TGI Friday’s

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TGI Friday’s

Fujitsu worked closely in partnership with Whitbread Plc and MICROS to deliver a solution that fits the bespoke requirements of TGI Friday’s.

Customers Challenge

TGI Friday’s currently operates 47 restaurants in the UK, under licence by Whitbread Plc. It is the world’s largest TGI Friday’s business outside North America.

The chain prides itself on offering a unique dining experience and enjoys a reputation as the party restaurant of choice.

As a result of the increasingly competitive restaurant marketplace, TGI Friday’s needed to find an innovative solution to differentiate its offer, whilst delivering increased productivity and reduced restaurant costs and food prices.

Staff interaction with customers is a fundamental part of the unique experience offered by TGI Friday’s, so it was essential that any solution should facilitate this. James Jackson, Head of IT Systems at Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants comments: “The store transformation programme needed to focus on four critical drivers: guest satisfaction; dwell time; capacity and productivity.”

Fujitsu Solution

Fujitsu Services worked in partnership with MICROS and Whitbread to deliver a solution that has set a new standard in food service automation.

Fujitsu was awarded the contract to implement and support B-Pad, a hand-held terminal, running Mobile MICROS software.

The terminals allow staff to process customer orders and payment from one single device, maximising the time available for interaction with the customer.

The solution captures orders at the tableside and sends them to the bar or kitchen via the Radio Frequency network.

This means less time involved in walking between table and fixed tills to enter orders already captured on paper, significantly impacting on productivity in front of house.

The system also enables the staff to process the transaction and print the receipts without leaving the tableside, again reducing customer dwell time.

Benefits to our Customer

A number of benefits have been delivered to TGI Friday’s:

• Enhanced productivity – waiter/waitress time to enter and process orders is reduced, with orders sent to the kitchen via the Radio Frequency network. This has resulted in an increase in covers per man hour worked of 1.8
• Improved customer service – by increasing the time staff are able to spend on the restaurant floor amongst the customers
• Increased customer satisfaction – the hand-held ordering and payment devices have delivered seamless processing, minimising customer dwell times
• Higher seating capacity – through a reduction in the number of fixed tills required in the restaurants
• Increased revenue – by providing waiters/waitresses with information via B-Pad to up-sell products, delivering a 1.73% improvement in food and drink margins to-date

Our Approach

Fujitsu worked closely in partnership with Whitbread Plc and MICROS to deliver a solution that fits the bespoke requirements of TGI Friday’s.

Support for the B-Pad terminals is provided on an on-going basis by Fujitsu.

Our Expertise

Fujitsu has over 30 years’ experience integrating in-store IT services with supply chain and optimising IT infrastructures.