The current consulting landscape is saturated with promises. Our inboxes and direct messages are flooded by self-proclaimed growth hackers and consultants claiming to hold definitive answers to complex challenges.
What we're not seeing is differentiation or perhaps customisation post the standard template of offering to solve a problem.
Take the restaurant business. Small, mom and pop affairs have very different budgets, resources, expectations compared to QSRs. And a QSR in Cambodia or Chile will have completely different needs compared to one in the US or France. I
n such a scenario, a one size fits all demand forecasting solution for instance, will fit no one at all.
In my experience – both running and advising – SMB restaurants in geographies at either extremes of the economic spectrum, a localised distribution platform works really well when operations are limited to a few towns or specific zipcodes, but the minute you redefine your geofence beyond your learnt footprint, you have to return to the supply chain, logistics, warehousing drawing board as all three will contribute – to both operational costs and food costs – in unexpected ways.
Effective demand forecasting will have to take account of the scale and spread of your business because when you add new locations you add multiple layers of complexity:
🌡️ Weather, transportation and time
🚚 Inventory, delivery and storage costs as you balance the competing needs of perishable vs non-perishable goods
🛒 Cost of procurement including availability, quality and accessibility of local logistics and local vendors.
All the while your cost of doing business is only going up.
Accurate forecasting, that accounts for all these variables, can help you understand all challenges both upstream and downstream. Who you partner with, especially when it comes to third-party logistics (3PL), can make or break your business: the quality and efficiency of your 3PL will affect the level of your business’ consumption, waste and food costing structure.I
f you’re a mom and pop restaurant looking to scale up your opportunities, your supply chain challenges will look different from those of a 100 store QSR that operates across multiple towns and cities. Even then, the daily grind will necessitate that you look at your entire supply chain eco system regularly.
In all this discussion, we have ignored another major cost: that of fuel. Fluctuating fuel prices will affect the cost of everything from delivery and transport to bread and lettuce to the cost of wastage.
So the point is, how effectively are you forecasting your costs, do you have all the triggers identified? What have you missed? What could you do better?
If you’re not thinking about it, your competitors are and in the new world of tariffs and trade barriers this may be what you need to look at today.
#supplychain #thirdpartylogistics #restaurants #restauranttech
