Burger Food Group
- The Netherlands
- Oracle Hospitality MICROS Simphony POS
About Burger Food Group
With 23 restaurants, the Burger Food Group is Burger King‘s largest franchisee in the Netherlands. In peak season, the organization employs 750 to 800 people, of whom the majority works in the restaurants. ‘We have a flat organization with a small overhead of just 16 people’, says Patrick de Jong, Managing Director of Burger Food Group. ‘Our franchisor RBI provides us with many resources. Therefore, we don’t need to set up complete support departments. That’s the big advantage of franchising. It allows us to fully focus on the restaurant locations themselves and our operational excellence.‘
Patrick has been involved with Burger Food Group since September 2022. The major staff shortages and malaise during the covid period also had an impact on the Burger Food Group. ‘For us, 2023 was a year where we got things back on track. We made the switch to MICROS Simphony POS from Van Hessen, and our IT network underwent a major overhaul. Our focus for 2024 will be on fine-tuning’, Patrick indicates.
‘We are 100% committed to what we do best. And that’s grilling whoppers and selling delicious food’, says Patrick. ‘Our business is very dynamic which makes it lots of fun. The large influx creates a high turnover rate, which means that our operations need to be streamlined. Fortunately, we can rely on an excellent IT infrastructure. With MICROS Simphony POS, we have all the data at our fingertips, making it easier to manage to our organization.’
The roll out of MICROS Simphony POS
‘For 24 years we worked with MICROS POS. A few years ago, RBI, Burger King’s parent company, instructed us to move to another POS platform’, Mike Bodijn, IT manager at Burger Food Group explains. ‘Over time, I persisted to return to MICROS POS. And back to Van Hessen, the trusted IT organization I personally worked with for 26 years. We learned that Burger King locations in the USA also requested to return to MICROS. Thus, RBI included the cloud version MICROS Simphony POS into their program.
Van Hessen offered to install MICROS Simphony POS on our existing hardware. We wanted our stores to transition as soon as possible and at that point it was nice to keep costs somewhat under control. In close collaboration we set up a test environment and rolled out the system at Burger Food Group’s 23 locations.’
Mike also handles installations for other Burger King franchisees, and in close collaboration with Van Hessen he installed MICROS Simphony POS at 53 restaurant locations. ‘It was quite a big operation’, Mike states. ‘From planning, to scheduling and the actual roll-out. We joint forces and all was planned in good consultation. This allowed Van Hessen to deploy their resources at the right time and things to run smooth. It’s great to work with such a professional team and people you trust. Cause with such a complex roll-out, you always come across things you haven’t foreseen. It’s part of our job to search together for the best solutions.’
‘At the larger Burger Kings stores, we approached it as project-based installations‘, Patrick adds. ‘Our restaurant at Schiphol Airport is one of the biggest Burger King stores in the world. Changing IT system at such a crowded location can have a significant impact on operations and turnover. In the past 14 cashiers were taking orders at this store. Nowadays there are 14 kiosks where guests place orders themselves. When installing MICROS Simphony POS we needed downtime to be as short as possible and get up and running again quickly. Our restaurants are running on MICROS Simphony POS for a year now and it works like a charm.’
Connecting the dots' with seamless integrations
The Burger Food Group has successfully integrated several platforms with MICROS Simphony POS, like AFAS and order kiosks, making their IT run like clockwork. ‘Working with different systems means that you have to fine-tune on how data comes into play’, Patrick explains.
In particular, the order kiosks have become indispensable in Fastservice. ‘About 85% of the order taking is via kiosk and 5% of our guests place their order on the ordering platform Deliverect, all integrating with MICROS Simphony POS. Only in our Drives old-fashioned transactions are processed via the POS terminal’, says Patrick.
‘With the rollout of MICROS Simphony POS, we simultaneously implemented the Dynamic Service System (DSS) for product ticketing. Merging the DSS with the POS system was a requirement from RBI and therefore important to include in the process.’
The Dynamic Service System renders a process in which the order of the guest is split up per item, creating individual ticket labels for kitchen production. These labels are automatically sent to the specific kitchen printer where the food is prepared. When the item is ready, it’s individually labelled making it easier for the staff to collect the various items per order.
‘Soon we’ll replace our old terminals at some locations. We used to manage the hardware ourselves, but we prefer Van Hessen to take care of maintenance. This way, we get the service we need while Mike can manage the IT from the back office’, says Patrick.
Future proof
‘The future of fast-service is increasing automation’, Patrick expects. ‘With a POS system like MICROS Simphony we can optimize sales and steer the company on clear reports and insights.
On kitchen production there’s room for more automation, which actually comes down to robotics. The Burger King brand has a strong identity and is associated with homemade burgers even though our products are standardized. That might conflict with the use of robotics. However, it is just a matter of time that our burgers will be made by a robot. With the rising labour costs and staff shortages, our industry simply has no choice.
The past year and a half we made considerable steps forward. Our solid market position allows us to take on opportunities for growth, which means opening new locations. That’s why smart automation and a solid IT environment is so crucial. Cause in an ever-changing market, our organization wants to be on top of the facts.’
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