6 mistakes you're probably making with your tech rollouts

The restaurant industry is undergoing a technological revolution. The industry has been more reluctant to adopt new technologies in the past and has, sometimes reluctantly, seen the tech landscape changing around them. The pandemic, however, forced operators to beef up delivery, off-prem and other technologies, but complications occur if not managed well. Without an effective vendor selection and implementation process, you may see poor user adoption, a mismatch between needs and features, disconnection between systems and more.

So, how do you best prepare as you look for — and implement — new restaurant software and technology? Here are a few common mistakes to watch out for.

1. You didn't clearly define your needs. The process won't go well if you get off on the wrong foot from the start. Before you do anything else, you need to clearly spell out all the reasons you're looking at adding or changing technology. Use that as the jumping-off point to then define "must haves" and "nice to haves" in your search for a technology vendor.

Having well-defined needs for any new technology purchase is the foundation for success. It helps you avoid disappointment during implementation if you were dazzled during a sales process, without realizing that there were key features missing. It also helps you more directly compare companies you're considering.

2. You didn't involve the right people. It's easy for too many opinions to turn into an impossible decision. The classic "too many cooks in the kitchen" adage comes to mind for the restaurant industry. But limiting the decision to only a few people without ensuring end users or IT has a voice is disastrous as well. Think carefully about what departments will be affected by any new technology and ensure they have a voice in the process to help you make the right decisions.

3. You didn't think about change management. Just because change is inevitable doesn't mean your employees won't be frustrated by it and potentially dig in their heels. Change management is an important part of any tech addition. It's not sufficient to think, "But our employees will see how great it is and get on board." User adoption is necessary for any new tech to demonstrate, ROI and users are less likely to adopt new technology without planned change management.

Get an advocate on board for a pilot, explain to other users what the benefit is and use examples from the pilot. Emphasizing ways in which their lives will be made easier, such as faster close or easier shift swaps, will help bring everyone on board and help you realize better ROI.

4. You didn't plan ahead. The excitement over starting a much-needed initiative can be so strong sometimes that it overshadows other considerations. For example, do you have technology agreements in place? If not, how will you bring franchisees on board? Or if you're changing a point of sale and back-of-house at the same time, have you thought about which one will roll out first or what dependencies exist that would make it difficult to implement separately? Do you have an internal person to head these projects, and do they have the capacity to do that and their existing job or will you need to make a hire? Taking the time to work through as many possibilities as you can think of will save headaches down the line.

5. You didn't double-check your integrations. It's not enough to ask if your vendor integrates with another system, you should drill down into specifics. APIs and the more unified standards the Restaurant Technology Network is working to roll out are making this more standardized. However, you still need to check whether you get the data you need. For example, asking if you get sales data from your POS into your BOH could be a yes, whether that data is at the transaction level, or simply aggregating items. So, it's key to specify what level of information you want and whether the integration provides that.

6. You didn't think about user-friendliness. Restaurant employees, whether frontline or corporate, don't have time to fiddle with something that's difficult to use. Even if the system is feature-rich, it needs to be usable by your employees.

Restaurant operators are embracing technology more than ever, but a little extra planning will help all your implementations go more smoothly and help you realize ROI faster.