Volatility and margin pressures are here to stay, but with restaurant industry leaders granted the proverbial ‘clean slate’ in 2017, it is imperative to make New Year’s Resolutions that will ultimately improve profitability, optimize sourcing and reduce risk.
All restaurant brands need to make sure they have a strong supply chain and a well-developed risk management strategy. You may not be able to predict the future of your growing company, but you can ensure visibility and risk reduction are on the agenda.
Below are three New Year’s resolutions that need to make it to your list as a restaurant industry leader:
1. Be more strategic — and collaborate more — with your suppliers
Insist on transparency, tracking and collaboration to optimize your supply chain end to end in 2017. By using a systematic, strategic approach with your suppliers, you can consistently review supply chain performance and work together to find opportunities to cut costs and improve efficiencies from farm to customer.
There are tools available to help restaurant leaders in purchasing, operations, marketing and finance optimize costs and improve margins by providing a platform for better decision making for billions of category spend each year. They provide visibility to supply chain costs and capacities and allow you to assess how changes in one area such as ingredient bill of materials affect the enterprise all the way to individual store or franchisee.
With the tools to effectively increase visibility, reduce risk and manage volatility, this should be the first New Year’s resolution you check off your list.