Why Should Restaurants Integrate Operational Data?

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There are several reasons why integrating operational data for your restaurant is an ideal choice. From keeping tabs on sales and labor to essential reporting and more, integrating data is simply a must. For more insight on integrating operational data, we had a moment to catch up with Mirus Integration Specialist Kadiata Diop, better known to friends and colleagues as Jet.

What does integrating data mean and why is it beneficial for your restaurant? With Mirus’ services, it’s all about ease-of-use. “What that means is looking at all the systems a restaurant may have and deciding which data points they want to see, bring in, and integrate into Mirus so that they can run reports of analysis on that data all in one place, “ says Jet. Convenience is the name of the game and with professional data integration, reporting can be achieved all in one place.

Mirus integrates a variety of operational data for clients, including sales, actual labor, scheduled labor, inventory and budgeting data. Arranging all of this data is where it can get tricky for most restaurants. “Systems like Aloha can be used to see the timing of the kitchen and how long it takes to get the food cooked and to the table. As another example, NCR Back Office (Menulink) is used for inventory and labor data.”

Most restaurant systems perform reporting on their own, so how does choosing to integrate data into a data warehouse help a particular restaurant? “Because while some of the software mentioned has some sort of reporting solution attached to them, they aren’t as robust as Mirus. For example, based on my experience with Aloha’s reporting, I’ve noticed the data is not always in the right format, or at the right level of detail and it doesn’t usually line up to the timing that the client wants. It’s not dynamic,” says Jet. “Restaurant executives depending on these reports still need to do a lot of manual work when looking at these reports.” This is where Mirus comes in and serves as a one-stop-shop for restaurants looking to consolidate and analyze their restaurant data.

Ultimately, restaurants want to increase profitability, so the potential to run real-time reporting across several variants is a meaningful asset. Utilizing a company like Mirus saves restaurants a fair amount of time because instead of pouring over spreadsheets and separate reports, it can all simply be done in one place, ready to review.

Integrating data can help:

Pinpoint problem areas - This offers managers and owners the information they need to create a game plan for immediate improvement. This could mean hiring new employees or discussing service improvement with the current staff.
Track customer behavior - Restaurants can use this information to see what customers interact with best. Aside from popular times during the day, managers can see how long customers are waiting for their food or drinks and get an idea of whether customers are responding to specials or not.
Keep an eye on food trends and cost - Owners can better keep tabs on what customers are ordering versus how much it costs to create the dish. This means less food waste and more money to utilize elsewhere.

Integrating data means restaurant owners can get back to overseeing daily operations without having to worry about routine reporting.

Why Mirus

“With Mirus,” Jet explains, “clients can see how their restaurant is performing in real-time down to the transaction level. It’s amazing when a client can build a report and see at the transaction level and even below when an item was rung into the system. They can run analysis down to the minute for that transaction. It’s powerful to be able to do that.”

For restaurants with larger issues at hand, they can even investigate delicate topics such as theft. “When it comes to theft, clients can see if a certain coupon is being used over and over again on cash transactions specifically. They can create a report that shows an analysis over a certain span of time and be able to track it and prove it’s real data instead of accusing someone.”

Value in Client Success

With the number of inconsistencies that appear with other data platforms, Mirus wants to make sure we get it right, no matter the client’s request. “One of our most recent clients that just came to Mirus has Aloha for their point of sale system and they were using Aloha Insight to run reports...one of the main reasons this client wanted to get Mirus was because they wanted to be able to have the flexibility to define what their certain metrics meant to them as a business versus being locked in to what the POS said they must do,” says Jet.

Mirus makes it easy for clients to transition away from previous systems and get them started on a new path. ”We were able to create an export for them so that way they didn’t have to rely on Aloha Insight anymore as that data is shaky. They were able to have confidence in the numbers on the Mirus side and have confidence that we could get the export to them in a timely fashion so that they could load that into NetSuite for their accounting purposes.”

When it comes to Mirus’ can-do attitude, Jet says, “Mirus is so flexible and however or whatever the client thinks that they would like to see in Mirus, as long as they can paint us a clear picture on how we can get the data and how to get the data to us, we can make it happen for them. Rarely, I’ve ever heard someone on this side say, no, we can’t do that. Usually, we are trying to see how we can do whatever is needed for the client. I think that’s awesome for a system to do because so many others have limitations.”