How to Use Automated Data to Save Thousands of Dirhams and Boost Restaurants’ Profits
What is Automated Data in Restaurants?
Automated data, or data automation, refers to the process of using technology to unify data or information captured from multiple sources within an organization, and further automating tasks that involve utilizing this unified data.
In restaurants or other food and beverage (F&B) businesses, automated data involves gathering information from across all business areas (sales, purchases, inventory, accounting, human resources, or recipe management) and using it to accelerate tasks and enhance efficiency.
In fact, a recent study published in 2024 shows that restaurant operators using automated data reported a 39% increase in productivity and a 36% increase in employee retention.
For automation to deliver positive results, such as cost saving, increased productivity or revenue growth, all systems must be connected and communicate with each other. This is only possible in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) environment.
How can Automated Data Help Restaurants Save Money
Automated data can help restaurants save money by reducing human errors, which are common in manual processes like order management, inventory tracking, or accounting. By replacing manual with automated processes, automated data helps to eliminate such errors. Businesses avoid costly mistakes like over-ordering supplies or mismanaging resources.
Additionally, automation accelerates tasks, leading to faster processing of orders and overall operations. This efficiency allows restaurants to handle more orders within the same timeframe, increasing productivity and saving money by managing multiple tasks at the same costs, while maximizing revenue potential.
Using a comprehensive system like Polaris ERP you can save up to 10 hours per week for inventory management (equivalent to 67% efficiency boost), or 11 hours on order management (equivalent to 73% increased efficiency).
How can Data Automation Help Boost Restaurants’ Profits?
Data automation can contribute to boosting restaurants’ profits by helping to reduce costs, speed up order management, or improve decision-making. Here is how:
Real-time insights
Automated data provides real-time insights into sales, expenses, customer trends, and staff performance, enabling restaurateurs to make quicker, smarter decisions that boost profitability.
If a real-time inventory report shows an unused ingredient, managers can reduce or stop ordering it to cut costs. When using Polaris ERP, its insights also highlight the most profitable and popular menu items, offering strategies to enhance their profitability.
Food Costs Control with Automated Data
By automating inventory tracking and purchasing, restaurants can minimize waste, avoid overstock, and prevent stockouts, leading to more efficient resource use and reduced food costs. Food costs are typically the largest expense for F&B businesses, directly impacting profitability. The higher the food costs, the lower the profitability. In contrast, reducing food costs directly boosts profitability, demonstrating the powerful effect of data automation on a restaurant’s bottom line.
Labor Costs Control with Automated Data
Automated data analyzes sales patterns and customer flow to optimize staffing, ensuring proper coverage during peak hours and reducing overstaffing during slow periods. It also highlights upselling opportunities and helps to cut labor costs, boosting profits.
The Role of Data Automation for Restaurants Scalability
Data automation is crucial for F&B businesses aiming to scale, offering real-time insights that enable informed decision-making during critical moments to maximize growth potential. Several F&B businesses using Polaris ERP restaurant software successfully scaled within 12 months of implementing our technology.
By having access to key performance indicators (KPIs) such as revenue, expenses, and cash flow, they were able to make timely investment decisions, streamline operations, and expand to new locations. Without automated data, this process would have been much slower, as it would have required manual data gathering, extensive analysis, and increased risk of human error. In such a scenario, launching new branches would not have been feasible, as the business would have lost momentum, and the growth opportunities would have been missed.
How Polaris ERP Powers Data Automation for Maximum Profitability
Real – Time Reporting
Polaris ERP provides accurate and real-time reporting from multiple data points (sales, accounting, inventory, purchase, recipe management or human resources). As highlighted above, having access to this data can support F&B business managers to make important decisions that can lead to extending the business.
Multi-Channel Data Gathering
Unlike a simple point of sale (POS) system, Polaris ERP is a comprehensive solution that allows data gathering from all systems, plus from multiple locations. This allows comparison among branches for all metrics (sales, expenses, cash flow, etc.), which can instantly inform restaurateurs how their business is performing.
Automated Inventory
The system updates stock levels in real-time, alerts managers when supplies run low, and simplifies restocking with direct supplier orders. This saves time, reduces waste, prevents stockouts, and boosts profitability.
Streamlined Purchase & Supplier Management
All suppliers’ data and order values are stored into the system. Any price fluctuations in their offerings are easy to spot, making it easier to decide to negotiate with or change suppliers.
Staff Performance
Team performance is also automatically tracked within Polaris ERP, measuring metrics such as attendance, customer reviews, upselling success, order cancellations, and more. This provides operators with insights into top-performing staff and identifies team members who may need additional attention.
Food Cost Calculation
The cost of recipes and menu items is calculated in seconds with Polaris ERP. The software also provides a profitability simulator, which allows editing the recipe for calculating the ideal food cost, and an AI advisor that provides strategic cost savings and profitability recommendations instantly.
Data automation in the F&B industry delivers the best results when powered by a restaurant ERP solution capable of integrating all business departments into a single system. Polaris ERP is designed specifically to help restaurant operators reach maximum cost savings and achieve their profitability potential.
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