WATCH: Unleashing the Power of Industry Collaboration
On this week's episode of the Popcorn GTM podcast, Restaurant Technology Network (RTN) Co-Founder Angela Diffly talks about the Power of collaboration and all things RTN.
Popcorn GTM is the official podcast of Popcorn GTM, a restaurant technology consultancy co-founded by Paul Molinari and Michael Beck. In addition to Molinari and Beck, VP of Partnerships Chad Horn appeared on the episode.
Diffly kicked off the conversation by explaining RTN's mission: to help restaurants innovate faster. "Whether you're a consultant, a supplier or restaurant, we all want one thing: we want to be able to innovate. We are excited about technology; we geek out about it. Without collaboration and unique partnerships, we can't innovate.”
Industry Standards That Are Available Now
RTN Menu Synchronization Standard
Created to alleviate complications related to collecting and exchanging menu data between systems and partner entities. Allows systems to access / exchange data consistently.
RTN Transactional Data Standard
Created to alleviate complications related to collecting and exchanging fragmented transactional data, such as order, order item, reservations, cash drawer, etc. Allows systems to access / exchange data consistently.
RTN Customer Record Data Standard
Created to alleviate complications related to collecting fragmented customer profiles, managing customer data, maintaining data integrity, understanding customer behavior. Allows systems to access / exchange data consistently.
While these three data standards are openly available to the industry, until recently, there was not an easy way to view all the attributes as well as extract them or generate messages in the form of JSON or XML. With RTN’s Object Model Repository, this functionality is available and openly accessible. Learn more here
The Foundation of RTN
The conversation focused on the need for industry standards, which Diffly described as “the cornerstone to the foundation of what we (at RTN) do. Certainly, we want data standards, we want technology standardization to be the foundation of our platforms so that we can all plug and play and connect, have interconnectivity and have this collaborative environment whereby restaurants can choose the best solution that they need rather than just the one that fits."
RTN has come a long way since its inception, and there's more work to be done. "Standardization is certainly a marathon not a sprint," Diffly shared.
To view RTN’s data standards and technical documentation, click here.
Integration Challenges
Restaurants have shared that integrations are their No. 1 challenge. If companies followed data standards, smoother and faster integrations would be taking place, Diffly and Horn agreed.
“You could point to a whole bunch of failures of things that never got off the ground because there were no standards," said Molinari.
"Or the barrier of (unnecessarily) complicated integrations," added Beck.
"With the advent of AI and all the innovative new tech out there (such as Chipotle’s avocado preparing co-bot and its automated makeline) ... Everyone wants to sandbox it, see if it works. None of that stuff can talk to each other or be added on if the data can't flow in a consistent manner. Standards are table stakes to make innovation flourish.”
The full podcast is available now and linked above.
Check out other Popcorn GTM episodes on thought-provoking restaurant topics including Reputation Management, Fixing Customer Order Pickup Inefficiency and more.
For more on RTN, visit https://restauranttechnologynetwork.com. Connect with Angela Diffly on LinkedIn here.