How Batak Accelerated Field Execution with Bitreport

Client Overview

Batak, the finest example of comfort food being brought to the next level on the scale of a restaurant chain, is on a mission to perform at the highest possible level, restaurant-to-restaurant in perfect sync. New operational challenges arose following their rapid expansion in the Croatian market and the ambitions that fuel this rapid growth started to envision a better experience for the frontline teams and operational processes.

Challenges and Objectives

The effects of facing these challenges drastically changed the way the business is operated on the day-to-day, as well as influencing the decision-making at the top. When the team at Batak reflects on this period, the 3 objectives that stand out the most are:

1. Reducing time sinks
2. Raising awareness
3. Centralization of communication channels

Solution

The solution to achieving these objectives was approached with an operational overhaul at the level of the frontline and management keeping both experiences in mind.

1. Reducing time sinks

The biggest time sink that operational coordinators at Batak have to deal with each month is the audit. Not only is the audit itself a detailed and thorough process involving intricate inspection techniques, but the way it was conducted before proved to be a burden on the team as the expansion progressed.

The audit was a 3-step process involving pen & paper forms, spreadsheets, and separately stored photos. This was necessary so that the raw collected data would transform into valuable business intelligence for the upper management and decision-making body.

The coordinators embraced the change that followed once this process was streamlined and brought into a new digital form using Bitreport, and these results proved to be both immediate and tangible. Copying data from A to B was no longer required, and the process no longer involved any printed paper or spreadsheet. The audit was always available on the phone, easily conducted, immediately sent to all stakeholders, and made sure that the corrective measures were rolled out during the field visit.

2. Raising awareness

It can be challenging to critically assess the situation in a restaurant network when you don’t have data readily available at your fingertips. The challenge only grows more difficult at a larger scale where facilitated decision-making is key.

The difference between waiting a couple of hours, or even days and a few seconds to get synced with the frontline is significant. This acceleration has proven itself to be an integral part of Batak Grill’s efforts to achieve operational excellence in each restaurant simultaneously.

Not only are instant corrective measures possible but they are also deployed to the field even quicker than before, often even during the restaurant audit. Easier identification and planning of improvement opportunities gives the team a new way of directly impacting the results on the field.

3. Centralization of communication channels

Simple solutions work well when the team size is small and interactions can still be tracked by hand. However, scaling task management through multiple chat groups to a restaurant chain turned out to be finding a needle in a haystack scenario.

Having all tasks available at hand eliminated the complexity of searching and tracking pending tasks which resulted in time saved with each task, corrective measure, and improvement opportunity.

Furthermore, unifying all maintenance channels on one platform resulted in a lower amount of phone calls and quicker time to repair resolution. Everyone is kept in the loop at all times, and the maintenance team always knows what to do when they arrive at a restaurant.

67%

faster repair time to resolution

3x

faster audit process

Conclusion

Batak faced many challenges during its rapid expansion and digitally revamping processes aided by Bitreport paved the way for a manageable operational environment at scale.

Operational overhead and its time sinks were significantly lowered by transferring the audit and task management onto a digital platform. Critical decision-making and operational improvement were facilitated by the increased availability of real-time data from the field. Getting everyone on the same page with centralized communication resulted in fewer phone calls, back-and-forth, and everyone being focused on the immediate tasks at hand.

This digital transformation through Bitreport enabled the team at Batak to ensure that their restaurants operate at the best possible level which helped the brand cement their lead in Croatia’s comfort food restaurant market.