Overview

We’re the leading restaurant and pub company in the UK with over 1,700 businesses, including famous restaurant and pub brands such as All Bar One, Toby Carvery, Harvester and Browns. Wherever you turn, you’re sure to find a warm Mitchells & Butlers welcome that makes you feel right at home.

Supernova Award Category

Data to Decisions

The Problem

Mitchells& Butlers had to deal with multiple data sources in various systems. They already had product data and internal data well managed, but the question was how to integrate them with external and guest facing information and deliver them to the guest fast and securely.

They wanted a solution that would allow them to input data once and distribute it to multiple places with confidence and compliance. The main motivation was their expansion into digital markets such as delivery and order at table in house technology.

The Solution

For more than 10 years, the Master Data Management platform, STEP – Stibo Systems, had been in use. The option was to continue using this platform and start a project to create a new improved version that increased the user base significantly to include more teams such as Marketing Managers who handle guest facing information, from menu copy to site level facts. These go through workflows and are approved before being published to the guest.

Each outlet also got access to manage local activity from the number of highchairs available to the opening times and services of the outlet.

This also helped us to follow laws around allergen and nutritional information and publishing this data. By combining detailed menu and outlet information, the data could be published securely and safely to the guest.

The results

The latest version of STEP has enabled more collaboration and visibility among teams that used to work in isolation. By bringing multiple teams together, the processes and actions are clearer and more transparent.

The introduction of workflows has also changed the way teams and projects operate, fostering more cooperation. This was a significant change that required some time to adapt and optimize the processes and realize the benefits.

Prior to launch all processes for digital many manual and significant re keying of information and menu availability times, with many different brands and menus that needed a lot of manual and repetitive menu. By controlling this information and managing opening hours and food service hours within STEP, we can automate most of this process, allowing us to grow the digital services we offer. Hospitality remains and will remain a very face to face industry, but we can also increase sales through digital platforms and keep pace with changing market trends.

Metrics

The project has helped us comply with many safety elements as laws have changed. We can display calorie information at all decision points, from website menus, printed menus to the Toby Carvery deck where guests choose their food.

We can update our allergen guides quickly and in real time, so guests always have access to the most current information on individual dishes.

All websites and google have the most current opening hours for our sites, updated by our area managers who know best what is happening in sites.

All menu information that guests see is built and securely signed off before publishing to the guest, this includes printed, digital ordering platforms and websites.

Outlets can locally control digital services such as delivery, takeaway and order at table, turning these services off or putting them into ‘busy’ mode from the STEP platform, without needing to phone helpdesk. These services automatically turn back on after the selected time.

Data governance and compliance enable us to succeed and the audit features and oversight we now have over decision making allow us to securely do many things including the above examples.

The Technology

STEP – Stibo Systems is our master data management system. It can link with different downstream systems, such as the systems for Point of Sales and stock and waste. We use different types of integration, including multiple APIs. This lets us fully integrate with websites and give almost near real time updates when required.

We updated the data model when we switched to the new platform to match all the new and future needs.

Disruptive Factor

The most difficult factor was not anticipating the change curve, the technology would always have to adapt and STEP enables us to do that but when introducing and altering the way people worked this was the most demanding part.

Even though STEP had been in use for a long time, the new version added almost 2000 new users and the training and onboarding of these was a big challenge, this essentially changed the way people worked and when they worked. The implementation of workflows meant that teams had to modify the way they worked and wait for items to come rather than work in isolation. This change was not expected and it took a year of reinforcing, retraining, adjusting the process before the benefits started to show. This was a fundamental change, to many teams.

The way this was resolved was to collaborate with all the different teams to comprehend challenges and what the opportunity was to enhance. The real key was to demonstrate them the benefits, with menu cycles taking time this was not a quick solution. After a few menu cycles and some stabilizing time the benefits are seen and the changes accepted and welcomed.

Shining Moment

A highlight for me was the collaboration of people from internal and external teams. Despite the many difficulties that the project faced, the team remained optimistic and sought out a better solution. Furthermore, the people involved have continued to improve and adapt the solution since it went live, making it responsive to the changing market conditions and ready for any new challenges.