Constructing a know-how technique that works for your corporation
Your tech stack is without doubt one of the most necessary selections you’ll make in your restaurant. We’re weeks away from Pizza Expo (March 24-26, 2026), the place corporations will likely be showcasing the newest, biggest know-how so that you can discover and even take a look at drive.
In case you are seeking to construct or improve your tech stack, put together a technique to deal with the exhibit ground earlier than you land in Las Vegas. Now’s the time to do the legwork and take advantage of your time with exhibitors.
What parts are in a restaurant’s tech stack?
A pizzeria’s tech stack has many interworking elements. Your tech stack can embrace a POS system, on-line ordering platform, kitchen show system, stock administration, CRM, advertising instruments, analytics and reporting, worker administration, cost processing, delivery-management system, third-party integrations, web site and cell app, Wi-Fi and IoT gadgets, cybersecurity instruments, sustainability instruments, suggestions and evaluation administration, AI and automation, cloud storage and backup, compliance and tax instruments in addition to coaching and onboarding techniques.
The rising listing of know-how can appear daunting. Even kitchen tools has gone excessive tech, and core parts can range from enterprise to enterprise.
Wealthy Faltot is vice chairman of restaurant & hospitality at know-how consulting agency Level B. With 20 years of expertise, he has created a transformative method to constructing built-in tech stacks. He factors to the next as key items within the pizzeria tech stack:
-
Level-of-sale system (POS)
-
Kitchen show system (KDS)
-
Again-office system
“These three items working collectively are going to be actually necessary,” Faltot tells Pizza Right now.
On-line ordering additionally has turn out to be important to your tech stack, says Seth Burtis, COO at 5&5, a foodservice IT and digital managed companies firm. On-line ordering techniques may be advanced, with pricing guidelines and pizza-building customization.
Consider your restaurant know-how
Earlier than you dive into any particular part, analysis takes precedence. First, take a listing of all of the instruments you at the moment use. Whether or not you do that in a spreadsheet, utilizing AI or with a pen and paper, it’s essential to know the place your tech stack stands proper now. Then, consider every part based mostly on efficiency, integration, scalability, present issues, ROI and another standards that’s necessary to your corporation.
“What sorts of challenges are they having right now?” Faltot asks operators. “What are they hoping to realize?”
Burtis concurs: “I believe first it’s taking that step again of, ‘Why are we doing this?’”
Getting right down to the “why” requires analysis. He continues, “What are we making an attempt to perform with this new instrument? What can’t we do, and why can’t we do it with considered one of our present instruments?”
Lastly, Burtis encourages operators to ask whether or not their present tech suppliers can add onto the know-how they’re already utilizing. Updating present techniques could also be a great choice for operators who’re pleased with their present suppliers.
Tech Stack Issues
Planning is integral to constructing a sturdy tech stack. There’s a plethora of concerns together with price range, integration with different instruments, assessing infrastructure to help the brand new tech part and factoring the way it will have an effect on workers or prospects.
Whereas it’s straightforward to get caught up within the weeds of what a know-how can do for your corporation proper now, it’s additionally necessary to look to your pizzeria’s future. “The place to begin together with your tech stack actually begins with the tip in thoughts,” Faltot says. “Pondering extra future oriented, I want to grasp that down the street I need to have the ability to do XYZ.”
Choosing the Proper Instruments
Simply as you’ve meticulously vetted and chosen your menu and ingredient suppliers, you’ll wish to apply that very same vigor to researching, evaluating and finally deciding on your know-how suppliers.
There are a number of instructions you’ll be able to pursue. Faltot says, “The query usually comes right down to considered one of three issues: Do I’m going with an all-in-one resolution? Do I’m going with a stack that I construct with what’s ‘greatest for me,’ or do I attempt to construct my very own? And, relying on the aptitude and dimension and price range of your group, a type of three might be going to be the fitting resolution for you, and that’s to be decided by the model.”
Every route has advantages and disadvantages. Faltot says, “In the end, one of the best is the one which’s going to fulfill the wants of your corporation, and it’s going to take you into the longer term and drive the outcomes that you simply’re searching for. You’ll be able to solely decide that if you understand what your wants are and also you fastidiously consider what these applied sciences are.”
One other space that requires inquiry is updating and customization. Small operators would possibly discover it difficult to request the customization they want, Faltot has discovered. It is important that operators ask questions concerning the customization request processes once they vet a brand new know-how supplier.
Do your due diligence when evaluating the know-how. Faltot suggests, “Make the tech firm present you ways the tech really works. And when you’ve seen the precise options that you simply’re searching for perform in a ‘demo setting,’ which they will do simply, get a reference which you can name the place they’ve really acquired it working to validate it’s working in manufacturing.”
In some circumstances with a number of models, earlier than committing to a systemwide change, you’ll be able to pilot the tech at considered one of your areas. Burtis says this lets you do real-world testing to find out the product’s true ROI.
Executing New Tech Instruments
A profitable tech stack is simply pretty much as good as its implementation. You’ve completed your homework. You recognize what you want, and also you’ve partnered with the options that works for your corporation. Now, it’s time for implementation.
“Whenever you begin to construct a brand new tech stack or implement a brand new tech stack, it’s your alternative to do issues otherwise, do issues higher,” Faltot says. “Then, when you do, handle that change amongst your crew actually successfully, and that’s how one can drive adoption and truly obtain the outcomes that you simply’re searching for.”
Not together with management and stakeholders proactively when executing the brand new know-how is without doubt one of the greatest errors operators make, and Burtis says it’s a typical error. “I believe from the very starting, not involving them has brought about a variety of ache for lots of manufacturers,” he says, “the place you get down the street and also you notice, ‘This isn’t working for what my folks really want.’”
Whether or not you go it alone or seek the advice of with a tech specialist, your project is ready: Create a radical imaginative and prescient of your tech stack to not solely choose the fitting tech in your present wants but in addition implement instruments to drive future success.
AI is In all places
You might not notice it, however lots of the enterprise options you employ right now have built-in synthetic intelligence. AI is driving knowledge, effectivity and innovation.
“You could have the power to carry AI into the fold of your point-of-sale knowledge, your loyalty knowledge, your buyer knowledge, and have AI be capable of summarize that knowledge and offer you traits round it,” says Seth Burtis, COO at 5&5.
Wealthy Faltot, vice chairman of restaurant & hospitality at Level B, says AI is a strong instrument when executed accurately. Level B has been constructing AI options that assist simplify companies. Mainly, Faltot says AI options can save operators time. “The aim right here is to take a course of that will take hours and switch it into minutes,” he says.
AI has many sensible enterprise functions: Voice, personalization, stock, ordering and gross sales forecasting are among the many methods AI helps eating places. With all the brand new AI bells and whistles, he says, “The tough half is doing the due diligence and ensuring that what you’re seeing will, in actual fact, work for your corporation and create the expertise that’s going to drive the end result that you simply want – both in your workers, your crew members, or in your company.”
Denise Greer is Editor in Chief at Pizza Right now.
