Current estimates show the fast food industry is growing at a 5.1% CAGR (compound annual growth rate). As a result, many managed service providers (MSP) and restaurant technology providers are experiencing increased demand for their products and services.
As demand increases, so must your operations. Unfortunately, many providers don’t have the infrastructure needed to efficiently scale up and down based on their clients’ needs.
In this guide, we’ll explore the current state of the restaurant IT industry and provide tips to help you deliver successful outcomes for your quick service restaurant (QSR) clients.
The Current State of Restaurant Technology
The quick service industry is just that — quick. Not only is the sector itself growing exponentially, but new restaurant technologies are constantly being rolled out. And don’t forget about the industry’s unique restrictions, including substantial health and safety guidelines and restricted service windows.
To keep pace with their competitors, quick-service restaurants must deploy the right restaurant technologies. In turn, they rely on managed service providers and restaurant technology manufacturers like you to install them, keep them working, and fix them when they go down. They look to you as a reliable growth partner who can help them secure market share. Simply put, they look to you to achieve agility and scale.
If you don’t have the field service coverage to support your growing footprint, or if you are losing deals because of a lack of break/fix support,, you might consider outsourcing to a qualified QSR implementation partner.
Outsourcing your restaurant technology projects, like anything else, allows you to scale without hiring more full-time employees so that you can concentrate on your core business. But what about when you encounter projects that are beyond routine network maintenance and require specific expertise or project coordination — perhaps beyond the scope of what your team normally provides?
Why Should You Outsource?
We covered this subject briefly back in November 2019 with our blog “4 Reasons to Outsource Your Digital Signage Deployment.” The advantages — cutting costs, simplifying workflow, and improving customer experience — apply to all kinds of restaurant IT deployments, not just menu boards and digital displays.
However, those aren’t the only benefits of this model. Outsourcing restaurant technology deployments helps managed service providers and tech manufacturers reach clients outside their normal coverage area. Likewise, it can help manufacturers, MSPs, and even end clients quickly respond to new QSR trends, such as the current increase in automation technologies.
According to QSR Magazine and Polaris Market Research, the use of automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence in the quick service industry has increased significantly. These advanced tools have been found to increase QSR efficiency, cut costs, and provide valuable insights into daily operations. The COVID-19 pandemic also accelerated the adoption of this technology to safeguard health and safety.
When it comes to QSR automation, though, the Internet of Things (IoT) — meaning networked gadgets, controls, and work savings automation — reigns supreme. Drive-thru timers, for example, help to eliminate bottlenecks, while IoT-enabled appliances improve food safety through temperature and humidity monitoring.
When a restaurant wants to implement a new QSR automation tool to save labor and operating costs, for example, this new system or device must be compatible with the rest of its IT infrastructure. If not, buyer’s remorse will set in. It’s like installing a payroll accounting system that doesn’t deposit paychecks or adopting an inventory accounting system that runs independently of stockroom management.
MSPs and restaurant technology manufacturers can’t rely on a standard IT team to get these tools up and running. They need a qualified restaurant IT deployment partner with industry experience to help them deploy QSR technologies correctly on the first visit. They also need responsive support to maintain this technology over time — especially as the tools evolve. Outsourcing can help them accomplish these goals.
Outsourcing can help MSPs and restaurant technology manufacturers find qualified technicians specializing in these emerging technologies. No matter what your QSR clients need, you’ll always have a technician with the right skill set ready to go.
Finding the Right Implementation Partner
As you can see, partnering with a global implementation partner is crucial to successfully deploying restaurant technology. However, not all providers are created equal.
You must find a partner that fits your organizational philosophy and field service aspirations while providing true transparency in their methods. Your organization should prepare itself for a thorough and possibly lengthy search involving research, meetings, and interviews.
Take the most relevant questions from the three categories below and adjust them to the current mindset of your organization, then use them to determine the best potential partner for immediate implementation and future improvement.
Questions of Approach
Not all implementation partners have the same methodology, even if the goals and applications of their software overlap with the rest of the field. Here, you’re looking for their value propositions.
Ask questions like these:
- How can you help us improve our talent pool of field technicians?
- How can you help our field service operations scale to demand and growth
- To what extent have you been directly involved with project management and coordination (PM/PC) for former clients? And what degree of involvement can you provide us?
- In what ways does your methodology help us improve as a restaurant technology provider?
- What benefits and applications does your presence provide?
- How does collaboration with you work, and with what frequency can we expect updates, insights, and assessments from you?
- What is your routine approach to each new deployment?
- What will a partnership with you actually cost us?
- What is your availability for on-the-fly or emergency projects and maintenance?
Questions of Experience
Not only do you want to find an implementation partner who has been in field services long enough to have experienced common issues in the world of restaurant technology, but you want a partner who has dealt with projects beyond your organization’s current purview and succeeded.
Draft questions that will reveal whether this potential partner has a beneficial level of expertise for improving your own:
- What countries have you executed projects in, and how recently?
- What is your previous experience with restaurant technology deployments of our organization’s scope, scale, and location?
- How familiar are you with routine and advanced IT stewardship?
- What familiarity do you have with problem management on a PM/PC level?
- What experience do you have with organizational change management, specifically enterprise software implementation?
- Has your organization previously helped a midsized or smaller field services operation grow to a higher level of capability and reach?
- Have you previously coordinated clients with international vendors for project execution?
- How have you customized your field service management (FSM) platform offering to other clients in the past?
- Does your organization value transparency, and how do you demonstrate that to clients?
Questions of Growth
The only reason to bring on an entity as a partner is if they help provide or identify avenues for mutual growth. Include specific questions concentrating on the future of your industry and how a strong partnership can help to take advantage of new advancements and weather any seismic changes:
- What are the technologies we should prepare to implement in the next two to five years?
- Where is restaurant technology heading on a global scale?
- How can you help us break into new international markets without prohibitive costs?
- What global partners do you have relationships with to help us make inroads into certain regions of the world?
- Based on our organization’s current IT stack, what areas need the most immediate improvements?
- How well or poorly is our current IT infrastructure set up for implementing emerging solutions without experiencing compatibility issues?
- Can you provide us with local insights into new global markets, from economic and legal regulations to cultural intricacies?
Our Approach to Restaurant Technology
Kinettix is a reliable partner for creating a more robust contingent workforce and expanding your reach to handle global demands. We serve as an extension of your organization, helping you handle a greater workload and accommodate more complex and demanding clients.
Whether you need talent in a remote corner of the world, coordinators to manage your techs, or resources to meet a surge in demand, Kinettix can provide the planning, staffing, and management services to get the job done. We offer:
> Projects: On-demand technicians for installs or rollouts
> Dispatch: On-demand technicians for maintenance
> FieldFlex℠: Flexible IT coordination services
> Staff Aug: Contingent talent to scale or meet surges in demand
Kinettix makes it simple to get the service you need fast. We receive requests via email, phone calls, shared worksheets, and, most significantly, through an API to our Dispatch1® FSM software. Through a connection to our Dispatch1 portal, we can provide you with an API-driven platform that gives you global dispatch capabilities.