Powering Better Collaboration Between the C-Suite and Store Employees

The Bungalow Restaurant Group was looking for software that was powerful enough for the executive team yet easy enough for the store level employees to embrace and use it.  The CFO, B. Brian Martin, was specifically concerned about the rapid increase in supply costs and its impact on menu margins in real time.  Having good, real time purchasing insights allow him to take the actions with the culinary teams needed to monitor, manage and maintain margins in this unprecedented market. To make this possible, Bungalow needed powerful, easy-to-use back of the house tools that could be quickly implemented, adopted and sustained on an ongoing basis by their store level teams. Bungalow had implemented platforms in the past that did not meet these needs or deliver what they promised.

Simple provided Brian information and actionable insights that quickly provided him headquarter and location optics to monitor, manage and act to control runaway costs. Bungalow implemented Simple’s back of the house tools including invoice processing and analysis, centralized ordering, inventory management and recipe costing to keep a close eye on overall food costs in real time.  In sharp contrast to other solutions that Bungalow tried to implement for the same purposes, the Simple platform was easy to use and accepted by the culinary team, allowing employees to get up to speed quickly and keeping them  engaged in using the tools. Simple’s platform has provided Bungalow powerful purchasing analysis, inventory cost and real time plated cost analysis allowing them to control costs and improve margins. This information then enabled Bungalow to use Simple’s proprietary purchasing software to not only know they have a problem but the tools to create RFP’s and manage weekly perishable categories without needing a purchasing department.