Feeding the Algorithm: How Restaurants Capture Competitive
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Feeding the Algorithm How Restaurants Use Data to Capture Competitive Advantage The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a global management consulting firm and the world’s leading advisor on business strategy. We partner with clients from the private, public, and not-for- profit sectors in all regions to identify their highest-value opportunities, address their most critical challenges, and transform their enterprises. Our customized approach combines deep insight into the dynamics of companies and markets with close collaboration at all levels of the client organization. This ensures that our clients achieve sustainable competitive advantage, build more capable organizations, and secure lasting results. Founded in 1963, BCG is a private company with offices in more than 90 cities in 50 countries. For more information, please visit bcg.com. Feeding the Algorithm How Restaurants Use Data to Capture Competitive Advantage Dylan Bolden, Mary Martin, Amanda Luther, and Patrick Hadlock November 2018 AT A GLANCE While most restaurants today recognize that data should be a source of value, relatively few take full advantage of it. This represents a big opportunity for brands that move fast and a threat to those that delay. Data, Data, Everywhere A confluence of factors has led to a fundamental change in how restaurants source, analyze, and ultimately use data. We have identified more than 50 commercial, operations, and corporate use cases that can deliver both top- and bottom-line value. Plenty of Pitfalls Most brands recognize the power of data, but they often get mired in false starts, which can be strategic, technological, or organizational. How Leaders Move Up the Maturity Curve Leaders begin by defining their vision for data, linked to the brand’s overall strategy. They then systematically pursue lighthouse analytics use cases aligned with this vision, and they ensure sustained success by embedding data and analytics in their organizations and ways of working. Feeding the Algorithm dvanced analytics, powered by a variety of data sources, are transforming Aindustry after industry, from technology to financial services to industrial goods. With a few notable exceptions, however, restaurants have been slower to move—which is ironic considering the amount of data that restaurant brands have available and the range of ways that they can put it to use. BCG’s 2018 digital maturity survey of top restaurant brands found that four in five brands can access a wealth of data from multiple sources, but only one in five has in place a comprehensive big data strategy, an integrated customer master data set that the entire organization can access, or the ability to use predictive analytics algo- rithms to drive business decisions automatically. Not a single brand self-identified as fluent in advanced analytics techniques such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, chatbots, or voice-enabled ordering. This is a big opportunity for the brands that move fast. We’ve seen data and analyt- ics programs yield 5% to 10% increases in revenue, 10% to 15% reductions in store- level operating costs, and 10% to 20% improvements in EBITDA. An even more sig- nificant development: digital leaders’ total shareholder return over the past three years has outpaced that of other restaurants by 12 percentage points and has almost doubled that of the S&P 500. (See Exhibit 1.) As notable as these results are, the threat to restaurant companies that move slowly may be more important. Because many advanced analytics tools require training, Brands that delay and because the data used in training can be proprietary or usurped by aggregators could find themselves (as can technical talent), brands that build early leads in advanced analytics capa- on the losing side of bilities will be difficult for others to catch. Brands that delay could find themselves the digital divide. on the losing side of the data divide. Most restaurant companies are attacking pieces of the data puzzle. Here is how leaders are moving fast to put the full puzzle together. Digital Disruption Intensifies In our 2017 restaurant industry report, we detailed how digital technologies are dis- rupting every segment of the restaurant value chain. The disruptive forces include in-store technologies, new consumer interfaces, and third-party insurgents, such as digitally enabled delivery services and aggregators. The emergence of advanced technologies such as AI will further redefine the way brands interact with con- sumers, as well as the sources of competitive advantage. (See The New Digital Reality The Boston Consulting Group 3 Exhibit 1 | Digital Restaurant Leaders Have Outperformed the S&P Median on TSR Three-year annualized TSR for restaurant brands (%) 19 S&P median (10%) 7 5 4 Digital leader Digital performer Digital literate Digital passive (Best-in-class digital usage) (Advanced digital usage) (Basic or intermediate (Limited digital usage) digital usage) Sources: Capital IQ; BCG consumer research; BCG analysis. Note: TSR percentages for restaurant brands are categorized by digital maturity level, gauged on the basis of self-assessment and digital channel penetration. TSR = Total shareholder return for competitive set, calculated from June 2015 to June 2018. for Restaurants, BCG Focus, November 2017.) As we predicted, the disruptive forces have only accelerated in the past 12 months. Aggregators continue to make inroads. From June 2016 to June 2018, restaurant deliv- ery mobile app sessions increased by almost 400%, with the biggest increases accru- ing to aggregators. (See Exhibit 2.) Uber Eats is gaining traction especially quickly. Its business grew 20-fold over that period, and the dollar value of the meals that it delivers already exceeds $6 billion on an annual basis—more than the sales of the US’s largest pizza brand. (See the sidebar, “How Data Powers Delivery for Uber Eats,” on page 6.) Meanwhile, loyalty programs, another contributor to digital disruption, continue to build membership. US restaurant loyalty programs now have a combined 130 million members, more than double their 2015 level, making dining the fastest-growing indus try for loyalty programs. More than two-thirds of restaurant users are members of at least one such program, and 25% cite membership in three or more programs. Customers’ expectations for the digital experience keep rising as well. Four in five restaurant app users cite ease of ordering as the app’s most important attribute. The amount of time customers expect to devote to placing an order has fallen from about 5.5 minutes in 2017 to about 3.5 minutes in 2018, primarily because of the proliferation of easy-to-use interfaces from aggregators and leading brands. One result is that customer retention has become a struggle: for most restaurant brands, the average percentage of people who remain active 30 days after downloading an app is only about 10%. That said, for brands that get it right, the rewards continue to be substantial: 40% of app users say that they increased their visit frequency after downloading the app, and we typically see an increase of from 10% to 30% in ticket size for digital orders, depending on the brand. Feeding the Algorithm Exhibit 2 | Top Aggregator Apps Growing Much Faster Than Restaurant Brand Apps Largest restaurant brand apps Largest aggregator apps Installed user base (millions) Installed user base (millions) 100 ~1.7X 100 76 57 63 ~5.0X 51 50 45 50 42 22 27 16 9 0 0 June Dec June Dec June June Dec June Dec June 2016 2016 2017 2017 2018 2016 2016 2017 2017 2018 Starbucks McDonald’s Domino’s Uber Eats DoorDash Grubhub Sources: SimilarWeb traffic report by brand, January 2017–May 2018; App Annie active user data, 2015–2018. As we documented last year, scale is becoming a prerequisite for many companies if they are to make the substantial investments they need in digital technologies and data and analytics. The industry has seen a flurry of acquisitions—more than $30 billion in M&A activity since the start of 2017. For example, JAB Holdings and Roark Capital have made a number of deals that added scale to their portfolios and digital and data know-how to their capabilities. JAB continues to snap up coffee and breakfast brands, including Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Krispy Kreme, Panera, Au Bon Pain, and Pret A Manger. Early in 2018, Roark Capital created Inspire Brands to combine Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Rusty Taco. It announced acquisition of the Sonic quick-serve chain in September 2018. Restaurant tech players are also seeking scale through M&A, with more than 20 deals announced over the past 18 months, including multiple technology acquisi- tions by Grubhub—among them, LevelUp and Tapingo. “I think a lot of the consoli- dation is driven by access to technology,” Wendy’s CEO Todd Penegor said recently. “In the technology world, information is everything—how do you better connect with consumers and change their behavior?” Data, Data, Everywhere One of the major consequences of this digital revolution is a fundamental change in how companies source, analyze, and ultimately use data. The underlying manage- ment challenges that face restaurant brands today haven’t changed: marketing the brand, optimizing labor productivity in the store, and managing the supply chain remain the same priorities they have always been. But digital technologies, particu- larly as they relate to data, have enabled new solutions to old problems; and for brands that embrace these capabilities, the technologies have empowered manag- ers to generate much greater value with their decisions and investments. Here are some of the major shifts that have occurred recently in the way that leading restau- rant brands think about data. The Boston Consulting Group 5 HOW DATA POWERS DELIVERY FOR UBER EATS Uber has applied a digital native’s Uber Eats broke the delivery process perspective to the problem of fast, down into its components—ordering, reliable, predictable restaurant meal preparing, picking up, transporting to delivery.