Technology: An end to the paperchase?
Phil Mellows reports how new technologies can help reduce the burden of bureaucracy.
There is little need to tell pub operators about the increasing weight of bureaucracy, regulation and legislation bearing down on their businesses. The relicensing of the industry that is currently grinding painfully along only highlights the challenge now needed to be met to merely continue an existence in licensed retail. And that's before you've even tried to start selling any beer.
For pub groups faced with a multiplication of the process across their estates, licensing reform has also raised the question of whether there is any technology out there that can help - and the answer seems to be "yes".
Experts at business systems consultant K3 Landsteiner believe that the industry has to move fast if it's going to avoid being swamped by licensing bureaucracy and all the other demands the government is likely to impose.
"Government is increasingly willing to legislate around the area of licensing and the effects of UK drinking culture," explains the company's Tony Sparks. "If pubcos are going to respond to this without incurring additional costs they need to have an organised and structured approach. Good data management is critical to allow efficient administration and production of applications, renewals, objections and, most of all, analysis across the business to help make future decisions.
"Spiralling amounts of paperwork and bureaucracy could cause HQs to suffer from an overload of manual effort and administration.
"Time is running out and the government keeps adding legislation all the time," continues Tony. "Recycling is coming in 2006, then smoking laws and AWP legislation. If an HQ has already gathered the core information on its premises, 95 per cent of the information required for other legislation could be in place and easy to maintain.
"Disputes and disagreements between licensees and local government are on the increase, too. If HQs get their ducks in a row and have all the information at their fingertips they have a better chance of handling these issues."
The licence management system installed by K3 Landsteiner at Nottingham brewer Hardys & Hansons is already demonstrating benefits, according to Tony. To begin with, it's much faster. Because the information is stored electronically it can simply be copied onto the required forms.
"The work involved in manually collating the information required for one licence application could take two days," he says. "The cost of this is, firstly, the administration time, secondly, the completion of the forms and, thirdly, the possible penalties should an application not be submitted or renewed on time."
In contrast the Hardys & Hansons system has:
- Given the company simple and quick input screens to record premises and licensee information directly into its existing business system
- Automatically produced all 260 licensing applications to 46 different local authorities
- Automatically produced licensing advertisements
- Reduced the time it takes to produce an application from two days to less than half an hour
- Enabled the company to hold far more information on its premises and licensees than it has ever been able to before.
The information held in Hardys & Hansons' database has other uses, too. It affords the company a tighter control over pubs - the maintainance of bar, kitchen and cellar equipment, for instance, and the management of human resources.
Licensing management system benefits for pubcos
- Reduction of administration costs
- Reduction of time to produce applications
- Automatic production of renewals
- Electronic format - applications can be automatically sent to printers for production
- All the information at your fingertips
- Easy identification of interim/replacement licensees
- Swift categorisation of suitable candidates for new posts
- Flexible analysis of premises and licensees.
