“Tech reduces the burden of daily work, giving our staff more time to do what they love most.” Robert James Greller is Head of Digital at Peter Pane Burgergrill & Bar, a much-loved hamburger restaurant with over 50 locations in Germany.
And he’s a badass at his job.
During covid, Robert managed to set up a basic online sales channel in a matter of days. They were fully operational the second the lockdowns hit.
Today, the off-premise channel is a robust revenue generator. And Robert not only takes on IT duties but also e-commerce and marketing. 🏋️
Robert’s vision of digital transformation is: it should create a comfortable work environment for our teams.
2 events prove his vision is spot-on:
1️⃣ The first: a tour of the Peter Pane restaurants.
The insight: “so many things need to work together to create a great atmosphere – temperature, music, scent dispensers. Operators don’t always have time because they are serving customers.” Robert installed sensors and monitoring tools, creating less worry for the employees.
2️⃣ The second: a question he asked their best performing operator: “What do you do to achieve great results week after week.”
The answer was surprisingly simple: “I do exactly what the concept guidelines say I should do.”
A powerful statement and proof that the Peter Pane concept is solid as a rock.
Considering these two events: Robert says: “We are building towards a data-driven organisation with a centralised approach to running our restaurants.”
3 factors impact progress:
🏎️ Accelerator: “Integrations are key. The more we can integrate systems, the more we empower our employees.”
🫡 Adoption: “UX is essential. We should only build things that are so easy to use; anyone can do it.”
🥊 Challenges: “The mindsets of vendors and operators differ at times. I see this becoming a problem in the future.”
“My strategy is to implement an API-driven IT architecture so that we can use our data in the best way possible for us. Some vendors, on the other hand, want to build everything themselves and not integrate.
They want to build the iPhone AND all the apps, so to speak. That makes things extremely complicated.”
