As the restaurant industry continues to evolve, so too must the technologies being used. We’ve seen the rise in popularity of all-in-one platforms, and they do offer many advantages such as a single platform, one bill to pay, and one system to learn and use. Sounds great, right? What if we told you that using an all-in-one platform may be holding back your organization’s progress? We’re going to explore a number of reasons why integrating multiple platforms may be more beneficial than using an all-in-one solution.

A jack of all trades, but a master of none

While having a single application or website to access for your restaurant management needs may be convenient, an all-in-one has to wear many hats in order to meet the demands of its users. While this may appear fine on the surface, development resources and manpower will need to be split among the different functional areas, meaning development in each area will be slower, and have less scope than a singularly focused application. In addition to development efforts, the support team will be required to learn multiple functional areas in order to facilitate the demands of their customer base. By using applications that have a singular focus, you’ll be able to access the full benefits of a development and suppor team who know that area inside and out. These systems don’t have to necessarily work on their own. By leveraging integrations between applications, you’ll be able to not only get the depth and expertise from each individual platform, but also the insights generated by the aggregation and analyzing of the data between all applicable sources. This also leads to further time and cost saving opportunities being uncovered, as the depth of knowledge is greater, so too will the opportunities available.

If one fails, they all fail

System outages and downtime for maintenance are an unfortunate but common occurence that plagues applications. By using an all-in-one solution, any outage or downtime can disrupt your entire operation from inventory and accounting, all the way to your POS system, briunging you to a dead halt. Using multiple systems that integrate with one another provides you with that unified system, but if any singular system were to go down, the other system were to go down, the other systems would continue to operate, causing only minor interruptions. That being said, if all systems do end up going down, you’ll know that no information was lost or missed during an integration sync. It’s a delicate balance to try and make and ultimately comes down to how your operations function. Are your software solutions so essential that if one or two functional areas go down in your restaurant you’ll grind to a halt, or do you have a manual system in place where, should your entire system go down, you’ll still be able to record your information and input it manually after service resumes?

Why is an all-in-one so much cheaper?

While you may look at the cost of all your individual platforms and think “Wow, that’s a lot!” and then compare it to the cost of a all-in-one solution, it may be a substantial difference; however, you also have to look at what you’re getting for that extra financial investment. For the depth of knowledge and insights provided, and the level of support provided in each functional earea, the individual solutions that integrate will provide better value; however, if you’re looking for convenience and don’t necessarily need or care about the depth of knowledge and insights provided, and are comfortable with general support, then an all-in-one platform may work for you.

Where do I go from here?

While we would like to say there is a definite answer to that question… there isn’t. Each organization has its own goals and constraints. If it’s money and time, an all-in-one solution may be best; however, if you’re looking for accurate and in-depth insights, and long-term cost saving opportunities, then a unified solution of multiple platforms integrated together may be the route for you.

Whichever decision you make, we are always here to provide you with answers to your food cost and restaurant management solutions.