As the first full year of trade for many venues post-pandemic, 2022 has been a turning point to learn about new behaviours of customers, as well as innovative ways to create a profitable hospitality business.
After advising clients throughout COVID restrictions and 2022, we want to share some lessons, trends, and challenges emerging that venues can learn from going into 2023.
1. The Importance of Scale
One of the biggest lessons over the last few years, is the importance of scale. Quantaco CEO, Anthony Sullivan, recently sat down with Hotelier and identified that:
And this is what we’ve seen over the pandemic. The hospitality venues that were better able to scale up and down their operations, have been able to recover more quickly and grow than smaller operators. That’s why in 2023, operators should be looking at leveraging the current opportunities in their venues, so that they can standardise and increase profit margins ready for scaling.
2. Unlock Staffing Potential
Maintaining a stable team means being more reactive to quick changes. 2022 was difficult to predict normalised trade because during COVID venues were closed without income, and then had a rapid burst of trade due to pent up demand, followed by more closures and restrictions. Now with current skills shortages, as well as traditionally high staff turnover, it can make growth more difficult and negatively impacts profitability.
But Anthony shared some insight into the latest trend in 2022 by saying, “We have seen a lot of consolidation over the last few years and I think that’s a good thing. The bigger businesses have been able to shift the perception that a job in hospitality is a ‘stop-gap’ job so that many are realising that there are great careers for people in hospitality.”
The hope with this shift in 2023 is that turnover will be reduced, and employees will become more engaged. Of course, this can only be done with a deeper management skillset that enables teams to stay together, which is easier said than done, but not impossible!
For operators, it also comes down to making the most of the employees you have, that’s why 2022 saw us commercialise our Salesline product to unlock the potential in staffing. Our proprietary software has helped our clients save thousands of dollars per venue by benchmarking real sales data against a chosen metric to enable near real-time roster changes. You can analyse daily wage costs, determine the targeted sales per hour, and then set forecasts to achieve the desired outcome.
3. Go Carbon Neutral
Sustainability is also becoming an increasing concern post-pandemic for customers, venue owners and as a regulatory focus. This is why striving for carbon neutrality can not only help the environment, but your business as well. Anthony shared what he’s seen about successful carbon neutral hospitality groups, saying, “The operators who are the most successful at moving their venues towards carbon neutral are the ones who understand their data.”
If you’re able to understand your impact at a granular level, you can not only track the different you make but understand what is going to make the biggest steps towards change! One of the areas we are supporting our client’s venues is to help them measure their carbon, and it’s something we’re going to be working on going in for 2023 as well.
4. Create Value That Didn’t Exist Before
We mentioned the importance of unlocking potential in staffing above, but it also goes beyond this to find opportunities to create value throughout the business. Anthony shared a recent example of Quantaco’s philosophy of creating value for clients by saying, “We recently identified the problem of irrational premium increases and substandard broking service and have solved it.
“As a result, our clients get better risk cover, increased service and more value than they did before. The core of our success is that we have shifted the focus of risk cover away from the underwriter and back to the client. We now have a team of five on this and its growing to meet the high level of demand.”
For large groups in particular, there are plenty of areas that are likely handled on ‘autopilot’, with the same processes happening for years. But the reality is that with digitisation, and the latest innovations you could create opportunities to save you time, energy and money.
In 2023 we would encourage all hospitality businesses and groups to take a deeper look at the current processes with a new perspective. Or, get in touch with a member of the Quantaco team and we’ll see how we can help create value in areas you had no idea you could!
Quantaco’s Plans for Hospitality in 2023
During 2022 we launched a suite of solutions designed specifically to support our hospitality clients, and the industry as a whole. It included:
● Launching Cashup – to automate daily takings.
●Acquiring Star Compliance – an app for digital incident reporting, compliance task listing, and training. ● And as previously mentioned, commercialising Salesline.
It allowed us to cater to our clients and grow our team to meet demand. And as a result, we were recognised for our business growth in both the top 10 of the Australian Financial Review’s FAST 100, and top five of SmartCompany’s Smart50.
Now, looking forward to 2023, we will be expanding on our use of robotics and automation with the goal of fully automating financial statement production. In line with our customer obsession value, we also have a huge pipeline to implement to enhance our client’s operational experience even further.
Anthony also shared a sneak peek into Quantaco’s strategy for 2023 by saying, “We are looking to expand our offer across existing service lines so our value can be accessed by a broader cross-section of the market. Ultimately, we want to be able to help the single venue operator as much as we help our large groups. 2023 will also see us launch our sustainability offer, so watch this space.”
If your venues or group need help in 2023 unlocking your potential, a member of our team would be happy to help. Learn more here.
