A new recipe for success: Rosnet on the forefront of digital transformation in the restaurant industry

Sarah Schleusner
By Sarah Schleusner
Updated October 16, 2023

Restaurants have gone through a lot in the past three years: from the urgent pivot to exclusively takeout food in the height of the pandemic to the changing demands of diners. If eating out has changed for patrons, imagine how much it’s changed behind the scenes. “Operationally, many restaurants function differently than they did three years ago, with a greater reliance on technology integration…,” Hudson Riehle, economist for the National Restaurant Association recently commented

The essential role of digital transformation in the success of the food & beverage industry

In the face of prolonged staff shortages, economic volatility, and inflation, restaurants are under pressure to innovate to stay profitable and in business. Profit margins are tight in this industry and the pandemic was a pivotal moment for many reasons. Franchise restaurants needed to quickly begin leveraging technology or run the risk of going out of business or being bought by a franchise group already using technology. 

There is almost no such thing as operating profitably on a hunch these days. Restaurateurs need the right technology, so they plan and execute correctly and don’t waste expensive resources that eat away at already tight profits. As with so many industries, actionable and accessible data will make or break even the most delicious restaurant. 

Ever wonder how restaurants are able to harness technology with dispersed teams and varying degrees of digital dexterity among employees? Rosnet’s comprehensive multi-restaurant data management solution handles labor and food management, as well as sales for some of America’s most beloved Quick Service, Fast Casual, and Family Dining franchises. Rosnet uses WalkMe’s digital adoption platform (DAP) as part of its product to enable the back office folks at these restaurants to fully use and therefore benefit from their platform without in-depth training or support calls. 

How does Rosnet help restaurants?

Rosnet is a full back of the house solution, complete with payroll, scheduling, vendor management, recommended ordering of ingredients and supplies, and more. It can tell restaurant managers how many servers need to be on the floor to accomplish a certain amount of sales, while tracking overtime and employee break rules. The platform measures, recommends, and therefore minimizes food waste while ensuring fresh ingredients are always on hand. 

We empower restaurants to be data driven in every way: from staff planning to managing profitability between locations. Our goal is to handle the behind the scenes planning of the restaurant business so that restaurant managers and staff can focus on providing their guests with an exceptional dining experience. Rosnet saves its customers on average 2% in annual expenses, which has a big impact on profitability. 

How does Rosnet use WalkMe? 

Rosnet uses WalkMe to provide white glove onboarding services and always-on in-app guidance to our clients at scale. As we grew, we wanted to provide the personalized onboarding experience that we’d always offered, but realized that it wasn’t scalable when you need to get restaurant managers and staff up to speed quickly at scale. 

WalkMe’s DAP enables us to provide customized on screen guidance to Rosnet’s end users for a personalized step-by-step experience as they complete common, critical tasks, while we gain aggregate user behavior analytics to continuously improve the user experience. Additionally, since we use WalkMe to deliver the ongoing assistance, we free our development resources and internal teams to focus on high-impact initiatives and enhancements that drive business outcomes for our customers. 

What have the results been?

Rosnet is now able to deploy features faster since WalkMe eliminates the need for training sessions as well as the confusion that comes with adding new features. Using WalkMe’s DAP, end user content and user interface changes can be updated quickly without having to wait for development cycles. The result is a better experience for our customers, while our development team is free to focus their efforts elsewhere. 

WalkMe has also shortened our ramp up time for managers using Rosnet. They can onboard in hours instead of days. In an industry with famously high turnover, this translates to tremendous value for our customers. 

Less experienced folks might be stepping up as managers – and we want to make sure that the transition into their role is seamless for the individuals, the business, and the diners. The shortened time-to-proficiency is accomplished without the Rosnet team having to spend time delivering one on one onboarding, which leaves us more time to focus on high-value work. 

We wanted our product to be so intuitive that it did not need training sessions and, together with WalkMe’s DAP capabilities, we have accomplished that. Regardless of one’s level of digital dexterity, anyone can open Rosnet on a tablet or computer and simply go through the steps needed to start managing a data-driven restaurant. 

We’ve seen millions of interactions between our end users and the WalkMe content – including walkthroughs, smart tips, and automation – we’ve built on top of our platform. WalkMe is ingrained in the day-to-day activity of Rosnet users. 

Our goal is to help our customers accomplish their business goals and provide the best possible dining experience to their guests. WalkMe has made our technology more accessible and easy to use, which brings our customers closer to their goals with less time spent figuring out technology and looking for information. 

Our customers get to spend the time saved doing the part of their jobs they love most – interacting with diners and staff and creating the kind of experience worth having again and again. We commit to be a partner of our restaurant clients and not just a vendor; we do this by providing them with the data and automation power to increase profits, which makes all the difference.  

Leveraging data, restaurants can increase profits while still giving diners precisely what they’re looking for. Rosnet offers up that data on a beautiful digital platter to restaurant managers, but they still need to understand how to access all of this data in order to put it to good use. 

WalkMe’s DAP has been a game changer because it makes Rosnet and all of the data and powerful functionality it enables accessible and approachable to anyone, regardless of their experience with digital technology. 

Sarah Schleusner
By Sarah Schleusner
Sarah is Training Operations Lead at Rosnet where she runs the strategy and implementation of all things digital adoption and training. Highly skilled in training, curriculum development, coaching, relationship building, and organizational development. Sarah brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to her leadership role at Rosnet. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Valparaiso University.