Keg Restaurants
The Keg Restaurants Rolls-Out Squirrel's®
e-BIST Enterprise Information Solution
The Keg and Squirrel have been technology partners since
1988. The Keg Steakhouse and Bar needed to streamline and fast-track
communication of business performance results between the stores
and home office. The paper-based processes were cumbersome,
error-ridden, time consuming and prone to manpower redundancies
and duplicated efforts. Area partners and managers needed accurate
timely information to deal with the rapid pace of change in
their business. Together, Squirrel Systems planned, and developed
an electronic Business Intelligence Solutions (e-BIS) as Squirrel
entered a new era as an integrated e-business solution provider
for chain and independent restaurants. Today, The Keg is successfully
running this solution in thirty-two restaurants with a rollout
to the remaining corporate stores by May 2001.
The following communication has been the most appreciated letter Squirrel has ever received from a customer. Its value and meaning has only increased and deepened during the past decade.
March 19, 1991 - "As the installation of a Squirrel system in the one hundredth Keg restaurant approaches, I thought it would be appropriate to recognize this milestone in our business relationship.
In 1988, Keg performed an in-depth evaluation of all Point of Sale systems in the market. Every division and region within Keg was involved - Information Systems, Finance, Operations, and Customer Service staff. Squirrel was the system we selected for Keg because of the easy to use touch screen terminals, the flexibility and functionality of the Point of Sale software, and the MS-DOS compatibility of the system.
At Keg we believe it is critical for a POS system to be fast and simple for our employees to operate without sacrificing functionality. And just as important, the POS technology in which we invest today must be compatible with Keg's long term Information System Strategy. Squirrel is the best for the Keg in satisfying all of these requirements.
As we enter 1991 almost all of our Keg restaurants in Canada, United States, and Australia are successfully operating with the Squirrel system.
We have been very pleased with our decision to use Squirrel to automate our restaurant operations."
President & CEO, Keg Restaurants Ltd.
While tastes have changed during the last 29 years, "The Keg" menu continues to attract guests with the basics that built the system - steak, prime rib, seafood, memorable appetizers, salads, desserts and active bars. In the neighborhood it serves, "The Keg" is a casual steakhouse with a contemporary flavor - an always attractive dining and business combination. It's atmosphere encourages people to relax and be themselves. The food is excellent, a collective delight and an expression of great value.
Equally important in "The Keg's" success has been the impact made by its people. Outgoing, smiling, welcoming, with a genuine desire to please - Keg people have a service style that's unique and famous. Wherever they have located, Kegs are a home away from home, where customers are called guests, where "Keg Size" value is part of the language.
There are currently fifty corporate stores and over thirty franchise stores in Canada and the U.S. Each store is installed with Squirrel® ClassicT and has five or six order-entry terminals. The Canadian restaurants use Squirrel POS, Inventory/Purchasing & Receiving and Labor. The U.S. stores use Squirrel POS, Inventory/Purchasing & Receiving and Time Management Corporation's TMx for labor cost and scheduling.
Ron Varley, Director of Planning & Systems for The Keg has a variety of responsibilities that include budgets, business plans, forecasting, key cost analysis, management reporting, shareholding reporting, investment analysis, renovations, acquisitions, weekly sales reporting, ad hoc analysis for lenders as well as overseeing the restaurant and home office level systems. To efficiently accomplish many of these tasks, Ron needed to obtain detailed net sales information from all corporate stores quickly and automatically. He wanted to eliminate the routine multiple data entry of the restaurant level cash sheets. He also wanted to warehouse as much detail from the restaurants as possible to facilitate menu planning, budgeting, food and liquor cost control.
Like many restaurant companies, this subject had been under discussion for some time. "It really wasn't anything that we couldn't accomplish on our own but with only four in-house IT resources we just didn't have the people-power to get the job done," explains Ron Varley.
The Keg did pilot another solution from 1996 to 1999 in nine of their stores. It was used to poll labor files. Unfortunately, the success rate was only 80% at best; the solution did not include a data mart and was very expensive. The upgrade to this product was also costly and marked the end of the pilot.
Squirrel was committed to adding value to corporate chain customers who required an electronic Business Intelligence Solution (e-BIS) for field and central management and executives. Squirrel worked with The Keg for our original proof of concept project. Around the head office requirements of The Keg, which is a very representative of medium-sized casual dining restaurant chains in North America, Squirrel designed, developed, and delivered an e-BIS solution specifically engineered to meet the requirements of a corporate enterprise in the foodservice industry.
Today, the Squirrel e-BIS solution for The Keg provides the following
- Provides a packaged data mart
- Could handle all versions of Squirrel software
- Currently, all Keg restaurants are using the same version
- Can handle non-Squirrel data
- Can be extended by customer
- Supports the potential for an ASP model
- Transports reports to recipients daily, weekly or monthly via e-mail
In August 2000, The Keg began to rollout Squirrel e-BIS with daily capture and delivery of full net sales and labor detail. The success of this project was immediate. Initial success rates were significantly higher than Keg's previous pilot. Other benefits from this phase of the rollout are expected to include a labor savings of 10-15 minute per store per week, a savings of 2-3 hours per week at each regional office and 1 day per month at home office.
The Keg already takes full advantage of the e-BIS data mart. They create their own accounting interface and automate their daily cash sheet process. The automated daily cash sheet includes the capture of core cash information by e-BIS, with a custom Keg procedure for their own unique requirements layered on top of the e-BIS environment. This satisfies key design criteria -- deliver a flexible solution that the corporate chain head office end user can extend using their own resources.
The daily cash sheet, an extension of phase one, has already been implement in eleven (11) stores. The Keg anticipates an estimated labor savings of:
- 10 minutes per store on a daily basis
- 2 man days per week at each regional office
Ron Varley says, "We now have the opportunity to do more review and less to do. Our regional accountants will have stopped being data entry people and will be doing more pure accounting functions." The Keg is also anticipating faster, cleaner month-ends.
Keg, by design, has already enhanced and customized their e-BIS solution. They now automate the process of moving daily "save days" and have eliminated floppies and manual file maintenance. As well, Keg now has a "one-click" reporting process for franchisees, which automatically transport sales files to the home office.
As far as the immediate future is concerned, The Keg is setting up for daily audits of tax reports. They expect restaurant audits will be quicker. They will exploit the decision support capabilities of e-BIS, which enable them to analyze detailed chain-wide information the next day. This should drive more profitable marketing and management decisions from the head office.
"We're very pleased with the success of this project. The bulk of our goals have been accomplished as well as some benefits that we didn't anticipate. We're anxious to finish rolling this solution out to all of our restaurants in the near future," reports Ron Varley.
