3 Quotables from the CohnReznick 2018 New York Restaurant Technology Summit

Members of our team recently attended the CohnReznick 2018 New York Restaurant Technology Summit. The event was part of a series of events hosted by CohnReznick, one of the largest accounting firms based in the US, focusing on the current and future state of restaurant technology.

The event took place at the NYIT Auditorium and covered a range of topics presented by industry leaders who are leading the restaurant technology transformation.

Below, each member of the xtraCHEF team in attendance offers a quotable from the conference that speaks to what operators have to say about the role of technology in our industry and how it’s evolving.

Results from Day 1

Quotable:

“The expectations with implementing a software system for your hospitality team has drastically shifted in the past ten years. We want the shortest learning curve, with results that work for us from Day 1.”

Peggy Rubenzer (LinkedIn)
SVP of People Resources
Shake Shack

Dayna’s Take:

There are two solid points in Peggy’s quote.

The first is that our expectations of technology have evolved. In the past, there was the expectation that technology implementations would take a long time, it wouldn’t work right away, and it would take a team of technologists to get results.

These expectations have changed. With cloud-based, integrated, mobile solutions, we expect our technology to not only work…but to deliver results from Day 1. And, it should!

The second point is that the restaurant industry is an industry with notoriously high turnover. When it comes technology, it’s critical to have short learning curves to get new staff trained, onboarded, and productive as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Don’t Expect a Silver Bullet

Quotable:

“You can’t be overly reliant on your technology to catch and solve every single issue or challenge. Technology is a part of the process that helps to make many historically manual, challenging and repetitive tasks easier. Technology will work for you, if you’re willing to work with it.”

Sarah Diehl (LinkedIn)
Principal
Empowered Hospitality

Jeff’s Take:

To Dayna’s point above, the expectation is that technology should work right away and it should be easy to use. I agree!

It’s important to keep in mind that we shouldn’t expect software to be a silver bullet that solves 100% of your challenges 100% of the time…right out of the box. I like to think about it from the perspective of the 80/20 rule, or the law of the vital few.

It’s important to focus on the vital productivity and ROI improvements that you’ll get instead of getting slowed down by trying to solve every single issue.

(P.S. I’d also like to give Sarah Diehl another honorable mention for the following quote 🙂 )

“Data aggregation does not need to stay at the C-Level. Use that information to empower your staff to make better daily decisions”

Expect Excellence from Your Vendor

Quotable: 

“Being able to push your vendors, for improvements or additional training – should always be an option. Your software vendorsʼ goals should be for you to be successful.”

Kelly Perkins (LinkedIn)
Partner Resource Manager
Starbucks

Jonathan’s Take:

While technology may not be a silver bullet, it’s all good when your vendor has your back! Our customers should expect nothing less than excellence from their technology vendor.

From onboarding and training to soliciting product feedback and support, we know that our success is inextricably tied to our customer’s success.

That’s why we have a team of Product Managers, Quality Control Operators, Customer Success Specialists, Account Managers and Product Support Engineers available to solve our customers’ challenges and to be proactive in communicating with them to address their issues.

We host webinars, advanced trainings, customer focus groups, internal trainings, and more to ensure that our customers are getting the results they expect from our software and support.

What next?

Interesting in similar industry events? See where the xtraCHEF team will be by checking out our upcoming events.

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