Professional Staff

Whether restaurant operations are effective or not depends on the contribution of employees. Therefore, managers think that employee training is very important.

Good staff management leads to better restaurant performance

It is best to set up a professional training process. To run a chain restaurant smoothly, you must prepare a detailed training process. Besides, you will also need to prepare documents related to the business activities of the business.

You will need monthly or even weekly training sessions to test optimal employee knowledge and expertise to achieve optimal results. Another helpful method recommended to you is to provide a clear and transparent reward and punishment system among the restaurants.

Regardless of the size of the restaurant, a clear program will motivate employees to work more conscientiously.

#7. Regular Money Management Of Chain Store

The financial balance will help restaurant owners coordinate chain activities more smoothly.

Therefore, you will need to track sales and profits over time (weekly, monthly, and annually). In addition, it is advisable to calculate the import and operating costs carefully.

Financial management for chain store should be regular

#8. Applying Technology To Effective Restaurant Management

One of the ways to help restaurant chain management is to take advantage of technological developments in operations, specifically using restaurant management software to support more efficient work operations.

Set up merchandising items with FieldCheck

FieldCheck management software will help you better organize, track and analyze tasks for monitoring and managing restaurant chains. With FieldCheck, you will get:

• Convenient employee attendance management

Easy management for employee attendance with FieldCheck

• Optimal sales management
• Automatically calculate incentives for employees
• Easily audit the quality of the store
• Support consistent merchandising

FieldCheck is a KPI management software that helps businesses manage in-store activities such as job monitoring, quality control, product display, and time attendance.

The application is specially developed to optimize field work and field trips of retail chains. You can easily use the application to manage KPIs, support PG, store employees to do their jobs.