Summing It Up Catering software can lend an extra hand by automating many essential activities performed by an exective chef or catering director. Software programs can interface easily with other operational systems throughout the club or resort. Make a list of key features that are most important for you. Then, research software providers thoroughly before making a commitment to buy. Learning a new program can be daunting and time-consuming—at first. But eventually, catering software can pay off by eliminating operational inefficiencies. Before receiving approval to buy catering software, food and beverage managers must be prepared to present clear benefits to their properties’ ownership and directors.

Catering software can help lend a lot of “extra hands” in the kitchen.

Steven Leviton, Food and Beverage Director and Head Chef at Briarwood Country Club in Deerfield, Ill. (a suburb of Chicago), realized about three years ago that he needed a new software system, especially for the catering side of his operation. The old program that Briarwood was using required too many steps and hindered responsiveness for all phases of a catering job, from proposals to invoicing. Leviton wanted a system that would be easier to use, provide a better interface with other club software, and, most of all, offer the ability to make changes and access information more quickly.

After talking with people in the industry and doing online research, Leviton chose a system that can not only create proposals and invoices quickly, but also offers built-in e-mail and faxing capabilities, which help get details into clients’ hands in a more timely fashion. The new system also helps Leviton plan and document event details more efficiently, by allowing all event and menu histories to be transferred automatically to the next year’s calendar. Using previous or similar events as a starting point, the staff can easily make changes and edits according to the new client’s specific needs, without starting from scratch.

“The biggest benefit to me is time,” Leviton says. “[The new system] gives me time to get back to my staff and members, which is the most important part of my job. I don’t want to have to be behind a desk.”

Making Technology Handier
Eric Hyde also knows how much time a specialized software system can save. After using programs in several other food and beverage management positions at hotels, Hyde now hopes to implement a new system at Quail Creek Country Club in Naples, Fla., where he recently became Food and Beverage Director.

Currently, Quail Creek operates using Microsoft Word and Excel spreadsheets, as well as manual inventory counts, to manage its F&B business. In addition to finding software that will integrate easily with the club’s main system and help with back-of-the-house catering issues, Hyde also sees the potential to execute banquets more efficiently, by equipping the dining room staff with hand-held electronic devices.

“Basically, one of the main things I’d like to see is help in getting checks to customers faster,” he says. “When you have a cocktail reception with 300 guests on separate checks and all with different servers, you don’t want to make them sign a check every time they get a drink.”

The club’s IT Manager is currently looking into various software packages, with the hope of getting something in place for next season. Beyond efficiencies in generating multiple checks, Hyde says ease of use and inventory control functionalities are also at the top of his wish list for the new system.

Tried-and-True Benefits
Both Leviton and Hyde know from experience that getting the go-ahead to invest in the technology that can help their catering and F&B?operations isn’t easy (see box below). They also know that perseverance and persuasiveness can lead to potentially huge payoffs—not just by dropping dollars to the bottom line, but also by enhancing staff performance and morale.

New software has helped everyone on Briarwood CC’s F&B Staff get out from behind their desks and focus on meeting members’ needs.

The people benefits to be gained are brought to light by the experience of the Du Pont Country Club in Wilmington, Del. (part of the Du Pont Hospitality Group, which includes a hotel and a country club). The Du Pont staff has now used catering management software for over 20 years. When the club first implemented the system, though, no one in the catering office even used a computer. The club’s catering business was truly a manual operation, with staff members jotting down notes from their discussions with customers and maintaining paper files for all of their events.

Once the new system was installed, it didn’t take long for the club’s catering department to see how big of a difference automating their activities could make, reports Andrea Hagelstein, Sales Catering Director.

“We were all intimidated at first, but we quickly saw it wasn’t that bad,” she says. “We had one-hour training classes a few times a week, and had a manual we could follow. After a few weeks, we all felt comfortable with the system.”

As it has many times since that initial implementation, the club will soon undertake a new training course for the software’s latest upgrade. Whether automating for the first time or getting ready to upgrade, Hagelstein recommends making a list of the important things that the new or improved software should do.

“Be aware of your organization and what its current needs are, and also look ahead to your needs in the future,” she says.

One of the most valuable features of her club’s system, Hagelstein adds, has been its ability to customize certain features. Because Du Pont can run events at two locations—the clubhouse or a mansion on the premises—it has found value in being able to run separate reports for each venue, instead of using a standard revenue report. The software also allows reports to be sorted quickly and easily by account name or event types, and enables searches for specific menu items, to see how often they have been ordered in a given month or year.

Does Not Compete
Even with these examples and many others like them now coming on stream, the use of catering and foodservice management software remains a relatively new phenomenon in the club and resort industry. A surprisingly large number of operations still rely on paper files or Microsoft Word and Excel programs to manually track inventory, create proposals, and manage budgets.

That’s going to have to change, experts feel, for any operation that’s serious about increasing its catering business. According to Michael Roman, President of Catersource, a culinary education company based in Chicago, the catering industry now brings in $18 billion annually—a figure that has doubled just over the last three years.

While many clubs and resorts have caught on that catering can be a great profit center, so too have universities and a host of other institutional and commercial competitors. Any property that wants to stay in the game will have to rely more heavily on technology, to free up its staff from the burdens of managing larger volumes of inventory, recipes, orders and
all of the other aspects of event planning and execution.

Du Pont CC’s Catering Sales Director Andrea Hagelstein (left) review details of an event generated by the club’s

But, the good news is that user input on earlier versions of catering software has led to enhancements that now automate many of the administrative activities previously performed by executive chefs and catering directors, such as costing food items and menus, writing proposals, working with food equipment sheets and controlling food and labor costs. Today’s programs can automatically generate a shopping list, pull prices for certain menu items to help with budgeting or costing, do nutritional analyses, transfer information from menu histories and past years’ calendars and keep track of inventory and recipes.

Clubs will get the best return on their technology investment, industry experts advise, when they take an active role in determining what they need and, then, clearly communicate those needs to software vendors. But, Roman, of Catersource, stresses the important of doing a lot of research to find out all you can about a software provider before buying anything.

“Talk to people who have used the system,” he advises. “Search online for complaints, and find out about all the extra charges for support and technical issues.”

Restoring the Human Touch
Once the right mix of features and benefits is achieved, technology can be a huge help towards reducing the time chefs spend on non-production activities (currently estimated as 15 percent of their overall time), so they can concentrate on what they do best: developing creative menus and ensuring the delivery of top-quality food.

At the same time, catering directors can actually focus on spending less time doing paperwork, and more on meeting with clients and working with them to ensure the best possible event experience.

After all, while there are many efficiencies a software system can provide, a computer can never replace the importance of face-to-face relationships—the very foundation of the hospitality industry.

“As a catering department, we still need to connect with our customers,” reminds Hagelstein. “Computers should be off to the side during customer meetings and only used to check space or enter information. You should never let it take the place of eye contact and interaction.”

 

Getting Management To Push The Button Eric Hyde, Food and Beverage Director, Quail Creek Country Club. Because the club and resort industry overall has been slow to adopt new technologies, one of the biggest tasks facing managers who want to automate is how to convince owners and directors to get—and stay—on board for implementing needed systems and upgrades. This can be especially challenging in areas like F&B that have traditionally been viewed as cost centers, or break-even operations at best. To help show how Briarwood Country Club would benefit from a new system, F&B Director and Head Chef Steven Leviton had upper-level management, along with staff, observe vendors’ demonstrations as various software options were assessed. This not only yielded valuable feedback from those who would use the system, it also helped management touch and see the tangible values of automation. “[Management] knew our business had increased and that we needed some more help,” Leviton says. Letting everyone see for themselves what benefits could be gained, he says, ultimately made getting the go-ahead to purchase what was deemed to be the best system much less of a hard sell. Management, in fact, left many of the final decisions, such as how many users would be authorized, up to Leviton. Eric Hyde, Food and Beverage Director at Quail Creek Country Club in Naples, Fla., is now in the process of researching different software options to present to his upper-level management. A House Committee, followed by the full Board of Directors, will have to sign off on the software that he and the club’s IT manager ultimately recommend. Hyde stresses the importance of talking with people elsewhere in the industry about their experiences, in order to present a clear and practical picture of how a club can benefit from the technology. “We know [the Board] will be interested in the billing cycle, the manhours involved, and the efficiencies provided, so we are researching a lot of systems and getting testimonials about how they’ve improved operations like ours,” he says.