Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit
Swig, HTeaO, Everbowl, Vicious Biscuit leaders share tips for building a tech roadmap
Mapping out a tech roadmap was a panel topic at the Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit, held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It was sponsored by Crisp.
March 24, 2025 by Judy Mottl — Editor, RetailCustomerExperience.com & DigitalSignageToday.com
Every restaurant and brand relies on an increasing amount of technology in the quest to meet consumer expectations, drive revenue and expand the customer base, all while striving to keep costs in check, recruit and hire, and stay ahead of the competition.
Technology is front and center and it's not about just grabbing hardware and software; there are multiple challenges when it comes to choosing the right solution and the right vendor, integrating the tech into IT infrastructures, ensuring the technology delivers on its promise and doesn't cause more issues than benefits.
It all starts with a tech roadmap — determining who will lead, what teams need to be involved from the start, as well as a strategy for implementation and integration and support after deployment.
Developing a tech road map, as well as management and dealing with challenges, was the focus of a panel talk at the recent Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit, held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The summit, run by Networld Media Group, draws executives from leading brands to share successful ways to build and manage restaurants. Networld Media Group is the parent company of Fastcasual, Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb. Its next foodservice event is the Fast Casual Executive Summit being held October 13-15 in Denver, Colorado.
The panel, "How to Build Your Tech Roadmap from Start to Deployment," included Hailey Coffman, manager, training and special operations at Everbowl; Amanda Kahalehoe, chief operating officer at Vicious Biscuit; Heath Nielsen, president of HTeaO and Dylan Roeder, CMO at Swig. It was moderated by David "Rev" Ciancio, CMO at Salad House and Crazy Pita. It was sponsored by CRISP.
Who owns the tech road map
Determining who 'owns' the tech road map depends on a brand's size, according to Kahalehoe.
"The implementer is the CIO or CTO and in smaller brands where there is no CTO it may fall to operations. Whoever is the guiding person they have to keep people accountable," she said.
At the very least, according to Nielsen, there should be a junior project manager.
"You need all constituents engaged and an admin owner to keep it all going," she said.
In terms of tech roadmap involvement, the panelists all agreed every division or department in the needs to be at least aware and if possible directly involved.
"Finance, marketing, all groups — even HR. Everyone has a seat at the table," said Nielsen.
While Roeder agreed everyone needs to know, "it's who is touching it [technology] that needs to be involved."
The integration process
Once a technology and vendor are chosen, the focus changes to integration and this often includes conducting a consolidation of systems.
Both Nielsen and Roeder warned neither integration nor consolidation is without issues.
"Consolidation, when done correctly, is the dream but sometimes you lose skills," said Nielsen.
Roeder said challenges often come in because a brand is growing as it incorporates new technology and tools.
"It sounds nice and it sounds better than it is and sounds easier than it is," he said, adding "when you're growing you want things."
And the brand must keep one aspect in mind, said Kahalehoe. "It's not all about consolidations but the integration and how will you scale it. It must be at the top of my priority list. If you don't have a technology that can integrate or integrate wisely it will be painful."
Tech roadmap advice
All the panelists also agreed the relationship with the tech vendor is all-important.
"The top thing is managing your roadmap with the vendor and you need a healthy relationship and communication" said Coffman.
In fact, choosing the partner is critical, according to the panelists, and the one thing that can't be left off the table is knowing the vendor will be involved from start to finish to after deployment.
The top factor in choosing the vendor partner is "support, support, support and costs," said Kahalehoe.
"Are they accessible? You need a good relationship. You need a project manager from the vendor side to keep project on target," she added.
Coffman noted support is as much as a priority focus as the tech project's cost.
Brands must also know if the vendor, and their technology, can handle scalability needs as well, said Nielsen.
It should be a "white glove experience and the [vendor] has to be there," said Roeder.
"If they don't lean in completely that's an issue."
About Judy Mottl
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