hospitality and leisure cost optimization

ERA Group Hospitality and Leisure Solutions

Gain a Competitive Advantage for your organization with our Hospitality and Leisure Cost Optimization Solutions

Overview

So, with a month to go until Stage 1 of Hospitality Reopening in the UK, how has it been for you? The stats have been shocking: £53bn loss in sales in the last year; 33,653 licensed premises shut by the end of October; 88 million fewer visits to the sector in Q3 2020; and a very gloomy prediction that 43% of outlets that haven’t opened since Lockdown 1.0 may never do so. These are stark and reflect the deep abyss the sector fell into as a direct result of Covid. However, signs of hope are growing: 55% of consumers say they feel safer in hospitality venues than in shops and supermarkets; 1 in 5 hospitality leaders are confident about improving prospects for the next year; and 44% of operators plan to open new sites this year. 20,000 venues reopened in the UK during August and September, some 320 a day. Are they all going to reopen from 12 April / 17th May? What’s your plan? Will customers return and in what numbers? Trickle or deluge?

A cursory glance at the papers suggests that Staycations are the way forward for the rest of the year, with demand expected to outstrip supply in some hospitality businesses. Try booking a campsite in Cornwall in August, or a cottage in the Lakes from July onwards without it costing silly money, or even a posh dinner for 2 at anywhere remotely popular on Friday 25th June. Having tried and failed miserably to do all three I’m disappointed and delighted in equal measure that demand appears to be so strong. Those who emerge phoenix-like from the ashes of the last 12 months deserve our overwhelming support.

So, you’re a hospitality and leisure business. A group of boutique hotels, a restaurant chain, a holiday park or a sports ground, maybe a theatre or some other sort of leisure attraction. Staff continue to be furloughed, you’re in receipt of business rates relief and VAT has been reduced. Thanks Rishi. But what of other costs to your business that are significant, or will be when your doors reopen. Surely these also demand scrutiny if you are to be as lean as possible to give yourself the best fighting chance to thrive and survive.

Learn more about Hospitality & Leisure Solutions

Insights.
Case Studies.

Download our Hospitality and Leisure Solutions Guide

Effective purchasing of operational goods and services is not a ‘nice to have’. It is essential if operators are to minimise overheads and remain competitive. Download our essential Hospitality and Leisure Cost Optimization guide today to explore how you can protect the future success of your business.

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As expert advisors in purchasing all things deemed ‘indirect’, we at ERA have seen additional supply chain risk as businesses replace failed suppliers or items that either cannot be sourced or aren’t economically viable to source, due to the pandemic. If sustainability and ethics are centre stage in your company policy, do you have visibility of your entire supply chain? Maybe on a lesser level, have you had to accept reduced service and quality from suppliers? Saving a few pounds here and there is all well and good, but businesses need to operate. If recent examples on the UK High Street in other sectors are anything to go by, reputation is hard to win and easy to lose and perhaps a wholesale review of exactly where the items and services you consume come from is of greater importance, now more than ever.

An Introduction to ERA Group Hospitality and Leisure Solutions

One of the many industry solutions offered by ERA Group is focused on Hospitality and Leisure. The expert team behind ERA Group Hospitality and Leisure Solutions has decades of experience to help you overcome common and not-so-common purchasing problems. Here Chris Wardle, the Chair of ERA Hospitality and Leisure Solutions, provides a simple introduction to how our team of dedicated industry experts can help your business. Download our Hospitality and Leisure Cost Optimization Solutions white paper today to find out exactly how we can help your organisation.

"There are significant opportunities to enhance service and quality whilst simultaneously reducing spend, through better buying."

Industry Outlook

Your suppliers may well have stuck with you through thick and thin. But we’ve seen pricing leap in some areas as some take advantage of the situation. Do you know what ‘good’ looks like? Competition will be fierce to retain and attract new business and hospitality and leisure operators need every little bit of help they can. Let Rishi do what he can to help out but don’t squander the opportunity to critically assess where else your business is spending money. Shine a light on some areas of the purchase ledger which perhaps haven’t had any attention for some time.

The leap forward in technology, accelerated by the pandemic, needs factoring into growth plans. The 3 tenets of booking, ordering and paying have quantum-leapt into our lives via tech means and demand investment. Surely it is common sense to identify inefficient purchasing within your business, put it right and use realised savings to help fund such initiatives, leaving you to rebuild your workforce and establish sound operations.

Every journey starts with a single step; take that step now and contact ERA. Buy the best, better.

Seize the Opportunity

There are few industries that consume the breadth of goods and services as the Hospitality & Leisure Industry. From F&B to Print; Business Rates to Payment Solutions; Laundry to Agency Staff, purchasing teams are expected to be subject matter experts in a variety of disciplines. And this is all set in the context of greater regulation and Corporate Social Responsibility.

The diagram to the right suggests operational spend areas that should be a focus for your organisation, along with characteristics of each.

"Obvious spend areas such as volatile Food & Beverages, Utilities, Business Rates, Cleaning and Waste are on most people’s cost radar. But what about other, less obvious areas of the purchase ledger?"

Hospitality & Leisure Solutions Case Studies

Away Resorts Case Study

Away Resorts is a UK holiday park operator, with six parks in Lincolnshire, Isle of Wight, North Wales, Hampshire, Hayling Island and Essex. Theirs was a simple yet important need. They needed expert resource to find better value for money across a host of cost areas due to a lack of in-house resource. ERA reviewed five spend areas including; laundry, food, LPG, waste and janitorial supplies. Savings ranged from 8-29%, equating to 6 figure sums in some individual reviews. These are impressive results. But savings aren’t everything. In addition, the non-financial benefits included improved board level reporting and oversight, greater visibility and control over spend and improved supplier relationship management. These benefits are wholly due to ERA’s expert approach of knowing how to tender complex spend to suppliers to obtain the best results, based on industry norms, typical category tips and hints and better matching suppliers with Away’s requirements. Away Resorts have been a client of ERA for over 7 years.

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Donnington Valley Case Study

Daniel Buck, Finance Manager for the Donnington Valley Group recognised the need to focus on reducing operational costs to generate profit improvement. Without a specific purchasing function, he acknowledged a more structured approach was needed. He chose to engage ERA. “The cost savings achieved have had a significant impact on our bottom line, and importantly, we have demonstrated best business practice and not just cost cutting. Lots of hard work has gone into the expenditure reduction programme, and we’re now much more aware of the many different solutions to our requirements than before.” Daniel Buck, Finance Manager The initial strategic review identified £2m of non-core costs, such as utilities, laundry services, print and stationery for independent analysis, which led to an overall a profit improvement in excess of £105,000. The initial project was so successful that it is now part of an ongoing programme of business expenditure reduction, which is proving more critical than ever given the current economic climate.

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"Now more than ever, a holistic view of indirect costs is crucial to identifying where inefficiencies exist and can be improved."

Our process is simple. Our sector specialists, all with extensive knowledge of their expert areas, use the skills acquired over impressive professional lifetimes to help you negotiate a better deal in overhead spend. Explore who we are and discover more details about how we work. Begin your journey to Hospitality and Leisure Cost Optimization with ERA Group today.

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