The Plant grew out of a desire to make it easy and affordable to eat delicious healthy local organic food. Their mission is to promote the well-being of people and planet, and provide an avenue to support healthy choices and sustainable practices. Everything they serve is made with exclusively 100% organic and local ingredients. The Plant’s menu is diverse, comprised largely of contemporary California cuisine and Asian inspired flavors. Designed and built using some of the greenest materials, The Plant supports lowering emissions and climate change. With six locations in the Bay Area, The Plant also provides catering and hosts private events.
Business Challenge
After opening just one location, the technology-savvy owners knew they needed to quickly graduate from timely and inefficient Excel spreadsheets to a web-based business intelligence solution. In June 2009, when planning for their second location, Management realized they needed access to more information on a timely basis.
The Solution
The Plant chose Ctuit RADAR as their web-based Business Intelligence solution to streamline operations, cut labor costs and track sales on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis. The Plant selected Ctuit for it’s intuitive nature and configurable modules that provided the growing chain with all of the information they needed, formatted in a way that made sense to their team. The results of using Ctuit Software were clear from implementation day, where they could identify issues with labor, costs or payroll in an automated and streamlined manner.
The Results
- The Plant has saved administrative costs by eliminating several people in Payroll and Operations due to the robust data provided by Ctuit and saving significant payroll expense dollars.
- The ability to push information out to the Managers in the field through Ctuit’s Manager Log gives The Plant a reliable and effective place to communicate to all stores and levels of management.
- The search capability on the Manager Log gives Management insight and control into their day-to-day operations. Daily entries on the Manager Log provide continuity, awareness and notifications so that there are no issues or questions on food quality, customer complaints, tardiness, etc.
- Positive Yelp reviews and Management kudos also get posted on this invaluable communication tool. Also, it is very helpful with staff appraisals and reviews.
- Ctuit’s Key Info module allows management to execute and manage targeted labor thresholds and monitor variances effectively and quickly.
- Administrative time spent on payroll has been cut dramatically with better insight into overtime and forgotten clock-outs by employees.
- Event Management is made simple with Ctuit as all users can see daily events and functions and The Plant can effectively manage people, time and client expectations.
- On The Fly, Ctuit’s mobile app, gives The Plant reassurance and flexibility to manage from any time and any place whilst having a web based tool to enhance their decision process.
“Ctuit is our Google,” states Mark Lewis, Founder and CEO of The Plant. He continues, “Ctuit lets us know what our business is, anytime, anyplace. We could not run our business without Ctuit.” He continues, “Ctuit makes it fun to manage a company versus tearing your hair out, trying to find numbers somewhere.”
About Ctuit Software
Ctuit Software Inc. was founded in San Rafael, California, in 2000 with a mission to develop and deliver Business Intelligence and Decision Support Infrastructure to the restaurant industry. Ctuit’s RADAR – extracts the critical data from sales, labor, and accounting that yields key intelligence upon which profitable business decisions are made. In addition, operational, financial and exception based reporting is available company-wide with the adoption of optional modules like GL Sales (financial reporting) Accounts Payable, Inventory, Recipe Management, Labor Scheduling and Event Management. With Ctuit RADAR – accounting, finance, marketing and operations departments can make changes to improve customer satisfaction, sales and margins. Ctuit Software is a private, employee owned company with its corporate office based in Novato, California. For more information, visit http://www.ctuit.com.
