The wake of the past few years has left the restaurant industry in a state of transformation.

While mid-2021 revealed what was thought to be a light at the end of the tunnel, persistent labor challenges and skyrocketing costs have forced the majority of restaurants to temper their ambitions of going back to business as usual.

But the still-recovering landscape of the restaurant industry does not mean that you can’t seize new opportunities and grow your business this year; it just means that there’s less room for error in the decisions you make.

As you forge ahead into 2022, make sure that you are tracking the right restaurant KPIs to set you up for deploying the most strategic and achievable restaurant goals. Seeing restaurant success by the numbers in this way allows you to track your progress and make sure you’re on track to meet your targets.

Restaurant Finance KPIs

Given that all businesses have to continuously make revenue to exist, the financial leadership of any business is almost always in the spotlight.

In fact, according to a survey of business leaders, 65% say the CFO is second only to the CEO in responsibility for building trust. Financial teams play an important role in advising leaders at every level throughout companies; thus, the impact of their guidance has a ripple effect on businesses.

• What to Track: As a baseline metric, CFOs should track comparable sales and traffic at both the market and internal levels. Using a tool like BBI’s Financial Intelligence solution enables you to monitor these key KPIs so you can perform more complex restaurant financial analyses and determine your restaurant goals accordingly.

Restaurant Human Resources KPIs

With restaurant staffing turnover rates at historically high levels, HR teams have had to get creative with ways to engage current employees to boost retention, as well as ways to reach out to potential hiring candidates. HR teams are also the center of company-wide diversity and inclusion initiatives, so insights into how people feel about the way they are treated in the restaurant industry can be invaluable to developing inclusive restaurant goals.

• What to Track: HR teams should be actively tracking turnover, staffing levels, wages, and compensation. They should also be monitoring sales and traffic trends to identify correlations between workforce changes and sales performance. 
  
  By combining BBI’s Workforce Intelligence solution with our Financial Intelligence solution, HR teams can monitor key staffing trends and their impact on business without having to put more work on the financial team or perform complex calculations themselves. They can formulate and execute restaurant goals efficiently because they have data that gives them insight into the best practices to reach said restaurant goals.

Restaurant Insights KPIs

As data becomes more and more central to setting strategic restaurant goals, insights teams play a critical role in helping teams translate data into actionable strategies.

Insights teams are integral in utilizing restaurant data to forecast and monitor trends and act as internal experts on restaurant industry data, as well as the market as a whole.

• What to Track: As the insights team’s jobs revolve around tracking data, they should be keeping tabs on a wide swath of data points: financial metrics, such as comparative sales, traffic growth, and check growth; and guest sentiment, tracking restaurant experience through mentions of things like value, service, intent to return, food and beverage, and ambiance.
  
  With this data at their fingertips, insights teams can understand the mutual relationship between sales performance, guest sentiment, and guest frequency. By using BBI’s Guest Intelligence and Financial Intelligence solutions, insights professionals can track key trends and advise restaurant departments on which goals they should set and the strategies they should use to best achieve them.

Restaurant Marketing KPIs

Consumer budgets are stretched just as thin as restaurant budgets. To reach new customers and keep old ones coming back, restaurant marketing teams have to think outside of the box. Having access to good data is an essential component to formulating the messaging and restaurant incentives that will attract guests and deliver a top-notch brand experience.

• What to Track: Restaurant marketing teams should be tracking comparative sales and traffic, check growth, and guest sentiment data for all key attributes. In a way similar to insights teams, marketing teams must understand the correlation between guest experience and sales performance. Both of these can be tracked and accessed using BBI’s Guest Intelligence and Financial Intelligence solutions in tandem.

Restaurant C-Suite KPIs

With so much uncertainty in the restaurant market going forward, C-suite execs have plenty over which they need to worry. According to The Conference Board, US CEOs are most concerned about labor challenges, rising inflation, and supply chain disruptions. Constantly monitoring these metrics can help ease executives’ minds by giving them more information regularly to ease their minds.

Additionally, as executives are the ones who set service metrics and restaurant goals for teams at the market level, it’s a good idea to have tools in place to monitor all of these restaurant metrics so they can set these restaurant goals accurately.

• What to Track: The C-suite should be tracking all the KPIs they can: comp sales and traffic, wages, turnover, and guest intelligence. To get such an overhead view of restaurant industry insights, executives should be utilizing BBI’s Guest Intelligence, Financial Intelligence, and Workforce Intelligence tools to get a comprehensive overview of restaurant KPIs and set restaurant goals so these metrics can be continually and proactively improved.

Restaurant Supplier KPIs

To better serve their clients, restaurant suppliers should begin to take on a more advisory role, notifying restaurants of supply chain issues and price hikes. To do this, restaurant suppliers need to understand the market forces that impact their customers and the industry at large.

• What to Track: Suppliers should monitor financial metrics, workforce data, and food and beverage trends. BBI’s Supplier Intelligence product provides industry-level data on sales, workforce, and consumer trends that puts suppliers in a position of knowledge about their customers, ultimately making them even more valuable to their clients.
  
  Additionally, BBI’s technology allows you to monitor new restaurant builds market share, and annual unit volume (AUV). Restaurant suppliers can view data broken out either by segment or by region for easier interpretation.

KPIs Can Help You Set and Achieve Restaurant Goals

Tracking restaurant KPIs is an excellent way for any part of a restaurant business to better set and achieve their restaurant goals. Starting with a technology that captures and displays data in a consumable and discernable way ensures a setup geared toward success.