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Tech Trends
September 2004
How 'Hot' Are Your Hammers?
I remember when the Point-of-Sale System
(P.O.S.) was being spun up as the ultimate control device. You'd never
have to worry about merchandise being rung up anymore! You could track
each server's or salesperson's transactions and balance out sales with end
of shift turn-ins of cash and credit card vouchers. Voila! As a manager
you would just have to 'do your job, run the place.' The system would take
care of control issues.
P.O.S. systems have been greatly enhanced
over the years with touch screens, remote order takers, remote printers,
table managers and much more to facilitate control. We certainly get great
reports that provide insights into the business. I particularly like the
time clock/labor features, which track your hourly productivity in real
time and prompt you to send staff home during slow periods. You can then
adjust your next schedule based upon actual sales trends. That's all good
stuff. But there's one factor that no amount of technology seems able to
thwart: The Hammer!
What's a Hammer? It's someone who takes
it as a personal challenge to 'beat a system.' These are the forerunners
and companions of today's Internet Hackers and Spammers. They just haven't
met a system they can't beat. And they are relentless. It's like being
'one-up on the establishment.' How can I put one over on these guys? That
really means how can I rip them off without being caught?
How do they do it? They figure out a way
to turn system around on the company. I just learned about a new way to
bring a Hammer down by catching him at his own game. This is not the
ultimate solution (We'd be kidding ourselves if we ever thought that way!)
but it's another way to improve our losses due to employee theft--the
greatest cause of high food and beverage costs, unfortunately.
Paul Leveque and his associates at
www.InsightCommander.com
have developed proprietary technology that 'watches' and synchronizes the
transactions being registered with videos of servers, bartenders, etc. who
are registering the transactions. These are then bumped up against normal
standards and a 'watcher' is prompted when there are exceptions. Paul gave
me an example that drove the point home.
After this system was installed at a
restaurant, a 'watcher' was prompted when a server registered an average
of 27 waters during several shifts. The standard number was five. The
system initiated an e-mail to the owner-manager's PC and the owner was
able to bring up on-line video of the server registering the transactions
at the bar and picking up Coronas, not water! It turned out this trusted
employee had been doing this for three years! Of course, the bartender was
complicit as well.
When I told a colleague about this, he
said: 'Man, that's just stupid. Aren't the managers checking tickets and
reconciling what's on the ticket with what's on the table?' Get real!
That's a nice theory if you run your restaurant from behind a desk, but
out in the real world running a shift can be like trying to get across the
swamp with alligators chasing your butt. Good managers do spot checks when
they can. But, one key element of being a successful Hammer is gaining the
trust of management. How often do you check behind the people you trust? I
always found when security told me they had a thief dead to rights it was
the person I least suspected.
This seems like a good tool to me, but
why not check it out yourself by visiting their web site? Since this is a
start-up, their services are regional. Meanwhile, this puts a whole new
spin on 'Big Brother' is watching. Maybe this will cool down a few hot
Hammers? On the other hand, this may just be one more system to beat.
Bio:
Peter Langlois is founder of
www.RestaurantU.com: Tools of the
Trade for Business, for School, for Free!, co-editor of Weekly Restaurant
Connections (e-Newsletter):
www.wrcnewsletter.com, Instructor, The Art Institute of
Houston-Culinary, and Management, Marketing and e-business Facilitator at
The University of Phoenix (Houston). Langlois is also a Malcolm Baldrige
2004 Examiner. He has a Political Science degree from Michigan State
University (Modern International Chinese Relations) and an M.B.A from the
University of Houston (Marketing and Business Strategies). A detailed CV
outlining his hospitality career is available on both web sites.
Contact information: 832.860.5595 or
peter@wt.net
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