In a restaurant, forecasting uses data to predict how much the company can expect in sales over a given period of time. At the macroeconomic level, sales forecasting helps a company set growth objectives and determine its overall profits and revenues. At the microeconomic level, forecasting helps a restaurant plan inventory orders and how many employees need to work each shift to prepare and sell food. An inaccurate sales forecast can result in a waste of funds on labor, inventory, and even restaurant operating expenses.
Traditional restaurant sales forecasting involves analyzing past sales and predicting future sales based on information collected. Once you have an idea of the sales forecast for a given day of the week, you can plan all your variable costs based on it. These include ordering inventory, preparing food, and scheduling staff. Good weather tends to boost restaurant business, while bad weather (cold, extreme heat, rain, snow, etc.) If you are in an area that has all four seasons, you should consider the weather forecast in your financial forecast.
Changes in supply and demand for various foods can cause you to put your sales forecast back on the drawing board. Machine learning allows Tenzo to take into account many more factors and millions of more data points when creating a forecast than a human forecaster could. After completing each sales forecast, set it aside and review it again after the time period is over to see how accurate the sales forecasts and inventory projections are. Forecasting based on historical data can provide information about your two most important costs, food and labor, and help you make essential decisions about where and when to allocate your resources.
If you are forecasting the sales of a restaurant that you have been managing for a few years, you already have historical data that will help you plan the forecast for your restaurant. Here, the authors try to explain the potential of forecasting to managers, paying special attention to the sales forecast of Corning Glass Works products, as they have matured throughout the product life cycle. Forecasting won't generate perfectly accurate results every day, but forecasting for restaurants is vital to recognizing trends and responding proactively. You can improve the level of accuracy of your forecasts over time by correctly comparing the estimated sales forecast with actual sales, identifying any discrepancies and taking them into account for your next forecast.
In this post, we'll show you everything you need to know about forecasting sales in restaurants, from the reasons to make forecasts to the steps to create accurate forecasts and what you should consider when making forecasts for your restaurant. Tenzo forecasts tend to reduce the forecast error by 30 to 50% compared to traditional four-week averages. In addition, Tenzo not only provides an overall forecast for the day as would an average of four weeks, but it also forecasts every one-hour interval. Both the director and the forecaster have a role to play in the selection of the technique; and the better they understand the range of forecasting possibilities, the more likely a company's foresight efforts are to bear fruit.
