If you want to add value for your customers, data is a powerful tool. It can bring insight and agility to decision making at every link in the supply chain, allowing you to respond to demand quickly and beat the competition.
Understanding what you want to achieve with your data is a vital step on your data journey. Once you know what you want to get from your data, setting up the processes and governance you need can be a more straightforward process, with clear targets to work towards your data goals.
Here, we look at some of the key opportunities for food, drink and hospitality businesses to use data to add value to their offering – and how they need to get their data ready to take on the challenge.
Customisation
One of the biggest perks of data in any industry is being able to offer an experience tailored to your customers – whether that’s consumers or other businesses.
In the food and drink sector, customisation doesn’t just represent a ‘nice to have’ experience for diners and consumers: it enables you to offer a truly useful service, one that gives you a real competitive advantage.
For people with dietary requirements, being able to select a pre-prepared menu that excludes the foods they can’t eat is increasingly becoming a deciding factor in where they choose to spend their money.
You can also use your data to decide what customisation to offer. Noticed an uptick in vegan and gluten free orders? Add a combined vegan and gluten free menu to your website – and tailor the dishes you are offering to reflect this demand.
Further up the supply chain, customisation is also a valuable offering for suppliers and manufacturers. By using supply chain data collated at point of order, suppliers can offer a more tailored supply process, recommending new products based on trends.
Customisation can also enable suppliers to improve buyer confidence when it comes to those allergies and dietary requirements mentioned above, curating order lists filtered by ingredients or allergens and create a smoother, more reliable process for buyers.
Stock and ordering
With the right data – and processes – in place, restaurants, cafes and hotels can streamline stock ordering. With master data technology keeping track of what dishes are selling, what ones aren’t, and any additional extras being requested, automated orders can accurately reflect customer (and kitchen) demands. It not only saves on time and manual effort, but also reduces waste food and costs, as only the food that is really needed is ordered.
For suppliers, data makes responding to these fluctuating requests easier – and faster. If working with buyers in several businesses and locations, in particular, suppliers can collate data on order trends, seasonal demand and dietary requirements in particular locations, to predict future ordering patterns and respond quickly.
