CIOs Shawn Harrs from Red Lobster and Susan Lucas from Cooper's Hawk Winery & Restaurants shared their insights on digital transformation, data democratization, and artificial intelligence for 2025 at Crunchtime’s recent Ops Summit. Their conversation revealed how leading restaurant chains leverage technology to enhance operations while still maintaining focus on guest experience.
Key Takeaways At a Glance:
- Data democratization is crucial for business success, with both CIOs focusing on enabling self-service analytics while maintaining proper governance.
- Technology integration strategies are evolving from in-house development to cloud-based, best-of-breed solutions with seamless integration.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) implementation is becoming more targeted and practical, focusing on specific business outcomes rather than broad applications.
- The restaurant industry is rapidly catching up to other sectors with regard to technology integration and API capabilities.
- POS and back office systems remain the central hub for restaurant operations, with both organizations prioritizing modern, cloud-based solutions.
Let’s dive into a few of the key themes from the session
Data Democratization and Business Intelligence
Both CIOs emphasized the importance of democratizing data access within their organizations. Harrs highlighted his vision of achieving a "10x factor" by enabling self-service analytics, which allows users to access data insights without IT intervention.
From the perspective of Cooper’s Hawk, Lucas detailed the transition from basic reporting to predictive analytics, particularly in understanding wine club member behavior and operational metrics. Lucas emphasized that the primary benefit is to, “put it in the hands of the users and the people that really understand the data and understand their business.” Implementing and utilizing the proper tools for democratizing data is an important next step for any business as the industry moves forward.
Strategic Technology Implementation
Harrs and Lucas each laid out differing methodologies regarding technology adoption. Red Lobster is transitioning from in-house solutions to best-of-breed platforms, committing to a comprehensive cloud migration within 12-24 months.
Cooper's Hawk maintains a hybrid approach, with Lucas explaining their strategy of keeping wine club technology in-house while adopting industry-standard solutions for restaurant operations. Both organizations are implementing major systems like POS and back office technology, emphasizing the importance of seamless integration.
AI Applications
AI is becoming more focused and practical in the restaurant industry. Harrs highlighted three key areas where he sees opportunity for AI: guest loyalty programs, cybersecurity threat prediction, and operational efficiency through vendor-provided AI solutions. He also mentioned how important it is for Red Lobster to utilize vendor-provided solutions.
“Leveraging AI capabilities that our software and service partners, such as Crunchtime, are implementing in labor forecasting and inventory management get me out of the business of having to build these capabilities," Harrs said. "They are already a commodity as part of a platform.”
Lucas described their targeted approach to AI, primarily focusing on wine club membership analytics and back-of-house operations, emphasizing the importance of maintaining human interaction in guest-facing services.
Looking Ahead
As the industry heads into 2025, the focus is clearly on creating integrated, data-driven operations while still emphasizing the human element of hospitality. The insights from these industry leaders demonstrate a balanced approach to innovation, where technology enhances the core restaurant experience, rather than replacing it. The emphasis on data democratization, strategic AI implementation, and seamless system integration point to a future where technology enables better decision-making at all levels of restaurant operations.
To stay up to date with all things restaurant tech in 2025 and beyond, follow Crunchtime on LinkedIn.
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