Business Intelligence Software Yields Big Savings for BBQ & Grill
VooDoo BBQ & Grill opened its first location in New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day 2002 and has expanded to 18 locations with plans to open 320 in the next five years. VooDoo is the sound, the soul and the taste of BBQ, New Orleans-style: Brisket, pork, chicken, gumbo, salads and burgers all with the spice and magic of Louisiana. VooDoo serves competition-style barbecue beef, pork and chicken with unique side dishes, plus salads and sandwiches, in a clean, colorful fast casual environment.
Driving blind, management was manually entering invoices, hand writing schedules and manually reporting numbers from their POS system. Inventory was collected from old spreadsheets, causing costly mistakes. Outdated technology was costing the growing chain time and money. VooDoo BBQ & Grill needed to find a cost-effective solution that would provide insight to their food cost, accounting and labor and provide instant access to historical and current data.
VooDoo BBQ & Grill’s due diligence led them to choose Ctuit RADAR as their web-based Business Intelligence solution, based on Ctuit’s demonstrated track record and the reputation of the product and client services team. Radar offered a solution that would provide visibility into bottom line profitability and simplified and consolidated reporting that would save time and money every day.
Manageable & Measurable Results
Now VooDoo BBQ & Grill’s vice president of operations and exective chef cannot fathom trying to run his multiple locations without business intelligence software. “The overall value of Ctuit is priceless. I wouldn’t want to run a business these days without business intelligence software,” muses Gregg Frazer.
VooDoo BBQ & Grill set up an hourly metric graph, highlighting the wages versus sales on an hourly basis. Visually seeing where the labor opportunities exist allowed VooDoo BBQ & Grill to decrease their hourly labor costs 4-6% overall.
Upon implementing Ctuit’s RADAR and taking action to reduce variances, VooDoo BBQ & Grill reduced their company-wide food costs by 2%. All locations quickly began to reduce food costs, showing a narrow range between stores vs. the wide range that existed prior to RADAR.
Management set up the theortical costs and once the costs were in, saved 5-10 hours per week. Invoice entry is more timely and accurate with pricing updated automatically through EDI. Managers and General managers cut the time spent on office work by 70-75%.
Mangers appreciate that the RADAR dashboard is configurable. By setting up relevant widgets, they made RADAR even more user-friendly. The Manager Log has provided VooDoo BBQ & Grill a single source for assigning tasks, logging events, messages, staffing notes and log entries for improved communication. Having overtime tracking scroll on the home page helps managers reduce overtime and prevent costly mistakes.
VooDoo BBQ & Grill uses RADAR’s benchmarking module to allow franchise locations to view anonymous performance data from other locations, so they can identify areas of opportunity in their P&L and where they are out of line vs. the benchmark group. On The Fly, Ctuit’s mobile app, provides VooDoo BBQ & Grill with a snapshot of key factors.
“Ctuit has made my life immensely easier,” Frazer concludes. “I wouldn’t want to run a restaurant today without business intelligence software.”
Driving blind, management was manually entering invoices, hand writing schedules and manually reporting numbers from their POS system. Inventory was collected from old spreadsheets, causing costly mistakes. Outdated technology was costing the growing chain time and money. VooDoo BBQ & Grill needed to find a cost-effective solution that would provide insight to their food cost, accounting and labor and provide instant access to historical and current data.
VooDoo BBQ & Grill’s due diligence led them to choose Ctuit RADAR as their web-based Business Intelligence solution, based on Ctuit’s demonstrated track record and the reputation of the product and client services team. Radar offered a solution that would provide visibility into bottom line profitability and simplified and consolidated reporting that would save time and money every day.
Manageable & Measurable Results
Now VooDoo BBQ & Grill’s vice president of operations and exective chef cannot fathom trying to run his multiple locations without business intelligence software. “The overall value of Ctuit is priceless. I wouldn’t want to run a business these days without business intelligence software,” muses Gregg Frazer.
VooDoo BBQ & Grill set up an hourly metric graph, highlighting the wages versus sales on an hourly basis. Visually seeing where the labor opportunities exist allowed VooDoo BBQ & Grill to decrease their hourly labor costs 4-6% overall.
Upon implementing Ctuit’s RADAR and taking action to reduce variances, VooDoo BBQ & Grill reduced their company-wide food costs by 2%. All locations quickly began to reduce food costs, showing a narrow range between stores vs. the wide range that existed prior to RADAR.
Management set up the theortical costs and once the costs were in, saved 5-10 hours per week. Invoice entry is more timely and accurate with pricing updated automatically through EDI. Managers and General managers cut the time spent on office work by 70-75%.
Mangers appreciate that the RADAR dashboard is configurable. By setting up relevant widgets, they made RADAR even more user-friendly. The Manager Log has provided VooDoo BBQ & Grill a single source for assigning tasks, logging events, messages, staffing notes and log entries for improved communication. Having overtime tracking scroll on the home page helps managers reduce overtime and prevent costly mistakes.
VooDoo BBQ & Grill uses RADAR’s benchmarking module to allow franchise locations to view anonymous performance data from other locations, so they can identify areas of opportunity in their P&L and where they are out of line vs. the benchmark group. On The Fly, Ctuit’s mobile app, provides VooDoo BBQ & Grill with a snapshot of key factors.
“Ctuit has made my life immensely easier,” Frazer concludes. “I wouldn’t want to run a restaurant today without business intelligence software.”