Escaping the Restaurant ‘Tech Stack Treadmill’ - Part 1

Part 1: What is the ‘Tech Stack Treadmill’ & Why Is Your Brand Stuck On It?

What is the ‘Tech Stack Treadmill’?

As an enterprise restaurant leader, what would you give to have the perfect tech stack??

(If the answer is “Nothing! Our tech stack is perfect, every piece does what we need it to, it costs us way too little, and it’s so easy to manage that my IT team has been on vacation for the past two years” congratulations, you can stop reading now.)?

But if you’re like most executives trying to manage a profitable restaurant brand at scale, building your tech stack can feel like running on a treadmill: lots of sprinting and sweat, but never quite getting ahead.

Every quarter it seems like there are new market forces conspiring to squeeze your margins, guests demanding new in-store and digital experiences, and vendors knocking down your door to offer the latest and greatest new solutions. Your tech stack is never quite where it needs to be, your team is never fully caught up, and your IT budget never stretches far enough to do everything the business wants.??

Some want you to believe that this treadmill feeling is inevitable. They want you to think that enterprise restaurant leadership teams are destined to remain one step behind (or that the only solution to your tech stack woes is that one silver bullet new tech product ready to make all your problems go away.)

Both of these perspectives are ultimately wrong. A deep dive into the strategies used by today’s highest-performing enterprise restaurant brands and their leaders shows that there is a way to escape the status quo. (And no, it’s not some shiny object new product.)

So what does it take to jump off the ‘tech stack treadmill’ and create a restaurant technology foundation that’s strong, drives business performance, and gives your brand a sustainable competitive advantage over time?

In the Escaping the Restaurant ‘Tech Stack Treadmill’ series, we set out to answer this question in four parts:?

• Part I: What is the ‘Tech Stack Treadmill’ & Why Is Your Brand Stuck On It?
• Part II: How Forward-Thinking Brands Avoid the Treadmill Trap
• Part III: Building Your Exit Strategy
• Part IV: Implementing Your Exit Strategy

If that sounds like it’s worth a few minutes of your time, keep on reading.?

How Did We Get Here in the First Place??

Now that we know what the enterprise restaurant ‘tech stack treadmill’ is, it’s worth asking: why is your brand stuck on it? (Put another way, if no one likes this world, how did we get here?)?

Over the past decade, technology in enterprise restaurants has evolved from an internal systems function overseen by IT, into a sales and revenue driving engine and a key pillar of strategic growth. Questions about tech stack investment have gone from being talked about in back offices to taking center-stage in boardrooms.?

• Digitization of consumer products driving rapidly changing consumer demands (guests expect smartphone-level convenience in everything they buy). (See eg. here )
• Intense competition at the brand level with shrinking margins (more sophisticated brands fighting harder to acquire the same guests). (see eg. here )
• Brand consolidation under public and private equity owners (investors watch closely and demand returns). (see eg. here and here )
• Exponentially expanding tech and startup ecosystem (more innovative tech tools popping up each year). (see eg. here )

While each of these trends has made technology and IT teams mission-critical to large restaurant brands, they’ve also arguably made it harder for brands to achieve and maintain long-term competitive advantage using technology.?

These trends are unlikely to slow down (if anything they’re accelerating ) which means that to compete enterprise restaurant brands in search of future growth should strongly consider a tech stack that helps them:?

1. Deliver constantly improving customer experiences
2. Drive incremental sales while building a deeper competitive ‘moat’?
3. Align location, brand, and portfolio-level strategies?
4. Future-proof and remain adaptable without adding legacy tech debt?

It would be nice to wave a magic wand and give your brand’s tech stack all these amazing powers, right? But we’re not in the magic business and getting to this ideal state (jumping off the ‘tech stack treadmill’) means asking the right questions and building the right strategy.?

In Part II of the Escaping the Restaurant ‘Tech Stack Treadmill’ series, we’ll dive into the tools and perspectives that forward-thinking restaurant brands use to avoid the treadmill trap.?

Read Part II: How Forward-Thinking Brands Avoid the Treadmill Trap

Tanvir Bhangoo:

Tanvir Bhangoo is VP of Enterprise Solutions at Toast where he leads consulting and solutions engineering teams that help enterprise brands make the right strategic and tech stack decisions for their businesses. Prior to Toast, Tanvir led technology and digital teams at multiple leading restaurant brands including as VP of IT at Freshii and Director at Restaurant Brands International (Burger King, Popeyes, Tim Hortons).?

About Toast

Toast [NYSE: TOST] is a cloud-based? digital technology platform purpose-built for restaurants of all sizes. Toast provides a single platform of software as a service (SaaS) products and financial technology solutions that give restaurants everything they need to run their business across point of sale, operations, digital ordering and delivery, marketing and loyalty, and team management. Delphi by Toast provides state-of-the-art drive-thru and digital menu board solutions to leading QSR brands at tens of thousands of sites globally. By serving as the restaurant operating system across dine-in, drive-thru, takeout, and delivery channels, Toast helps restaurants streamline operations, increase revenue, and deliver amazing guest experiences.

This information is provided for general informational purposes only. Toast does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of any information, text, graphics, links, or other items contained within this content. Toast does not guarantee you will achieve any specific results if you follow any advice herein. It may be advisable for you to consult with a professional such as a lawyer, accountant, or business advisor for advice specific to your situation. Individual results will vary.?

Interested in sharing your thoughts or learning more??

Drop us a note at:?

[email protected] / Tanvir Bhangoo, VP Enterprise Solutions

[email protected] / Kelly Esten, SVP & GM Enterprise?

For more information, visit www.toasttab.com .