This is a series of blog posts by Unitfly in which we are describing stories of Digital Transformation – stories about improving business using the power of technology. Have in mind that in these articles, we are not referring to any of our specific clients, these are examples how we see potential of technology in business context. Today we talk about restaurant business process automation.
How can a chain restaurant with offers and procedures that differ from country to country connect all the data in one system? M-Files and BizTalk implementation solves that problem.
What is current situation?
Let’s introduce our use case customer; it is a one of the top restaurant chains with more than 10 000 restaurants in 50 countries across the world. They have standardized their offers throughout restaurants, with slight differences from country to country. The main reason for the differences is that they need to adapt their recipes to get closer to the local eating habits and customer needs.
When a new recipe, menu, or even a new item on the menu is added, that information needs to be synchronized with all the systems in all the restaurants per country. Every cashier needs to have updated information, as well as all other departments within their systems (finance, marketing, etc.).
In order to achieve data and application integration, the customer is using Microsoft BizTalk server, enterprise grade solution for integration of different systems and solution for secure data transfer.
Every change needs to be inserted manually
Even small enterprises can’t rely only on sending emails with updated information to different departments that then have to update their own systems.
That issue is even more highlighted within big enterprises with complex business processes where every second matters, and absence of updated information is unacceptable.
In this case, the customer doesn’t have a fully automatized process which would allow them to make changes and distribute changes on a daily basis. They are not only spending time to make changes and distribute them. But they also can’t rely on current solution in terms of agility and adaptability.
What does the client need?
The customer needs a robust but easy-to-use solution which will allow them to have
- sustainable and smooth processes
- automated and orchestrated processes
- a quick and agile response to market
- all the systems integrated and data collected
Implementation of automated workflows with M-Files
After seeing their challenges, business needs and desires, and their possibilities in terms of technology, we were sure that M-Files is what they needed in order to easily connect with all other systems through Microsoft BizTalk. M-Files platform was the right solution for business processes of their central business environment.
We implemented workflows using M-Files which follow customer’s business processes. Teams were collaborating on several items, documents and procedures and were involved in a quick approval process with clearly defined actions and responsibilities.
All created menus were then integrated with all the restaurants during non-working hours and their prices and websites updated automatically with new menus and all the details.
Full restaurant process automation
Customer’s primary objective was to have a quick and agile response to market demands. With implemented solution they were able to easily create new menus, introduce new type of food and change existing menus in a second. Their workflow is completely automatized (and also customizable for future business changes), intuitive and simple to use. Changes made in one system were immediately visible in all enterprise systems.
If you are interested in a complete solution and details about technologies that we used in this use case, let’s talk!
