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Fast Casual Summit helps industry 'brains' exchange experience

Been there. Done that. That old saying, indicating a shared experience — often the challenging ones — aptly describes a series of continuing sessions that took place at this year's Fast Casual Executive Summit in Southern California earlier this month.

October 28, 2016 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

Been there. Done that. 

That old saying, indicating a shared experience — often the challenging ones — aptly describes The Brain Exchange, a session that took place at this year's Fast Casual Executive Summit in Southern California earlier this month. 

Executives seeking a little time to "rap-n-share" with their colleagues chose their favorite topic out of the 15 offered and shared the lessons they have learned in the everyday operation of their varied restaurant brands. Turns out this was a very popular event that gave executives a chance commiserate and celebrate their experiences. 

Bill Creekbaum, GoodData VP of Product, moderated one of the sessions and discussed some of the amusing, interesting and downright encouraging information that both he and the attendees took away from the sessions. 

Q: How did the brain exchange sessions work and which types of executives attended these sessions?
A:The brain exchange itself was a rapid free flow of conversation. To prepare for the session, I jotted down about 10 questions to ask, if the conversation lagged. After asking the first question from my list, the conversation proceeded vigorously and I never had to ask another question from my list.

My favorite part was that participants from big and small companies from North America, South America, and I think, perhaps even Australia (ranging from CEOs, CFOs, and senior operational personnel), all built on each other's comments, resulting in a collaborative workshop experience. Their experience and formats might be different, but they related to each other in a way that drove an informative conversation.
 
Q: Why did GoodData want to participate and what did you learn from restaurateurs attending these sessions?
A:We've always felt that the restaurant industry was a good target for GoodData as a platform, but the professionals we sat with described the value, the business impact, the benefits of how distributing analytics can drive profit and trust in the restaurant ecosystem. This is incredibly insightful information for us to refine our product offerings, our GTM strategy, and our messaging so that it better serves the restaurant industry.
 
Q: What do you think were the biggest takeaways from the sessions for restaurateurs, as far as valuable lessons learned from their colleagues?
A:That big or small, they are not alone. I think some of the participants from larger organizations were surprised to hear that the smaller organizations were just as passionate and dedicated to innovation, with respect to sharing data and analytics, as they were. When summing up the session, the participants wanted to highlight three keys to success:
Focusing on measuring what truly matters:If the company tries to measure and communicate everything, the metrics that truly matter will be lost in the noise, and execution toward the success of those metrics will suffer.
Correlation is key:Simply measuring and communicating metrics is not enough, there is a need to understand why metrics move. With that understanding of cause and effect, restaurateurs can take better action to continuously improve metrics and even offer opportunities to innovate (e.g. If restaurateurs understand how a social media marketing campaign impacts demand and traffic, they can leverage data to drive smart menus and automated scheduling).
The truth will set you free: The notion here was that with greater levels of trusted transparency, restaurant brands can better communicate with restaurant locations (managers and employees), suppliers, and partners.

Funny anecdote on this particular topic. One participant said and I'm mostly paraphrasing, Every manager believes they are in the top 10 percent of performers. Listen to me …100 percent of all managers believe they are in the top 10 percent. Obviously impossible.

Once I showed them their actual performance against their peers … those that weren't actually in the top 10 percent made changes immediately to start driving toward that goal. ... It was self-motivating for them to see their actual performance.

That communicated a great deal.
 
Q: Does it surprise you that restaurateurs are so willing to help each other and provide information that might help other businesses? 
A: While they are, of course, competitors, they are also united as members of an industry facing new threats from innovative food delivery models from Blue Apron, Munchery, etc. These industry members are also facing tremendous increases in operating costs, as the minimum wage continues to rise, and while they all want to be good to their employees, they also need to optimize their operating models.
 
Q: What did you learn to take back to your organization that might help it improve its utility to the restaurant industry?
A:Perhaps the two biggest takeaways were to think more about the servers as end users. (We mostly think of the end user in terms of management, suppliers, partners, and those in HQ). But there were lots of opportunities to deliver information to servers to help optimize/maximize their individual tickets, which not only would help them individually but also the restaurant itself. The second key takeaway was to be able to demonstrate how benchmarks are calculated so that the consumers would trust the numbers more immediately.
 
Q: What was your biggest surprise among the things learned and shared at Brain Exchange?
A: Apart from being hosted on a patio overlooking the Pacific Ocean on a sunny afternoon, the biggest surprise was how much these innovative participants were already doing with respect to the sharing of data. We certainly discussed new ways to drive value with data, but these folks were already well down the path.
 
Q: What was the funniest bit of information you heard?
A: It was definitely the "100 percent of my managers believe they are in the top 10 percent." That delighted everyone as they all shook their heads in agreement.
 
Q: Why would you tell other restaurateurs or even a restaurant industry vendor to attend this event?
A: The sharing of experiences drives innovation, sparks new ideas, and gives others the confidence to try something that they may have been hesitant to do.
 
Register here for the 2017 Summit, Oct. 22-24 in Nashville.

About S.A. Whitehead

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Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.