Charles Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities – It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light and it was the season of darkness.
This quote is very apt as I think about the Foodservice industry today. As a sales person, you are dealing with a fast changing and increasingly complex business environment with a constantly evolving operator landscape, and fast changing consumer tastes and preferences. On top of that, the line between retail and out-of-home is blurring.
As a sales or account management professional, you need to act on multiple fronts at the same time and faster than ever. Whether it is identifying “win-win-win” pockets of profitable growth at current accounts or prioritizing competitive accounts where you have a better than fair chance of winning or keeping on trend as consumers and their tastes evolve quickly.
Every sales person today is trying to be nimble, innovative and forward looking – but what do we typically provide them? – a deluge of incomprehensible data, tools that serve the senior management rather than help the front-line sales team and training whose impact lasts a week at best.
What is a sales leader to do in such circumstances? They can either stare at the problem, hoping that eventually it goes away, or take advantage of all the changes and be the leader that makes hay while everyone else is running scared. The question is how to do that.
The solution to this complex problem is to provide your sales and account management team with a user-friendly data-driven action recommendation platform. A leading Foodservice company did exactly this and the results speak for themselves – a 3% increase in volume for top 50 QSR chains (quick service restaurants), net revenue up by $60M and gross profit increase of $30M.
Additional Reading
In case you are interested in deeper reading, here are a couple articles published recently that touch on these issues and trends:
- Published in Total Food Service: Why AI Can Lead To A Dynamic And Smarter Restaurant Industry
- Published in Restaurant Dive: Faster, Better, Smarter: Why Restaurants Need AI Now