The Effects of Use of Restaurant Management Systems Perceived by the Personnel According to Their Demographic Characteristics

Introduction

Today, the service industry is seen as one of the most important industries in terms of both developing and developed countries. On the other hand, restaurants are one of the biggest components of the service industry (Cavusoglu, 2019). Although restaurant businesses are mostly food and beverage businesses that have effects on the economy, society, and the environment, they are places that can offer food and drinks from different cultures, where customers can have a delicious lunch or dinner, and buy fast and quality service (Yüksel & Yüksel, 2003; McConnell Freeman, 2011). Since both products and services are produced in restaurants, the management and operation process has a very complex structure. This complex process increases the work stress and workload of managers and restaurant staff and also leads to possible malfunctions, mistakes, or financial losses (Memis Kocaman & Kocaman, 2014). Due to the manual execution of the whole process in traditional restaurant management, the time the customer spends in the enterprise increases in the process, consisting of pre-order, during the order, preparation of the order, service, additional requests, and payment of the bill. At the same time, this situation causes an increase in the workload for the restaurant staff and a slowdown in the speed of service (Saeed et al., 2016; Kumar & Varun, 2020). In addition, it reduces the time that the chef and manager/managers of the restaurant will devote to works other than operation monitoring and control. Again, it is difficult and time-consuming for senior managers to keep track of accounts, stock levels, and business sales as these are made manually. Furthermore, because regular and strict control cannot be performed, flexible and error-prone control is realized (Memis Kocaman & Kocaman, 2019). For this reason, it is thought that the management of the restaurants which continue to be operated using traditional methods is insufficient. Therefore, the goal of minimizing all human factor-based losses, fulfilling customer requests and demands quickly and accurately, and the desire to make a difference among the rivals in a competitive environment has led to the search for effective and efficient systems (Rajesh et al., 2015).

Today, with the rapid development of technology, restaurants' desire to use information systems effectively has become a necessity rather than an option (Laudon & Laudon, 2014). For this reason, it has become more important for businesses to use systems suitable for their internal performance and management to meet consumer demands and needs, survive in a competitive environment, and be successful in the sector (Al-Mamary et al., 2014). Various Restaurant Management Systems (RMSs) have been developed by many different individuals/companies by using the developing information technologies to meet these needs of restaurants. Although these systems have different features with respect to their hardware and software, they all provide to facilitate and systematize the work and processes related to operation and management in restaurants. RMSs are used for management processes, material requests and needs of restaurants to create appropriate invoicing reports, to carry out data flow completely and regularly, to meet demands of customers on time, to minimize waste and loss. With the developments in information technologies, RMSs are getting richer with more comprehensive and functional features day by day. These improvements include examples such as Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), Point-of-Sale (POS), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Near Field Communication (NFC) sensors, Wireless Fidelity (WI-FI), cloud technology, big data, Internet of Things (IoT) systems (Tripp & Vaszary, 2006; Cheong et al.,2010; Adeoye & Elegunde, 2012; Saeed et. al., 2016). This system is very beneficial in terms of facilitating the effectual performing of the management process from planning to assessment, increasing customer satisfaction and competitiveness, providing fast and accurate data flow, increasing profitability, and providing fast production and service (Memis Kocaman & Kocaman, 2014; Jakhete & Mankar, 2015).