June 20, 2018
Who said whoppers can' t dance?
Qlever Tech, a provider of business intelligence (BI) systems on the Qlik platform, announces the completed transition to a flexible development methodology (Agile) for Burger King restaurant chain projects.
Starting from June 21, 2018 all tasks on development of Burger King restaurant chain business analytics system are managed according to Agile methodology. On June 20, 2018 the last of the projects for Burger King was completed, which was carried out according to the traditional development model of Waterfall.
The transition to flexible development methodology had started in May 2016 and was gradual. Work on those tasks that had already been launched or were planned earlier was carried out according to the traditional project management methodology, which is usually called Waterfall. This methodology is based on an accurate understanding of the project's outcome, and the project is broken down into stages or phases and their consistent execution leads to the planned outcome.
The cooperation between Qlever Tech and the restaurant chain started in July 2015 with a project that had to solve two tasks. Firstly, it was necessary to reduce the time of management reports generation. Secondly, a new architecture of BI system was required, which would allow to scale the solution - to start using it in different functional areas. Among such functional areas are HR, warehouse management, marketing, restaurant equipment technical support.
In 2015, there were about 300 Burger King restaurants in Russia and about 1500 cash desks, respectively.Created as part of a new project BI-application took 5 minutes to unload all data from the database R-Keeper (R-Keeper receives data from the cash register), 25 minutes for data aggregation and 30 minutes to combine data learned from R-Keeper with data from Axapta (Axapta stores information about the state of the warehouse, the personnel, financial plans). A BI user could then immediately receive any report. Today Burger King uses 46 business intelligence applications on the QlikView platform, which span different functional areas of the restaurant chain.
The main result of the first stage of the transition to a flexible methodology of BI project management, which started in 2016, was that restaurant managers got access to objective and visual data about their work. As a result, their involvement in management processes increased. It took several minutes to generate analytical reports throughout the chain. This made it possible to send out reports for the past day before each of the teleconferences, which are held daily and involve Burger King managers, regional managers and restaurant directors.
"People see what's going on in their restaurant and what's in the next one. A new incentive and motivation to work better appear," says Maxim Sharapov, Director of Information Systems Development at Burger King, "it allows us to delegate authorities downwards. It is difficult to manage a large chain from above, because the business of restaurant chains has the biggest problems on the ground".
The second stage of transition to flexible BI project management (Agile) started in May 2017. The key task of the second phase was to reduce the time interval between the emergence of a new idea to use data and the implementation of this concept in the form of a ready-made report or BI-application.
"The network is growing rapidly, today we have 580 restaurants in Russia, and every week two new restaurants open," says Maxim Sharapov, "for example, I can say exactly how much a lettuce in a hamburger sold yesterday by a restaurant in Novosibirsk cost us. But tomorrow we will need some other indicators immediately after we realized their usefulness. Not in a year and not in a quarter".
During the second step, the number of BI-system users in Burger King increased up to 100 people, and analytical reports were sent to about 500 Burger King team members. The number of BI applications and reports available to BI managers also increased, and new data sources were connected to the system. Burger King had plenty of people who have already gained experience working with data and understood the basics of BI-system. They were able to form their own requirements for the development of the BI system - to demand new reports and propose new indicators.
Previously, in order to get a new report or introduce a new indicator, the manager of Burger King needed to coordinate the scope and cost of development with the IT department. The new BI project management methodology allowed Burger King managers to submit tasks themselves for implementation. Although the priority of each new task was assigned according to the need of Burger King's business, the current work in other fields was also taken into account.
Since development plans began to form differently, restaurant chains also had to change the model of purchasing services for the development of BI-system. Previously, all the outsourcing work was split into the projects, for each of which the terms of reference with its own stages and cost were formed. Now Burger King started buying services on the principle of time&material.
"Receiving services on time&material model allowed us to start saving money", says Maxim Sharapov,"we understand how the work inside the project team is organized on Qlever Tech side, we observe the qualification of its team. We can determine the exact cost of each step in advance. Today our functional managers set tasks on new functions of BI-applications and reports - they understand the expected result at the very start, they get it quickly and start to apply it immediately. Our managers make decisions every day based on business analytics data. But no BI-specialists are on our staff, and our IT-specialists today have no tasks related to business analytics at all - everything is handled by Qlever Tech".
"The Qlik platform is excellent for agile development, it is the basis of the Burger King business intelligence system," says Dmitry Savvin, Qlever Tech data architect, "all stages of data handling, such as extraction, transformation and visualization, take place within a single product.This allows applications to be developed step by step, after each of them you can instantly see the result".
Thus, the transition to the agile development management methodology has led to increased engagement and motivation of Burger King employees, faster release of new BI applications and reports, and reduced Burger King's expenses on business analytics.
Today, 40 managers at various levels of Burger King set 15 to 20 tasks per month for the outsourcer's project team.
Presently, the priority area of business analytics development at Burger King is the wider use of predictive analytics, i.e. the use of mathematical models to forecast revenue, demand and other business indicators. In addition, Burger King begins to test the ability to analyze audio and video data from restaurants in order to assess the quality of work of its employees and the level of guest satisfaction.
Starting from June 21, 2018 all tasks on development of Burger King restaurant chain business analytics system are managed according to Agile methodology. On June 20, 2018 the last of the projects for Burger King was completed, which was carried out according to the traditional development model of Waterfall.
The transition to flexible development methodology had started in May 2016 and was gradual. Work on those tasks that had already been launched or were planned earlier was carried out according to the traditional project management methodology, which is usually called Waterfall. This methodology is based on an accurate understanding of the project's outcome, and the project is broken down into stages or phases and their consistent execution leads to the planned outcome.
The cooperation between Qlever Tech and the restaurant chain started in July 2015 with a project that had to solve two tasks. Firstly, it was necessary to reduce the time of management reports generation. Secondly, a new architecture of BI system was required, which would allow to scale the solution - to start using it in different functional areas. Among such functional areas are HR, warehouse management, marketing, restaurant equipment technical support.
In 2015, there were about 300 Burger King restaurants in Russia and about 1500 cash desks, respectively.Created as part of a new project BI-application took 5 minutes to unload all data from the database R-Keeper (R-Keeper receives data from the cash register), 25 minutes for data aggregation and 30 minutes to combine data learned from R-Keeper with data from Axapta (Axapta stores information about the state of the warehouse, the personnel, financial plans). A BI user could then immediately receive any report. Today Burger King uses 46 business intelligence applications on the QlikView platform, which span different functional areas of the restaurant chain.
The main result of the first stage of the transition to a flexible methodology of BI project management, which started in 2016, was that restaurant managers got access to objective and visual data about their work. As a result, their involvement in management processes increased. It took several minutes to generate analytical reports throughout the chain. This made it possible to send out reports for the past day before each of the teleconferences, which are held daily and involve Burger King managers, regional managers and restaurant directors.
"People see what's going on in their restaurant and what's in the next one. A new incentive and motivation to work better appear," says Maxim Sharapov, Director of Information Systems Development at Burger King, "it allows us to delegate authorities downwards. It is difficult to manage a large chain from above, because the business of restaurant chains has the biggest problems on the ground".
The second stage of transition to flexible BI project management (Agile) started in May 2017. The key task of the second phase was to reduce the time interval between the emergence of a new idea to use data and the implementation of this concept in the form of a ready-made report or BI-application.
"The network is growing rapidly, today we have 580 restaurants in Russia, and every week two new restaurants open," says Maxim Sharapov, "for example, I can say exactly how much a lettuce in a hamburger sold yesterday by a restaurant in Novosibirsk cost us. But tomorrow we will need some other indicators immediately after we realized their usefulness. Not in a year and not in a quarter".
During the second step, the number of BI-system users in Burger King increased up to 100 people, and analytical reports were sent to about 500 Burger King team members. The number of BI applications and reports available to BI managers also increased, and new data sources were connected to the system. Burger King had plenty of people who have already gained experience working with data and understood the basics of BI-system. They were able to form their own requirements for the development of the BI system - to demand new reports and propose new indicators.
Previously, in order to get a new report or introduce a new indicator, the manager of Burger King needed to coordinate the scope and cost of development with the IT department. The new BI project management methodology allowed Burger King managers to submit tasks themselves for implementation. Although the priority of each new task was assigned according to the need of Burger King's business, the current work in other fields was also taken into account.
Since development plans began to form differently, restaurant chains also had to change the model of purchasing services for the development of BI-system. Previously, all the outsourcing work was split into the projects, for each of which the terms of reference with its own stages and cost were formed. Now Burger King started buying services on the principle of time&material.
"Receiving services on time&material model allowed us to start saving money", says Maxim Sharapov,"we understand how the work inside the project team is organized on Qlever Tech side, we observe the qualification of its team. We can determine the exact cost of each step in advance. Today our functional managers set tasks on new functions of BI-applications and reports - they understand the expected result at the very start, they get it quickly and start to apply it immediately. Our managers make decisions every day based on business analytics data. But no BI-specialists are on our staff, and our IT-specialists today have no tasks related to business analytics at all - everything is handled by Qlever Tech".
"The Qlik platform is excellent for agile development, it is the basis of the Burger King business intelligence system," says Dmitry Savvin, Qlever Tech data architect, "all stages of data handling, such as extraction, transformation and visualization, take place within a single product.This allows applications to be developed step by step, after each of them you can instantly see the result".
Thus, the transition to the agile development management methodology has led to increased engagement and motivation of Burger King employees, faster release of new BI applications and reports, and reduced Burger King's expenses on business analytics.
Today, 40 managers at various levels of Burger King set 15 to 20 tasks per month for the outsourcer's project team.
Presently, the priority area of business analytics development at Burger King is the wider use of predictive analytics, i.e. the use of mathematical models to forecast revenue, demand and other business indicators. In addition, Burger King begins to test the ability to analyze audio and video data from restaurants in order to assess the quality of work of its employees and the level of guest satisfaction.
About Qlever Tech
Qlever Tech has been creating corporate solutions and providing services in the use of Business Intelligence (BI) since 2014. Qlever Tech provides companies from various industries with data analytics tools to reduce costs, allocate resources correctly, use real-time data for decision-making, and better understand and manage their customers. Today Qlever Tech possesses one of the most extensive practices in Russia and the CIS of creating applications and applying Qlik's BI platform.
About Burger King
Burger King company is the second fast food chain in the world by the number of open restaurants, focusing on hamburgers. The company has been operating in the market since 1954. Burger King chain has about 16 000 restaurants, which serve 11 million visitors daily in more than 100 countries around the world. In Russia, the chain is represented since 2010.
The flagship product of Burger King is a sandwich "Whopper". Its peculiarity is that only 100% beef cooked on fire is used for its preparation. "Whopper" is always made for each order.
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