Kounta POS Making it Big in Hospitality: Strategies for Growi | Page 3

Congratulations! Your restaurant has made it through its first
year, or maybe its second. Maybe its third or fourth. Maybe
I could keep going like this indefinitely, but you get the idea.
You’re in a zone.
Everything you spend on inventory, employees, and overhead has become
predictable, you’re bringing in enough income to provide some breathing room.
Or, maybe you’re the type to look at breathing room and you see space to fill: you
want to grow. Perhaps you’d like to offer more on your menu, expand your hours,
add space or even another location. And then maybe the thought of that makes
you feel a little claustrophobic. How will you do it? What kind of paperwork is
involved? If you’re in New Jersey, who will you have to pay off to make things
happen? Like any enterprise, it’s sure to be fraught with decisions. In all cases, it
helps to have as much data as possible—the ability to track trends in peak hours,
to understand how much of your inventory goes to waste, to know who your
customers are. These are vital to the growth of any restaurant. You can’t build your
audience if you don’t know who they are to begin with.
In its 2014 report on corporate insolvency, the Australian Securities and
Investments Commission (ASIC) identified the top two reasons businesses went
broke. The first was “inadequate cash flow.” Let’s all pause for a moment and
reflect on this: a group of people studied the data, and determined that the
number one reason a business ran out of money was due to its not having
enough money.But let’s not let that cloud our judgment on the second reason,
which is far more enlightening; business failure is linked to poor strategic
management.