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The Irish hospitality industry includes clubs, pubs, bars, restaurants, cafes, hotels, lounges, and resorts. While each sector has its own ups and downs, challenges, workarounds, and opportunities, there are certain challenges common to all.

With over two decades in the industry, we at Hospitality Partners have identified the five most common mistakes made by hospitality businesses in Ireland that are the root cause of their failure.

In this blog, we will share the five most common mistakes in the hospitality industry in Ireland and how to overcome them.

No Stocktaking

Many hospitality businesses do not conduct regular stocktakes because they think it is a waste of time. While stocktaking is time-consuming and somewhat boring, it is also crucial.

In its essence, a stocktake will reveal your gross profit margin, help you with menu pricing, and minimise stock wastage. Without stocktaking, you will have no idea where the problem lies in your business.

Regardless of size, every hospitality business must track and manage its stock levels to have an intricate understanding of its gross profit margin.

Also, remember that simply investing in a POS system is not enough – you need professional stocktakers to measure variables missed by your POS system and ensure no mismatch by physically counting stocks.

High Staff Wages

The hospitality industry often struggles with balancing quality service with the cost of wages. After stock costs, staff wages are the second biggest cost factor that must be controlled. Without checking your wage structure, you can incur significant losses due to taxes, work covers, bonuses, etc.

To address this challenge, you must have the right wages to balance sales across different departments of your business, such as kitchen staff, serving staff, security, entertainment zones, etc.

One way to address this challenge is to calculate wages payable to staff and then compare them against your expected revenue during a period (month, quarterly, semi-annually). If the wages exceed expected revenues, it is time to rethink your wage structure.

In an industry where revenues are unpredictable, effective planning and wage management can help you achieve profitability.

Poor Customer Service

Excellent customer service is as important as taking control of your inventory. Poorly trained staff or bad practices can deter potential and actual customers and lead them to competitors. Bad customer service is also highly damaging to your business reputation.

Implement proper staff training modules to ensure seamless guest management, especially during peak hours. Properly serving customers will improve their experience and your brand equity.

As a hospitality business, you should also listen to customer concerns and their feedback. This will make your patrons feel valuable and help you identify consumer behaviour and areas of improvement.

Lack of Property Maintenance

This is the fourth mistake made by hospitality businesses. Not keeping their premises up-to-date can lead to immense customer dissatisfaction and sudden, unforeseen expenses.

As experienced hospitality consultants, we always advise our clients to invest in their property. It is best to keep a part of your budget aside for repairs, refurbishments, and maintenance.

Remember, businesses that invest in their establishment are more likely to sustain profits than those that do not.

Lack of Safety Checks

Finally, we arrive at one of the most basic yet overlooked loss-inducing aspects of the hospitality industry. Businesses that do not pay heed to safety checks on their premises are prone to risks like staff and guest accidents, property damage, and compliance issues.

Irish labour laws are stringent, and failure to address safety hazards can invite fines and penalties.

Apart from these, it will also amplify a bad reputation for your business, especially if a guest gets injured.

Need Hospitality Consulting Services? We are Here to Help.

So there you go. Avoid these 5 mistakes, and your business can improve profits and thrive. If you find it hard to refine your operations, train staff, manage inventory, or any other aspects of your business, call Hospitality Partners.

We offer full-service consultancy to hospitality businesses of all sizes. Our goal is to empower our clients become revenue-focused without sacrificing customer experience.

Get in touch with us today to learn how we can help your business achieve long-term profitability.

Stocktaking is the process of taking control of your inventory. It includes a calculation of the stocks you have in-store and comparing them against inventory records. This comparison is compiled in a report that tells you the quantity of stocks you have on your shelves, their value, and compares them with previous inventory records.

Businesses that do not have a large volume of stock mostly conduct an end-of-year stocktake. Many other establishments avoid stocktaking more often because they have a notion that stocktaking requires a lot of after hours and results in business disruption.

An inventory control software can speed the process up and eliminate manual counting to an extent – but it may miss intricacies that a professional stocktaker will not.

In this article, we will talk about how a Stocktaking can increase gross profits, reduce stock loss, and minimise losses for your hospitality business.

Why Stocktaking is Essential for the Hospitality Industry?

Regular stocktaking helps you keep track of inventory accurately, including what has been sold, and those in transit from suppliers. The purpose of stocktaking is to compare physical stocks with reports to identify discrepancies. Determining stock wastage or loss will then paint the complete picture of what inventory has been sold, what has been wasted, and what has been given away as complimentary.

If the stocktake reveals a significant discrepancy, it may be symptomatic of a larger issue like employee theft or shrinkage. Once you identify the cause of the mismatch, you can address the issue by improving security, refining processes, or renegotiating with the supplier.

The Benefits of Stocktaking for Hospitality Businesses

There are several critical reasons why a stocktake is important for your hospitality business.

• Assess Stock Demand

Stocktaking helps in measuring demand for each item in your store. This helps analyse which stocks are performing better than others and facilitates informed decisions making for business owners.

• Prevent Overstocking & Stockouts

Any discrepancy that shows excess or low stocks is a problem for your business. Stocktaking increases the efficiency of stock forecasting and ordering to minimise losses and increase profit per product.

• Stay Updated with Stock Prices

Regular stocktakes will keep you informed regarding current stock prices and help you identify when they creep up. This data will further assist you in pricing menu items correctly to prevent losses.

• Prevent Employee Theft

Conducting regular stocktakes will uncover employee theft within your business, which can be eliminated with proper security measures.

• Manage Complete Inventory Lifecycle

The same-day reports furnished by our stocktakers will reveal the cost of stocks that you must buy, their selling price, and the number of stocks on-site. This will help you improve the profit margin on each item and achieve your gross profit goals.

• Menu Pricing 

With accurate data on the cost of procuring raw materials and taxation, a stocktake will help you price your menu items to maintain profitability.

• Achieve KPIs

Meet all key performance indicators by identifying why your business falls short of the target and addressing those challenges with a stocktake.

• Prevent Stock Loss

Stocktakes will identify all perishable items and their expiry to optimise stock rotation and prevent losses.

• Discover Dead Stocks

With regular stocktakes, you can identify whether a particular item is low in demand or has seasonal sales. This will help you make informed decisions regarding which items to stock and when.

Achieve Profitability & Business Success with Hospitality Partners

Regular stocktakes become a necessity for businesses with high volume trade, especially hospitality ventures. Without a consistent foresight of stocks, hotels, bars, and nightclubs can incur losses on items that are difficult to identify without an inventory count.

At Hospitality Partners, we will take stock of your inventory to help you minimise stock losses and achieve maximum profit per item. Overall, you can trust our stocktakers to manage your inventory and provide consulting services to confer a competitive advantage to your hospitality business.

Hotel consultancy services are aimed at helping hospitality businesses enhance profits and minimise losses. It is indeed an engaging, rewarding, and intricate job that helps hotels improve operations and services, which ultimately enhances their profits.

Hospitality consultants perform diverse tasks to improve their client’s bottom line. They use their skills and extensive experience to perform multi-faceted roles. Read on to learn what hotel consultancy is and the role of hotel consultants.

What does Hotel Consultancy Include?

Hospitality consultants perform dynamic roles, including:

Revenue Management

Revenue management is essentially helping a hospitality business maximise its earnings. It includes analysing past patterns, forecasting demand, cash flow management, and reporting on performance over a specific period. Overall, it is about planning revenue generation for the hospitality business strategically to help it grow.

Financial Consulting

Financial consulting is a part of hospitality consulting. It is not the same as demand forecasting – rather more financial-centric. The consultant will build financial models for new services or projects, undertake comprehensive market analysis to understand the financial ecosystem, and take the lead on financial audits to know about the company’s monetary health.

Management

Management consultants essentially take the responsibility of optimising the management of their client’s business. They will refine processes and streamline workflows to improve business performance and profitability. Because management consulting largely pertains to human resources, the consultants may also lead recruitment and retention.

Digital Transformation & Technology Consulting

A major part of hospitality consulting is the technology used by large hotels. A consultant should have sound knowledge of all IT systems used by the business in their daily operations, including inventory management systems. They may have to introduce new software to maximise efficiency and keep internal practices precise and up-to-date. In addition, the consultant may also have to undertake training programs to help employees learn about new technologies and IT systems.

Marketing

Marketing is what makes a business tick. The hospitality consultant may be required to create marketing strategies, both online and offline. They may have to ideate with the marketing team to devise marketing campaigns based on buyer persona and target niche relevant audiences. Another major aspect of marketing is real-time data. The consultant will analyse marketing performance and adjust strategy to ensure maximum engagement and conversions.

Ancillary Functions

Hospitality consultants are trained to handle almost every aspect of a hospitality business. It may include refining security in the establishment, analysing supply chains for food and beverage pricing, monitoring employees for efficiency and identifying potential theft or inefficiency, tracking and controlling inventory, and much more.

Trust Experienced Consultants with your Hospitality Business

At Hospitality Partners, we have seasoned consultants who have sound knowledge and can expertly advise on every aspect of your hospitality business. We have mastered finance, marketing, business management, inventory control, economics, and consumer insights to confer an edge to our clients.

Excellent communication, problem-solving skills, and an intuitive learning ability are hallmarks of our hospitality consultants. Get in touch with Hospitality Partners to learn more about how we can boost your profits and leave every customer satisfied.

Stocktaking is the process of manually checking all inventory records that a business currently possesses. It is not only a vital component of inventory management but will also affect your pricing, orders, and sales. Stocktaking may vary from one business to another, but is important for every business establishment nonetheless.

Do not be mistaken by its name – stocktaking covers a wider spectrum than just stock control. All inventory needed by your business should be included in the stocktake. For instance, if you’re a food business, you would also want to record the materials used to create the final product. Running out of these materials is similar, or worse, than running out of stocks.

Why are Stocktakes Important?

Food & beverage business, hospitality ventures, and almost all product-based businesses must ensure complete stock rotation with profitability on each product sold. If you are not doing it already, here are three reasons why you should regularly conduct a stocktake:

• Tracking Inventory Efficiently

While inventory management systems can help in stock control, relying on them for accurate stocktaking is not a good idea. By comparing your inventory levels at hand and figures from the stocktake, you can identify discrepancies and fix them before they turn into losses. Any mismatch will also indicate poor inventory management practices in your establishment. If you do not pay heed and overhaul practices, it may lead to major issues such as stock loss, overstocking, or running out of stocks.

• Identify Issues in Stock Control

Product-based businesses often face issues missed by inventory management systems. Theft, pilferage, and missing orders may be a one-off, but recurring issues may indicate a deeper flaw that must be rectified at the earliest.

• Minimise Losses

When it comes to business profitability, you would not risk leaving anything to chance. Calculating figures like inventory turnover, periodic revenue, and profit margin on each product requires precise figures, which are accurately revealed by stocktaking.

How to Stocktake?

There are a few steps essential to stocktaking, including measures before, during, and after the count. Let us take a look at each in detail:

• Before Stocktaking

Stocktaking is time-consuming, so you must set a date and time for the count. It is highly recommended to halt operations or conduct a stocktake after business hours to ensure minimal disruptions. Any unnecessary disruption may lead to inaccurate figures.

• During the Stocktake

During the stocktake, you must ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible. While the chosen method of stocktaking may differ, there are a few basic things to keep in mind. Firstly, include every item on your shelf and storage space. Counting stocks manually can be tiresome, but doing things hastily may result in costly mistakes. So make sure to check everything properly for the best results.

• After the Stocktake 

Once the count is complete, make sure you record the exact numbers in your inventory management systems. If you encounter a discrepancy, even excess stocks, take steps to address the issue and prevent future recurrences.

The first thing to do is to identify the cause of the mismatch. It may be as simple as a human error or a serious one like theft or supplier issues. Once you understand the cause of the discrepancy, it’s time to rectify it. This may include optimising processes, changing software, or installing additional security measures in your establishment.

How Often Should You Stocktake?

The frequency of stocktaking depends on your inventory & sales volume. The exact answer varies from one business to another, depending on the complexity of your inventory, the method chosen, and various other external factors.

But bear in mind how much time you can afford until your next counting, how often you need accurate figures, and the disruption to your business. Stocktakes can be conducted weekly, fortnightly, or monthly.

Schedule a Stocktaking with the Experts

Hospitality Partners has experienced stocktakers who understand complex business and accounting systems. We will conduct accurate and expedited stocktaking services to help your business minimise stock loss, maximise profits, and meet business goals.

Call us for any queries that you may have regarding stocktaking.

Beverage stocktaking is critical to hospitality businesses’ profits. The Irish food & beverage industry faces persistent challenges of excess or shortage of stocks. Periodic stocktaking can address these challenges and help increase profitability on every item.

While real-time tracking through inventory management systems, proper staff training, and historical data analysis are standard operating procedures, the Irish hospitality industry can present complex problems that require comprehensive measures & maneuverability.

Below, we have listed the major challenges faced in beverage stocktaking at Irish hotels, restaurants, bars and banquets. After each challenge, we have also listed solutions to overcome issues of inventory loss, fluctuating costs, and stocktaking inefficiencies.

 

The Problem: Loss of Inventory

Issues like beverage shrinkage, inventory loss, and counting errors may lead to discrepancies between actual stocks and sales records. These differences, however small, can be frustrating for the leadership and lead to persistent losses.

Large hospitality ventures like hotels particularly face this problem. With multiple locations like bars, restaurants, and kitchens, coordinating accurate beverage stock levels without inventory loss can be extremely difficult. Ultimately, diminished stocks will reduce the margin on each product and affect the overall profitability of the business.

Inventory loss may occur due to theft, mishandling, or calculating errors. Whether due to high turnover or temporary staff, with proper beverage stocktaking practices and accurate inventory management systems, businesses can overcome this challenge.

 

The Solution: Track Analytics with Real-time Inventory Management Systems

Inventory management systems provide real-time and current visibility of actual stock levels. Consistently monitoring beverage stock levels helps beverage businesses to identify and address discrepancies.

These software tracks and reports stock levels across various locations, helping managers to identify cases of stock loss, take measures to improve stock utilisation, minimise wastage, and reduce losses.

Another significant advantage of inventory management systems is that they analyse past stock levels and the causes behind under-stocking or over-stocking. Decision-makers can review historical data and spot patterns that contribute to inventory wastage. Armed with this data, beverage businesses can make informed decisions and implement better practices to eliminate inventory loss.

The Problem: Administrative Errors

Pubs that do not rely on inventory management systems rely on manual counting to assess inventory. As with any other clerical role, manually counting stocks has a high probability of errors and can be very time consuming. Things get more complicated for high-volume beverage businesses who have to conduct manual to-the-tenth counts.

Large orders during special events can also be stressful without an automated system. The pressure to balance the right inventory levels with speed of service can become too much and may increase the chances of inventory errors.

 

The Solution: Implement Scanning Systems & Training Programs

Modern point-of-sale systems have built-in scanners and inventory management features to speed up the stock measuring process. These systems provide accurate records much faster than manual counting.

Next, the importance of training your servers, kitchen staff, and bartenders cannot be overstated. Proper training of staff can help them identify and fill in the blanks while counting inventory.

Assess the current capabilities of your employees and create specific training courses based on goals. These goals should align with the overall challenges and goals of your hospitality business.

Here are some ways you can improve inventory counting efficiency:

• Train Employees on methods that analyse physical counts with system records for accurate and quick recording of stocks
• Encourage employees to document and report damage, losses, or missing stocks immediately
• Streamline stock counting with a standard procedure for consistency
• Take employee inputs, feedback, and recommendations to improve workflow.

The Problem: Fluctuations in Demand

Beer, wine, and hot drinks are the most popular beverages in Ireland. Apart from these, non-alcoholic beers are also on the rise. Together, the Irish beverage industry is expected to achieve $10.4 billion dollars in sales by 2026. However, this is not a linear demand curve and tends to fluctuate considerably.

Inventory levels also tend to fluctuate considerably during live events or high-rush periods. While automated systems can keep stock counters accurate and up-to-date, such a dynamic demand can make restocking a challenge and affect operations.

Persistent inaccuracies may cause overstocking and capital loss on unsold items. On the other side of the spectrum, ‘playing safe’ may lead to understocking and the business will be unable to fulfill consumer demand.

 

The Solution: Add Cloud-based Automation Systems

Cloud-based automation systems can optimise inventory counting and predictive precision to achieve the right balance between demand and stock levels.

The Problem: Rising Costs

Beverages have high material costs that can eat away the profits of a hospitality business if stock levels are not maintained adequately. It may become difficult for managers to price products competitively without affecting profitability.

In the beverage industry, businesses have to purchase inventory at scale to achieve profitability. Thus, the price of the bar and restaurant hinders the budget for the actual event itself.

Beverage businesses often overprice products to overcome the challenge of high costs, leaving their customers unsatisfied and losing them to competitors.

 

The Solution: Identify & Target Buyer Persona

Analysing your target market and buyer persona to prepare your beverage menu can prevent excessive stocking, losses, and high costs. By narrowing down on past trends and current buyer behavior, beverage businesses can keep prices reasonable and attract more buyers.

When you know what drives your buyer’s decision, you can also create offers that focus on bulk sales with better pricing. Buying stocks in bulk will foster a healthy relationship with suppliers, leading to long-term contracts.

Once again, an inventory management system can help you analyse current and historical data, forecast demand, and reduce upfront costs to eliminate stock outs or over-stocking.

 

The All-in-one Solution

Inventory loss, administrative errors, fluctuating demand, and high costs are challenges that every beverage business faces, and there is a single solution that takes away the stress of stock management – regular beverage stocktakes by  professional stocktakers.

At Hospitality Partners, we conduct regular and accurate stocktakes for food and beverage businesses to streamline and simplify their beverage management process. Our professional stocktakers will align your ordered and actual stock levels, implement measures to minimise stock loss and theft, and train employees on best stock management practices to benefit your bottom line.