Who we work with | Decision Logic
Helping Decision Logic Scale While Staying True to Its Restaurant Roots
Overview
Decision Logic was founded to empower restaurant operators with tools that could not only provide data instantly at the users’ fingertips, but also enable better business decisions.
Every day, restaurant chains and general managers are required to make quick, tough, and risky decisions. Within such a fast-paced environment, having accessible data is a must — yet restaurant operators often fall behind when it comes to data accessibility.
Decision Logic had long sought to provide a data-backed, systems-integrated solution to bridge this technology gap. But when it came time to scale the company, their leadership found themselves encountering friction they’d never before experienced.
In 2014, as their customer base grew and the need for more streamlined data operations became increasingly apparent, Decision Logic turned to Aviture for help scaling their business and providing additional app functionality and support for a new version of their software that would allow them to achieve unprecedented success.
The challenge
Decision Logic had long sought to provide a data-backed, systems-integrated solution to bridge the restaurant technology gap. But when it came time to scale the company, their leadership found themselves encountering friction they’d never before experienced.
The solution
Decision Logic turned to Aviture for help scaling their business and providing additional app functionality and support for a new version of their software that would allow them to achieve unprecedented success.
The outcome
Today, Decision Logic offers instant access to data, labor scheduling, line checking, inventory management, the Logic Shield PCI security system, and more. These tools create an all-in-one solution so restaurant operators can focus on providing the best experience for their customers.
In this case study, we’ll take a look at the challenges Decision Logic faced and how Aviture’s software consulting team helped their company grow and thrive. You’ll also see how both companies continue to work alongside each other to innovate new and exciting restaurant management technology.
The challenges
Before partnering with Aviture, Decision Logic found itself with five key dilemmas they needed to solve for:
Pre-Aviture:
- Dashboards based on archaic systems
- Software functionality incomplete; it also wasn’t “pretty” or user-friendly
- Inability to integrate with other restaurant operations software (i.e. POS systems, schedulers, etc.)
- Software updates were few and far between, leaving bugs to linger for too long
- Achieving growth while remaining true to core values
Let’s take a look at each of these in turn and explore how the Aviture team and solution set enabled Decision Logic to set the stage for dynamic growth.
If we would not have had Aviture and their influx of technology to catapult us into the 21st century, our product would have died, no doubt, within the last five years.
Mandi Wooledge
President and COO of Decision Logic
Core capabilities demonstrated
CONSULTING
& ASSESSMENT
CUSTOM
DEVELOPMENT
USER
ENGAGEMENT
SYSTEM
INTEGRATION
CLOUD/HYBRID
INTEGRATIONS
DATA
ENGINEERING
Decision Logic was literally building data from glorified Excel spreadsheets.
Mandi Wooledge
President and COO of Decision Logic
Challenge #1:
Dashboards based on archaic systems
The first connection between Aviture and Decision Logic came when the company realized they needed help with the visualization capabilities of their food usage and waste variance management systems.
This was at a time when many restaurants still relied heavily on a wide array of disparate documents to track their data, if it was being tracked at all. Decision Logic needed a better, more efficient way of taking the customer data out of manual systems like Excel and putting that data into a dashboard that was highly visual, with the user capable of seeing top-level insights at once and conducting a deep dive on more specific analytics.
The system was in place, but it wasn’t always easy to use.
“You had to dig and dig and dig in the data in order to get some of the information out about food waste, labor optimization, resource use, those sorts of things. Aviture came to the table to help us help our customers understand what they were looking at and where their problems were. That was actually our first connection between the two companies, just trying to get somebody who could help us with data visualization.”
Aviture’s consultants helped Decision Logic understand best practices of the user experience, drilling down on what’s important for managers and operators to find quickly. And perhaps even more importantly, Aviture’s engineers suggested changes to the system that were far more visually pleasing, something that’s critical during sales demos and for ongoing stickiness of the product.
“Aviture ensured that our users were able to see the impact of their decisions. A restaurant’s General Manager’s job is not to play with spreadsheets or dense reports. Their job is to manage staff and efficiency as well as curate an experience for guests. Aviture came up with dashboards centered on the personas of who uses the system and what they need to be aware of — and more importantly, what they can impact, so that GMs can pay attention to what is important and get back to work. Custom reports were something many of our clients needed, and we had specific criteria we had to meet. Namely, they had to be fast, exportable, printable, and include graphs. Aviture nailed it.”
This was the kind of visualization that previously wasn’t possible unless managers were willing to spend hours digging into the data and customizing their systems for display, and even then it left something to be desired, as quick pullout insights still weren’t possible.
Restaurants live in the margins; fluctuations of pennies on the dollar can be the difference between revenue and deficit, between profit and loss. Decision Logic’s newfound ability to display this information, incrementally, high-level, and on the fly, became instrumental for allowing managers to determine their margins and adjust as needed.
“Clients have been so impressed with the solving of real business problems, the tackling of industry standards and the overall ease of use. We consistently hear how this is such a cleaner, easier-to-use solution."
Aviture helped Decision Logic connect raw data to easily displayable insights that would let a restaurant operator make critical decisions on the fly. And that was only the beginning.
Decision Logic was complicated to use. Despite the value it provided to restaurant managers and the industry, it was like having a bookcase of encyclopedias — the information was there, but you had to go find what you were looking for.
John Barber
Decision Logic Co-Founder and Developer
Challenge #2:
Software functionality incomplete; it also wasn’t “pretty” or user-friendly
Aviture had helped Decision Logic more easily pull data into accessible dashboards for end users, but exploration and subsequent work on the product highlighted a host of other issues that needed to be solved for.
“Remember, when we did this in the beginning, restaurant managers typically did not get out of the restaurant until 3:30 or 4:30am. One of the first things Decision Logic addressed was getting people out around midnight.
Now that we had the foundation, we could look more closely at what else was possible.”
The success of their initial project showed that, with further adjustment, Decision Logic would be able to offer additional capabilities to customers that had previously only existed in so-called “blue sky” discussions.
“Aviture helped us put more into the product that our customers had been asking about. They streamlined so many things and gave the entire software design a big facelift, and then they added quite a few new features as well.”
Decision Logic had flirted with the creation of a scheduling system for restaurants to tap into to better plan labor hours, going so far as to work with a third party and launch a pilot project. But with Aviture now in the fold, executives halted development of the third-party add-on and restarted work on the labor scheduling product in a way that could be fully compatible with Decision Logic’s other solutions.
The result was a tool that intuitively displayed scheduled versus actual hours worked, helping restaurant operators better understand how to manage personnel at times of peak volume and plan for shortfalls in demand.
From there, Aviture set to work helping Decision Logic with a full suite of applications designed to solve for restaurant operations of all kinds: sales, accounting, ordering, PCI compliance (think consumer credit card protection) and other restaurant operations. Aviture also implemented predictive analytics to help with “out of bounds” data detection.
The increased insight, coupled with their already-robust data stream, allows the application to call attention to the most pressing needs and prompt managers to take the correct action.
At all times, the user experience was emphasized in order to ensure maximum efficiency and, to paraphrase Jim’s words, help managers get out of the restaurant at a reasonable hour.
“After working alongside Aviture and receiving access to various resources and a wide array of talent, we were able to transform our product from effective but complex to effective and easy to use for our customers.”
Today, Decision Logic uses data to help achieve cost savings in all aspects of the restaurant industry.
The Labor Scheduling tool allows managers to accurately staff locations to avoid over- or under-staffing.
“Labor Scheduler existed in our life prior to Aviture, but it was in a nearly unusable state. It was full of bugs and not operator-friendly. Our partnership with Aviture not only brought us a scheduler that operators enjoy using, but also has allowed us to win business away from the top players in that space.”
The Line Check feature ensures the food prep area is in compliance with all standards for food storage and preparation by integrating with Bluetooth probe thermometers.
“Line Check was a new feature created with Aviture. We are already on our second rendition of the solution and the feature is so much more robust and user-friendly!”
Mobile inventory and order tracking allow for quick access to data and reporting to make accurate decisions in real-time. And Recipe Book brings standardization to a notoriously difficult aspect of concept management, where bringing conformity to menu items across hundreds of locations is essential.
“Recipe Book was a feature that Aviture really brought to life. Our ability to scale measurements, manage recipes, and visualize recipes and deploy changes across an entire restaurant group was a hot ask that our customers needed. Aviture delivered this early on in the relationship and it’s only grown from there.”
By combining data from all of the above sources, Decision Logic can help restaurant managers and executives evaluate individual stores and create standardizations that allow for benchmarking against other locations and competition.
Challenge #3:
Inability to integrate with other restaurant operations software (i.e. POS systems, schedulers, etc.)
By defining roles for each type of user, as well as incorporating business rules and logic, we were able to provide insight into the data for various users. This increased their understanding and situational awareness of what was happening in their restaurants.
We also implemented predictive analytics to help with “out of bounds” data detection. The increased insight, coupled with the analytics, allows the application to call attention to the most pressing needs and prompts the managers to take the correct action.
Once we established the source of truth in the data, we were able to use our style guides to present the data consistently, improving user adoption and experience, and reducing training hours. This ensures that all managers have access to real-time data for events such as orders, current inventory, sales performance, and labor needs.
Decision Logic has been a true showcase of how to use data to drive decisions that result in proven ROI.
I think we were struggling to keep up with the pace of technological change while continuing to provide the service to our customers that they were expecting. We simply didn’t have the manpower to do both.
Jim Barber
Decision Logic Co-Founder and Developer
Challenge #4:
Software updates were few and far between, leaving bugs to linger for too long
With their data and customer acquisition strategy fleshed out, Decision Logic was finally in a position to accelerate product updates. The foundational elements of their software were in place, and this was the time where they could tackle bugs and iterate on the software based on user feedback and the evolving technology landscape.
“The move toward agile methodology made a big difference for us,” said John. “Aviture’s consulting team really helped us reduce the time it takes to release software to all our customers.”
“We changed from a waterfall model to an agile one contingent on shorter sprints. This model, which Aviture lives by, helped us to be more nimble, get feedback from clients and partners earlier, and release faster and with better quality and more adoption.”
Before, Decision Logic had to wait months to release any tweaks to the end product that would improve UI or UX. But now, those releases are coming out at a much quicker and more predictable pace, thanks in no small part to an emphasis on roadmapping and a repeatable framework that puts defined goals upfront. Aviture’s collaborative and holistic approach to problem-solving means new ideas and solutions can be fast-tracked, ensuring customers get immediate access to these features, allowing Decision Logic to stay competitive and remain on the cutting edge of restaurant IT.
“Our releases now happen overnight, they take much fewer resources, and are deployed in 15 to 30 minutes across all clients. Aviture brought new technology and coding language. They really helped to pull us up to the latest and greatest code.”
We wanted to keep the culture of Decision Logic as we scaled. We are a restaurant company that provides technology, not the other way around. Aviture understood that.
Mandi Wooledge
President and COO of Decision Logic
Challenge #5:
Achieving growth while remaining true to core values
Decision Logic had the tools in place to scale their business, but Mandi made it a key point to stay true to who they are as a company. Namely, they had their roots in the restaurant industry, with technology acting as an outgrowth of what general managers needed to do their jobs more effectively. It was this unique perspective that helped them stand out in the industry, and as they became more confident in their product, Mandi never wanted to lose sight of those core values.
“More than just technology, the difference that Aviture provided was the human factor. One of the things I always find so refreshing about Aviture is their approach, not only understanding what we're trying to accomplish and helping us take that moonshot, but to do it in a way where we never lose sight of the relationships that we’ve built.
Our customer service is five-star rated, people trust our client services team, our account managers, our salespeople, because we're very consultative, and Aviture is like that too. When we work with them, they’re always seeking to truly understand what we're trying to be as a company as well as what we’re up against.”
As a result, Decision Logic has grown in a way that uses relationships and problem-solving as a foundation, with technology used in service of those goals and never the other way around. They’ve continued to refine their core values to ensure team members are the right fit and will do everything they can to help customers with enabling software solutions.
Their core values today are:
- Challenge the Status Quo
- Do What’s Right
- Seek to Understand
- Be Better, Be Human, Give a Sh*t
- Make an Impact
Aviture provided the software expertise necessary to help Decision Logic scale intelligently, with those core values front and center. In this way, they’ve become a leading vendor of restaurant management software, with some of their largest franchises to date coming onboard in 2020 and Q1 of 2021.
"[Decision Logic's new app] is still the first thing I look at when I wake up in the morning."
“Decision Logic shows strength in technical aspects in relationship to our many integrations and partnerships. In true back-office purpose, they connect the pieces helping us get our systems talking to one another.”
"We love using Decision Logic because they take the time to understand our business needs and continue to evolve with not only our needs but industry needs, giving us a modern, cutting-edge solution."
“We are all still in the people business,” said Mandi. “If we don’t have that litmus test of our roots, we lose our audience real fast. You’ve got to have good technology to be that vendor of choice, and you’ve got to make technology work for those people. And we are on that trajectory because of Aviture.”
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