MURTEC 2024: Looking Internally

Last week, we had the pleasure of showcasing Tab Commerce the MURTEC (Multi-Unit Restaurant Technology) Conference in Las Vegas.

As we spoke with dozens of restaurant operators managing anywhere from 2 to 1,000+ units, a key theme emerged as the focus for 2024: “Looking internally”.

Why?

As the pandemic has passed and revenue has stabilized, restaurant groups have finally had some breathing room to examine their engine rooms. Internal operations and efficiency have become a core focus.

On that note, we observed several exciting companies working in this space:

Hiring & Retention

The hiring market has softened a bit. Restaurants are now well-equipped with staff and have shifted their focus to retention and staff performance.

1. Pryze allows restaurant groups to automate & gamify rewards & recognition for employees.
2. Tiphaus helps restaurant groups to automate tip calculations and distributions for their workers.

Operational Efficiency

As the focus on margins grows, restaurant groups desire better output with equal or fewer resources. This is shown in new solutions focusing on giving operators more data to improve strategic decisions or automate certain tasks entirely with AI. 

1. Hellometer is innovating location-based efficiency through their Drive-Thru Timer & Dining Room Timer solutions.
2. Soundhound’s voice AI technology allows restaurants to build a custom voice assistant that handles 100% of phone calls.

Controlling Costs

Controlling costs was one of the biggest topics of the conference. From our conversations, groups are seeing a lot of opportunity, but also a lot of work to do, in their procurement practices. This is the case as the significant price inflation & increased volatility caused by the pandemic has yet to, and may never, subside.

We heard many stories of the expensive disconnect between finance & procurement, suboptimal approval and purchasing oversight, poor data, and several other costly issues. Groups that did 2023 purchasing audits often found $10s of thousands in excess spend and overcharges per location, but that only tells a part of the story.

In our view, this is the most underserved and the biggest opportunity for significant margin expansion. 

That's where Tab Commerce comes in.

We built Procurement Automation technology to make world-class restaurant procurement practices incredibly simple for restaurant groups of all sizes to adopt & benefit from without the cost or complexity.

We're the only platform to unify Procurement Automation right into the daily work of finance & operations in real-time - drastically improving areas like verifying supplier payments & rebate compliance.

The result we've seen from $100s of millions of restaurant purchases is a 5%+ reduction in total costs & 100% of purchasing errors eliminated.

Conclusion

Overall, we're very excited by these trends as they will undoubtedly result in stronger, more resilient, and higher-margin restaurant industry.

We’re also incredibly excited and grateful to be building the future of restaurant procurement alongside some incredible partners.

Stay tuned for several product announcements from us in the coming weeks.

Thanks to Restaurant Technology Network for having us out. We're already looking forward to next year.