Mike McMinn, director of IT, Marston's
What has been the most important technological advance to your business in the last few years, and why?
I would say that it was probably the internet, and broadband in particular. It has given us a number of benefits, the first one being that it brings people closer to head office. Pubs use the same email system as everybody at head office, and they've got access to online facilities, such as end-of-week reporting, online ordering and food stocks from suppliers.
Equally, pubs can actually order online from some of our suppliers at the rates that we buy at as well. So they are getting the same sort of discounts as we get. That makes the relationship between us and the tenant or the freetrade customer a bit more valuable.
How important has EPoS become to unlocking a pub's business potential?
To be honest, I don't think it is important on its own. It certainly helps to report on the pub's performance and sales, but I don't think it actually opens up the business potential of the pub. I think that's down to the staff and the licensee. A good EPoS should allow the licensee to have more time to spend developing the business. It's sort of a roundabout way of looking at it - it does bring a benefit, but I think that on its own it's not so beneficial. It's just that it frees people to get on with other things.
What EPoS does your pubco use? Which of its features are the most important to a pub estate and how has the system developed over time?
We currently use EPoS from XN Checkout, which we have developed quite a bit over time. Where it has developed for us is in the back office, which has been integrated more with our business intelligence software. So we are actually able to get fairly detailed information available for those who need it.
Which business intelligence system do you use? How far does it integrate into your other software packages and do you plan to integrate it further?
We have a number of SAP products and we use their business intelligence module, which is called BW. That is completely integrated with everything else that we do, and we will continue to use that in the future, and we are starting to push that information out to PDAs and mobile devices so the sales force can use it. So more information is coming from the business intelligence suite, and we will continue to move it out over the course of the next 12 months. We've already started to do that in the tenancy division of the pub company.
What technologies are lacking in pubs and could they cause the trade to fall behind other industries? Which areas are you hoping to invest in?
I don't think anything is lacking, or falling behind. I think that to a certain extent, the pub trade has woken up to the possibilities, whereas the feeling in the past was that the trade was taking a while to catch up.
We are going to continue investing in the areas where we can make the licensees' lives easier. I think that's really the most important thing, because if we can do that they've got more time to spend in the bar. That's why we've moved onto online ordering, because instead of waiting for a telesales call on a pre-programmed time of the day, they can go online and order when it suits them.
