Ever wondered why your team members keep missing critical restaurant workflow operation processes? The answer, 6 times out of 10, is that you don’t have an optimized business process flow.
Running a successful restaurant business depends on how well your team can understand the restaurant operation process. One way to do this is by implementing a business flow process for every work activity.
Processes can make or break your business, it's that simple. An inefficient business process can disrupt or slow down the way you do business. Ultimately, you begin to lose money and see a reduction in high ROI.
The right business process flow for your restaurant business will help to improve the process of getting work done. Creating a business process can aid in identifying optimization opportunities easily.
Let’s discuss how creating business process flows will optimize your business productivity. In this article, you’ll learn how to build a business process flow for your restaurant. However, let’s start with the basics - ‘what is a business process flow?’
What Is a Business Process Flow?
A business process flow is the step-by-step actions taken by team members to achieve a goal. Documenting processes make it possible to represent the components of different activities in a business process flowchart.
In addition, a process flow helps every member of your team to visualize actions and standard operations. Understanding of the processes involved in a task or workflow will increase the efficiency of performance.
Having process flows for all kinds of workflows makes process automation possible. For instance, employees can reference a business process flow diagram when working on unfamiliar processes.
You can choose the outcome of different workflow processes and add it to business process diagrams. Internal processes like employee onboarding and inventory management process can be done in standardized approaches.
There are different types of business processes within an organization. Each process has its workflow. For a successful business process improvement, you need to create a flow chart for each process.
Utilizing power apps and eCommerce automation software will make it easier to automate specific business processes-see our eCommerce business guide to learn more. There is a need to understand the types of business processes within your restaurant business.
3 Types of Business Processes
Effective restaurant business process management is centered on how you balance and manage these three types of business processes;
- Operational Processes
These are primary processes that are time-sensitive and have a direct effect on the business. Operational processes are critical to the daily running of your restaurant business.
In addition, operational processes are needed to make revenue for the business. Examples of an operational business process will be invoice management and manufacturing inventory management.
- Management Processes
Management processes include processes like infrastructure management, warehouse layout design, and selecting the POS system features. These processes are dependent on the decisions of the restaurant management team.
- Supporting Processes
Business processes that serve as a backbone to operational processes. Supporting processes are not directly involved in delivering products or services to customers.
However, these processes make it possible to run operations and management business processes.
4 Business Process Examples and Automation Ideas
Here are some examples of restaurant business processes and ideas on how to automate them.
Order Management Process
Order management is one of the core operational processes of any restaurant. This process is important in sales and order fulfillment.
Balancing your order management process with other business processes will help avoid overstocking and other stock issues.
Automation Ideas
- You can automate the entire process using order management software.
Restaurant Inventory Management Process
Inventory management makes it easier to monitor your supplies and is important for efficient business systems. Tracking your inventory is crucial to the success of your business process flow.
Even though conducting an inventory audit takes time and is difficult, some steps can be automated.
Automation Ideas
- Using the right Restaurant inventory software will help keep track of restaurant operations
Warehouse Management Process
Warehouse management systems can quickly and effectively analyze warehouse data to find inventory shortages and highlight critical needs. Automating this business process will lead to the successful management of warehouse resources.
Automation Ideas
- Warehouse system management software automates and streamlines warehouse operations.
Restaurant Management Process
Basic restaurant operations can be tedious without a business process flow. Daily activities like order fulfillment, customer service management, and contactless payments can be automated using workflow diagrams. These are all stable, long-term solutions along the lines of direct to consumer trends.
Automation Ideas
- You can automate your restaurant operations with a restaurant management system.
- Implementing trending restaurant tech into your business processes will help with automation.
How Can Business Process Optimization Help Businesses?
Optimizing your business processes will increase the efficiency of your restaurant business workflow. Business process mapping and automation can be the single most important factor in keeping your business ahead of the competition.
Here are some of the benefits of business process flow optimization and automation:
- Market adherence
- Streamlined processes
- Lower risks
- Properly used resources
- Consistency
- Assured quality
- Complete end-to-end visibility
How to Create Business Process Flow Chart
A business process flow chart is a diagrammatic representation of your business process modeling. In addition, business process flow charts are used to map out your restaurant's business processes and simplify complicated procedures.
What is the best practice for making an efficient flow chart? Creating a flow chart of a business process is simpler than you might imagine.
Let’s look at the design process outline;
- Select a business process.
- Visualize the workflow.
- Determine the workflow steps.
- Create the workflow diagrams.
- Put the flow chart diagram into action.
- Set KPIs and goals.
- Monitor and adjust.
- Rinse and repeat.
However, if you are not all for the long procedure of creating a process flow chart from scratch, you can use a business process flow chart template. Most flow chart templates come in an editable format. So, you can easily fill out your workflow and unique business operations in the template.
Frequently Asked Questions About Business Process Flow
What is the Difference Between a Process Flow and a Workflow?
Business process flow vs workflow sound similar and most times are used interchangeably. However, they mean different things.
Workflow is the series of actions taken to complete a task from start to finish. On the other hand, a process flow is a sequence of steps taken to achieve an organizational objective.
Both definitions seem similar, but there are differences. Workflows are tools and technologies that allow the flow of activity documents from one point to another.
A process flow is a cumulation of multiple workflows to achieve a business goal. In context, a workflow accomplishes a task, while a business process flow achieves a goal.
What are the Basic Workflow in the Restaurant?
The basic workflow in a restaurant includes processes that allow for the smooth running of daily operations. In addition, the workflow depends on the business process in question.
For instance, the workflow for a restaurant inventory management process is different from the one for a warehouse management process. There are also basic kitchen operations and workflows.
Some of the basic workflows in a restaurant are;
- Order fulfillment
- Payment process
- Employee training
- Food preparation
- Customer service
What are Key Business Processes?
Key business processes are process flows that have a direct impact on your business growth and revenue generation. Most key business processes fall under the following categories;
- Customer service management
- Service and product delivery
- Product management
- Marketing and sales
- Business development
To Make it Clear
Business process flows can make or break any restaurant business. Creating automated workflow processes will increase work efficiency and scale up your business.
You can create a business process flow chart and consider various business automation tools. The result will be a fully optimized business process and increased returns on investment.