Case Study

Achieving Best in Class Operations for a Quick Service Restaurant Chain Using the Zoku POS System fully integrated with NetSuite ERP

Introduction

Our customer, a Quick Service Restaurant chain operating in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and the U.S.A, decided to implement NetSuite as its Cloud ERP in 2018. At the time they were using a mix of Converge and Revel Point of sale software with a lot of manual work updating the back end systems with the store data. During the implementation of NetSuite, they realized that their Store Operations as well as Digital Channels would remain disconnected from their back office operations powered by NetSuite.

Business Objectives

The customer wanted to achieve consistency across all its outlets, with full visibility and control of all store and digital channel operations from the Headquarters. They came to realize that they had no other option but to complement their investment in NetSuite with a solution that would allow them to streamline and accelerate the transaction processes, while also delivering personalized customer service.

  • Business data to be updated in real time and at the same time eliminating unexpected errors from manual data entry across functions

  • Offer a true omnichannel experience to customers

  • Increase Employee Satisfaction by reducing unnecessary and cumbersome tasks, while also reducing mistakes and discrepancies

  • Eliminate manual processes to maintain inventories and ledgers

  • Maximize sales productivity: Faster checkout, personalized service

  • Better reporting with the ERP data being the single source of truth

  • Connect internal and external data sources such as Food Delivery systems (Deliveroo, Food Panda) and Suppliers

  • Centralise and control operations such as PO Receiving and Ordering

Zoku with NetSuite as the Solution

By implementing the Zoku POS for QSR, our customer achieved an all-encompassing view of the entire company’s processes, not simply store sales but also forecasting, inventory, supply, distribution management and consumption analysis. Sales and Inventory data is now updated in real time, eliminating unexpected errors from manual data entry across functions within a company, while consumer experience was significantly enhanced.

Easy Migration to the New System

The modern, tablet-based user interface with touch or mouse input allowed our customer to train their staff from the old POS to the new system in a couple of hours. They were also delighted to know that they did not have to change any of their existing hardware; in fact the were able to use the software on both Windows and Tablet Hardware, including iPads provided by Revel. The Zoku solution runs on the cloud, however, if the network is down it can operate in offline mode as well, providing the best of both worlds; the customer was excited to know they could expect near 100% uptime.

Operational Excellence

By combining the power of NetSuite and the Zoku POS, our customer managed to achieve several key operational efficiencies that would not be possible with legacy systems, including:

  • Inventory Management: Setting up reordering business rules; Depending on the product, automatically re-ordering or providing alerts when inventory is approaching the safety level.
  • Intuitive settlements (shift close), on the POS screen without having to use print-outs. A visual confirmation is used to match system/amended values and actuals, and any discrepancies are intuitively displayed on screen where the store manager can check and resolve.
  • Setting up recipe and linking to Sales and Purchased Orders. This enabled the customer to accurately capture actual COGS, and do comparisons of sales with consumption of raw material based on recipe for control as well as for business analysis.
  • The Kitchen Display System (KDS) feature of the Zoku POS was also important for the customer and there was a clear advantage when completing the food order in the kitchen, the order completion timestamp and total preparation times are saved in NetSuite. This allows our customer to perform analysis on their operations, slicing and dicing for different types of orders at different times and locations.
  • Converting between multiple units of measurement for example ingredients in the recipe are measured in grams, for raw material purchased in KGs or boxes or any other unit.

Unparalleled Omnichannel Consumer Experience 

Consumer Experience was also an important area of improvement. Consumers like the convenience of being able to pay with a combination of card(s) and cash, as well as coupons. The Order Entry System is intentionally designed to be intuitive and extremely simple to use, and lightning fast, allowing to process orders during peak hours on average 10% faster than ever before.

The CRM and Loyalty system enabled store and marketing personnel to access customer’s purchasing histories, offering rewards to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Designed for GROWTH

The powerful features of NetSuite, supporting multi-country and multi-subsidiary setup are beautifully complemented by the Zoku POS multi-currency, multi-menu and multi-country and subsidiary as well as franchise management features. This enabled our customer to rapidly expand in multiple countries with direct as well as franchise operations.

Next Steps

After establishing best practices in the back and front end with NetSuite and Zoku POS, our QSR Customer identified that there were additional modules available in the Zoku Integrated Commerce Suite to enable them to grow and beat the competition. Current implementation includes the implementation of the Zoku Mobile App and Zoku Self Ordering Kiosk. Both the mobile app and the kiosk are seamlessly connected with NetSuite as the back end – single source of truth – and utilize the Zoku AI Powered Recommendations Engine. In order to better manage food production, especially during peak hours, and purchasing, the customer is now in the process of implementing the Zoku Food Forecasting engine.