"Get busy evolving or get busy dying!"
Digital:
Food On-Demand technology provides for everything today, including online ordering, mobile apps, QR codes, white label, POS, API's, advertising, kitchen displays, all-in-one, gift cards, inventory management, customer retention, delivery, display, and so on. Although if there is single word that defines the future direction for all of this, it's convergence. It is the unifying of 5 displays, under 1 display, 3 printers, under 1 printer, an online ordering system, a mobile app, a POS system, and a delivery system, all coming together under one complete restaurant/kitchen management system.
While it is technically possible to marry just about all these disparate systems right now, it is not so easily accomplished, there are many factors to consider. Restaurants have already invested a lot of money in their legacy POS providers. Most of their additional technology through the years has come in ad-hoc, and is operating independently, or with minimal integration to their primary system. Legacy POS providers have been slow (cautious) in their new offerings, and are most definitely not leading market innovation. They also are not interested in supporting an API/interface with the new players (delivery co's, new POS providers, etc.), which are potential rivals.
However, restaurants cannot afford to stand still! Just like the explosion in television channels a couple of decades ago, there has been an explosion in food ordering and delivery channels. Restaurants that do not establish a solid presence in the new digital world will be ignored and wither. Further, you must figure out how to distinguish yourself in what is now an ocean of on-demand food providers! You must reclaim first position contact with your customers, to regain the control you have lost!
You Gotta Go All In!
Step 1: Increase your technical education: Talk to your peers, visit your competitors websites/apps and glean what you can, talk to digital providers, talk to brands & distributors and find out what they are seeing/hearing. Visit POS & other types of digital providers websites (not just legacy, Squirrel, NCR, etc.) and see how they perceive the digital market evolving.
Step 2: Map out your digital presence: Figure out how your restaurant is and is not being exposed to the public. Take back some of the control you have lost over the last several years. Now is not the time to retract and hold your ground, but rather to make strategic alliances and investments. You know your restaurant better than anyone else, map it out! What is currently eating up all your time and money? How could new technology increase efficiency in these areas? Who are your best vendors, brands? Eliminate the rest! What are new vendors and brands offering? What investment is a new or existing brand willing to make in your restaurant/kitchen, to maintain your brand loyalty?
If you can increase your efficiency, you will increase control over your choices!
Step 3: Ask for help where you need it! Make your move with confidence! Pivot if necessary!
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