Solving for Complexity: The Changing Face of the Restaurant CIO

In today’s market, a restaurant CIO has to be more than the organization’s technology guru. They need to be a business Sherpa of sorts – a leader who can tie strategic objectives and business vision with technology innovation. With transformation rampant, restaurant CIOs face big and constantly expanding expectations, and the need to keep up with information technology advances never ends. How is the role changing, and what’s behind the changes?

Providing Value More Efficiently

Customer expectations are always on the rise in the restaurant industry. Guests expect a lot from restaurants, including mobile access to menus and reservations, personalization of the experience, loyalty memberships, and more. The restaurant business has always been about the experience, and the digital-first world is expanding customer touchpoints exponentially. CIOs have to lead the delivery of valuable experiences to consumers in an efficient manner. The information technology budget is not unlimited. Today's restaurant CIO drives forward value where it matters most: to restaurant customers.

The Expansion of IT Expectations

Examples of trending demands include figuring out how to deploy and manage ever-growing ordering and payment channels with all of their technical and integration challenges. Besides just keeping the infrastructure running, CIOs and their teams also need to deal with data integrations, securing network and data, and the like. Consider the repercussions of the recent Doordash data breach. GDPR and new customer information protection laws being passed in the US have been a seismic shift in how companies manage data. This may be the tip of the iceberg.

Dealing With Complex Integrations

In order to deal with driving forward value, for a long time, large organizations have taken an approach known as best of breed. The idea is to take the best products from vendors that specialize in certain solutions – such as staff scheduling – and integrate them with core systems such as the POS or payroll and with one another. These integrations, though, create a lot of complexities. While they may operate effectively in the end, they also potentially bring with them a high cost.

The integrations also can lead to exposures and potential data breaches. We see what this did to massive corporations such as Target, which cost the company hundreds of millions. The best of breed strategy, which made a lot of sense years ago, now creates issues for CIOs. Managing multiple vendors, dealing with contracts, and keeping up with vendor costs are all downsides of this approach. Plus, when integrations fail, you often have vendors pointing fingers at one another, leaving you – and your business – hanging while you try to find the root cause.

Expectations of Constant Uptime

For a restaurant, breakdowns of mission-critical systems such as the POS wreak havoc and kill sales. The expectation is for everything to run around the clock, seamlessly. If something goes down, a CIO is to blame. But when everything is running smoothly, no one notices, because that's what everyone expects you to do.

Solving for Complexity

As transformation moves forward headlong, the path to innovation looks different for each organization. CIOs would be wise to find technology partners that listen as much as they talk. Take your time, ask for references, do your due diligence, and you’ll eventually find the partners who have your best interest at heart and who will serve as advisors and partners on your innovation journey. 

________________

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash