Concord Hospitality

Getting set up with BevSpot

Browsing different technology solutions to modernize their current beverage inventory systems, Concord’s main goal was to eliminate the amount of time it took for their managers to get through inventory and ordering. Upon discovering BevSpot, Concord saw the potential with the web-based software that BevSpot offered and looked to roll it out with two of their hotels: Marriott at University of Dayton and Marriott at West Des Moines.

Previously using an aging scanner-based inventory system, Ryan Vermillion, the Assistant Food & Beverage Manager of Marriott at University of Dayton, deeply felt the pain of his old system and was totally behind moving towards a more modern solution.

“It took us a long time to get through inventory using the old system—about four hours.”

Jason Kagemann, the Food & Beverage Outlets Manager of Marriott at West Des Moines, echoed similar pains with previous systems he’s worked with in the past.

“My old ordering process would involve me spending about 30-45 minutes placing ten or more calls to all of our vendors.”

Getting a walkthrough of BevSpot and liking what they were seeing, both managers were quickly trained by BevSpot’s in-house onboarding team on how to complete an inventory and send out orders using BevSpot’s software. Ryan noted how smooth it was to learn how BevSpot works.

“It was really easy to contact the onboarding team whenever we needed to. The training calls really helped to get us up to speed.”

The Outcome

After getting set up on BevSpot, Ryan has already seen plenty of improvements at Dayton. Personally, he has witnessed a total transformation in inventory process that now only takes him about an hour and a half at most to complete.

“We usually do inventories monthly. There have been times in the past where we’ve needed to do inventory on a weekly basis. It was a huge pain to do that with the previous system, but, if we ever needed to do that again, having BevSpot would be really beneficial.”

Despite losing a manager and training up someone new to the BevSpot system, Ryan has continued to see vast upgrades in his inventory process.

Over at West Des Moines, Jason also saw BevSpot helping with his beverage program, specifically with ordering product.

“Instead of making five or six different phone calls with different vendors, I just have to send it out and I’ll get confirmation that the orders have been submitted. That is definitely a huge feature that I really like. In the food and beverage world, time is very valuable. Instead of having to spend time with each vendor to see what is available, it can be all done with the click of a button.”

Jason has also seen BevSpot’s online software fit closely in line with the guidelines he needs to follow specifically as a manager of a Concord/Marriott property.

“Having BevSpot, it is super convenient to make sure I’m carrying Marriott’s ‘brand standards’ using the platform’s built-in catalog.”

At Dayton, Ryan also has seen additional benefits beyond inventory time savings from using BevSpot to manage his beverage program. He works closely with his team monthly to work towards driving their beverage costs down by certain amounts. To meet and exceed their goals, Ryan utilizes the insights that BevSpot’s software provides to effectively order new product as well as identify and eliminate any unused sitting product.

“Every month since implementing BevSpot, we’ve gone down in beverage costs and been better or matched our goals in doing so. That can be definitely attributed to BevSpot.”