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3 restaurant leaders on the big hurdles to brand-boosting Big Data use

Pie Five, A&W and CapitalSpring executives discussed the pitfalls and plusses of using Big Data in restaurant management and marketing today. Yes, there are lots of applications and amazing discoveries to be had, but first you have to get through the "Big Data maze."

Cover image: iStock

May 1, 2019 by Bradley Cooper — Editor, ATM Marketplace & Food Truck Operator

A previous version of this story appeared on Digital Signage Today 

Big Data can be a blessing and a bit of a curse. For instance, as Pie Five Vice President of Marketing Christina Coy sees it, brands can easily get lost in the Big Data maze if they aren't careful to define exactly what they're seeking before that proverbial "deep data dive." And for A&W Digital Manager Liz Bazner, though the business-beefing benefits of Big Data are clear, she said that can easily get lost in translation to A&W franchisees if corporate leaders fail to adequately show these business partners the very real uses of such information in daily restaurant management. 

Shown left to right is Brian Lee, Jim Balis, Liz Bazner and Christina Coy.(Photo: Networld Media Group)

Those were just two of the impressions restaurant leaders offered at the recent Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit in Louisville, during a session focused squarely on the topic of Big Data. As the moderator of the panel, Wavicle Data Solutions Data Analytics Practice Director Brian Lee put it, for many brands and franchisees, "Big Data is like a mystery novel. There's a lot of twists and turns."

With that overall consensus on the challenge of Big Data, Bazner, Coy and fellow panelist, CapitalSpring Strategic Operations Group Managing Director Jim Ballis, set out to share their ideas about how brands can best use the resources, information and even possible business solutions that Big Data can lay at brands' feet. 

Key challenges

Bazner said many of the nearly century-old A&W brand's franchisees have been on board with the brand a very long time and can sometimes be resistant to opening their minds to the potential benefits of certain data tools.

"They might say, 'Who cares about Yelp,'" Bazner said. "Well, everyone but you."

In order to gain buy-in from these restaurateurs, Bazner said they have to see the results or potential results. Likewise, Coy said brands can easily get "lost" in all that data and gain nothing of value, so you have to go into it with mission in mind.

"If you don't know what you're looking for you get stuck in it. It's easy to waste time," Coy said.

The trick: Practically "using" Big Data

If restaurant operators just have a huge list filled with sales and employee data and other reams of information, it can be very difficult to gain insights, according to the panelists. That's why they said operators need to have a key goal in mind before digging into data.

"I constantly step back and say, 'What am I trying to figure out?'" Coy said. "Pull the right data points out. Otherwise you drown in it."

Balis said restaurant operators should try to triangulate different sources of data to build conclusions. For example, if a certain location is losing business, he said the operator might look at different data points, including speed of service, employee hygiene and other factors to pull together a detailed picture of the part various potential problem-causers may have played in the sales slump, if any.

Panelists also said Big Data can help brands see facets like how revenue is being lost through coupon misuse, identifying sources of food waste and pulling together social media scores and reviews to create an accurate brand "picture."

What's on the horizon?

The restaurant leaders on the panel said that they saw the trend of integrating data sources with facial analytics as a potential "wave-maker" in the restaurant industry's future. 

"We are trying to integrate the data so we can give a fuller picture and not have to pull from so many different sources," Coy said.  "I'm excited for the day we get to one data center."

Balis added that some restaurants are using customer facial data to build better customer profiles. With these profiles, they can identify — based on a customer's face — whether they prefer tacos or burritos.

The panelists said that while many customers might be "creeped out" by facial recognition and targeted ads, such marketing approaches can actually benefit customers by delivering relevant content to them. Bazner, for instance, said she would prefer to see advertisements that tie directly into her interests than more irrelevant messages.

"Whenever a company doesn't do targeting marketing well, it bothers me," Bazner said. "I'm 34 and I get ads all the time for crematoriums. That's not something I plan to look at for a long time."

One more takeaway for brands using Big Data now

Finally, the panelists said one key tip for brands embarking on a Big Data "adventure" is to start small, rather than trying to do everything at once.

As Bazner put it, "I can get analysis fatigue. It's a good idea to start small."

Through smaller bites of data ingestion and use, brands can begin to gain key insights into their own big pictures. And that, said the panelists, is the beginning of business transformation. 

"Data is like oil," Lee said. "It will drive every industry."

About Bradley Cooper

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Bradley Cooper is the editor of ATM Marketplace and Food Truck Operator. He was previously the editor of Digital Signage Today. His background is in information technology, advertising, and writing.

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