You want a back office that goes beyond reporting on your business KPIs, one that enables your people to not just manage your business but drive its success.
Fast-growing Wendy’s franchisee Stonewall Road Restaurant Group wanted to standardize on one Back Office application system-wide. They turned to Xenial Back Office. Its robust features, easy customizability, and timely, accurate data delivery easily meet stringent Wendy’s requirements for a store back office management solution. Relying on this cloud-based, enterprise-ready solution, Stonewall Road is now poised and equipped for continued rapid growth.
Key Benefits include:
The Stonewall Road Restaurant Group keeps this mission top of mind: “To delight every customer, empower every employee, and build something great together.” Since its founding in 2017, the company’s rapid growth trajectory has been impressive. Stonewall Road Restaurant Group has grown from 11 restaurants in 2017 to 52 restaurants at the start of 2020. In fact, the company is a leader in terms of growth through acquisition and new store builds.
Glen Brandeburg, President, has worked in QSR for many years. Having spent 15 years with Wendy’s corporate, he now leads an organization growing through acquisitions and new restaurant development. Brandeburg is familiar with what works well — and what doesn’t — as far as back office applications, having worked with a number of different solutions throughout his career.
He also knows the havoc that can result when a franchisee changes back office systems. “One of the most disruptive things you can do to a quick serve restaurant is to change the back office,” he says. In less than three years, Stonewall has completed four different acquisitions of Wendy’s restaurant, all of which leveraged different back office platforms.
Wendy’s has very specific requirements for reporting and other aspects of store management. “Meeting these requirements requires a robust, modern back office,” remarks Brandeburg. “Older solutions are not only difficult to use or lacking in features; they simply don’t meet the minimum requirements that Wendy’s has for a back office.”
When it came time for a back office upgrade, Brandeburg narrowed his options to two that were quite comparable in many ways. After careful consideration, he selected Xenial Back Office, formerly known as RTIconnect, citing these reasons:
“A back office system is an investment in your business and your people,” says Brandeburg. “I’m a believer in having a good back office system. You want a system that goes beyond reporting on your business KPIs, one that enables your people to not just manage your business but drive its success.”
In fact, this belief echoes the Stonewall Road company vision that ‘Every person coming into our organization has the autonomy to think like an owner and become a better version of his or her self.’
To support rapid and constant growth, Stonewall Road Restaurant Group needed a back office system that would scale from both a technology and service/support perspective. Xenial Back Office, because it’s a cloud-based solution backed by a solid 30+-year-old company fit these needs perfectly.
“It was obvious that Xenial Back Office had the solid, scalable technology. They also have the people resources to roll out, support, and service franchises on a large scale.”
- Glen Brandeburg, President,
Stonewall Road Restaurant Group
Although he finds it difficult to pin down a percentage point on the improvements, Brandeburg nevertheless attributes better labor and food cost controls to Xenial Back Office. “In the Texas market, for example, where we’ve run Xenial Back Office for the longest, I can say that our food and labor costs are comparable to or better than those at similar stores operated by our peers.”
With labor, Brandeburg finds the ability to manage labor hour by hour rather than by shift to be a game changer. “Xenial Back Office helps us predict labor costs with greater accuracy,” he says. “Near-real-time data means we can make adjustments as needed, in a timely fashion, and the result is lower labor costs and therefore better profits.”
Brandeburg wanted a tool that would be user friendly and robust that would enable him and managers at all levels to customize dashboards and reports to work the way they (and their stores) work.
“The transition to Xenial Back Office has been easier than expected. It’s easy to learn, has a highly intuitive interface, and gives us up-to-the-minute near-real-time data,” says Brandeburg. “Among the groups I work most closely with, directors of operations, district managers and general managers, there have been no complaints. In fact, their feedback on Xenial Back Office has been overwhelmingly positive.”
“Because the data we’re seeing is always near-real-time, rather than a couple days or a week old, we can act and react in a timely fashion which is essential in our business,” comments Brandeburg.
“With other systems, I frequently questioned both timeliness and accuracy of data. Not so with Xenial Back Office.”
Xenial Back Office has actually helped Stonewall Road institute and reinforce franchise business best practices. “People now simply see this new way as ‘how we do business’, says Brandeburg. “Xenial Back Office and the standard operating procedures it reinforces are now part of our DNA.”
With the ability to create and automatically push out daily recaps using Xenial Back Office, the Stonewall Road management team can easily track results against goals. “Xenial Back Office provided all the data and functionality our team needed to build out our scorecards,” says Brandeburg. “It helps us with the ‘Five C’s’ that keep us on a positive profit growth trajectory: communicate, challenge, create competition, and continuously improve.”
Brandeburg has a view of Xenial that his leadership shares, stating:
“We have an excellent relationship with Xenial. We don’t see Xenial as a vendor. We sincerely see them as a partner. Support needs have been a non-issue and customer service has been very good.”
Three business partners joined forces to create Stonewall Road Restaurant Group in 2017: Nick Rhoads, Nate Hamilton and Glen Brandeburg. Nick and Nate left jobs in New York’s financial sector to open and operate Wendy’s franchises. Learn more about the company on LinkedIn. Or you can learn more about becoming a Wendy’s franchisee.
Xenial Back Office (formerly RTIconnect) helps enterprise restaurants cut the fat out of food and labor costs, unleash up-to-the-minute insights, and supersize profits. Bottom line? Restaurants that run Xenial Back Office run better.
Contact us today to learn more or request a demo.