The consumer data that Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) will eventually be able to generate from the roll out of its new £33m IT system could prove to be a game changer for the company, according to chief executive Alistair Darby.
The group will complete the roll out of Zonal-led system to all of its c1,600-strong estate by FY2015, with the bulk of the roll out will be done this year. The roll out to its entire Harvester-branded chain has already been completed.
Darby told M&C Report: “What we want to do is be in a position where we have a much more elegant solution to interacting with the four million customers who have given us their details. They have given us their details and we know what their regular pub is. The question is how do we bring that to life so that you can have a personal relationship when you come into our pubs. I think the breakout in digital interaction is likely to come when we speed up in FY 2015. That will have a big impact straight away.
“This is about updating an entire pub system’s infrastructure. At the front end you have much better tills, fast handhelds and faster payment systems, which increase speed of service, but that is only the tip of iceberg.
“We are now eight weeks into the new year and we are at 320 pubs, and are set to roll out to 25-30 pubs a week. We should have broken the back of the roll out this financial year. We are doing brand by brand starting with Harvester and then O’Neills and so on. In terms of all the web enablement that will be at the back end of the project. Most of the resource at present is getting the roll out down successfully. Third stage will be right now we have a complete platform then we can get into web enable.
“Zonal has done a superb job for us. The thing that has been great about this project is, one we had no major issues because the pilot, which we worked hard on, was so good, and two, when things do go wrong, Zonal and the team we have got, get on the problem really fast, the solution comes in very quickly. The pubs are saying this is fantastic, you have given me faster tills, end-of-day closedown is faster, kitchen management systems are great, the back office till works at lightning speed rather than taking three hours.”
