Hospitality businesses are nimble and flexible – they must be to survive in a tough industry, so it’s not surprising that many manage things inhouse rather than turn to an expert.
However, this tendency could be preventing these businesses from unlocking hidden potential, warns Anthony Sullivan, the founder of Quantaco (formerly PKF Hospitality). Technology is in particular emerging as a key business enabler, and those who overlook this could be missing out on results, he says.
And he should know. For the past ten years, his company has been living and breathing hospitality and has helped hundreds of venues to tackle their business challenges and tap into new opportunities.
“This has truly enabled us to understand the challenges and opportunities the industry faces. It provides us broad industry visibility, enabling us to see potential for our clients that others don’t.”
And when it comes to reinvention and expansion, his company is no stranger, this month embarking on a major expansion of its services, spear-headed by a name change to Quantaco.
The expansion of the company’s service offerings marks a major new direction – it has added to its original accounting and business advisory services to now include capital, insurance, and soon loyalty.
Also, Quantaco’s digital division builds its own technology by leveraging industry-leading systems such as Deputy, Lightyear and Oracle NetSuite and makes them available via a simple to use platform.
“I’ve built the business by focusing on areas that have been traditionally underserved, and I’ve invested in both people and technology to make it better” Sullivan says. “The latest expansion is just another example of this approach.”
A suite of solutions
According to Sullivan, the Quantaco name better reflects the company’s expanded range of solutions, which have been specifically developed to help hospitality businesses reach their potential.
The company can now boast an end-to-end offering that really sets Quantaco apart from other professional services providers, he says.
Quantaco provides a suite of solutions – including advisory, insurance and capital, but importantly, technology is embedded as a key business enabler – all tailored for the hospitality industry.
“Some companies do advisory services, some companies do technology – at Quantaco we do Advisory & Technology with a very targeted industry approach,” he says.
“Our industry scale allows us to focus on delivering solutions that unlock potential in the industry that was previously unidentified and out of reach. We develop or use best of breed technology that is fit for purpose.
“Our tech enabled advisory services helps our customers get deep and immediate insight on the financial performance of their operations.”
An example of this is in insurance – according to Sullivan, Quantaco can provide products and services that were previously unattainable to the hospitality industry.
The company’s debt offer is also hospitality-specific and has enabled Quantaco to achieve outcomes for clients which they could never have achieved on their own.
Embedded expertise
“Unlike many business and finance consultants who work across many sectors, Quantaco’s industry expertise means we’re a business advocate and a thought leader for venues, and a go-to for advisory or technology to help hospitality operators grow,” Sullivan says.
“Our difference is also in the combination of the professionals in our team who are both experienced in the hospitality industry but also experts in their field such as finance, insurance or capital.”
And because Quantaco embeds technology into everything it does, venue operators can see in real time how their business is performing and if any remedial action is needed to retain profitability targets.
“We provide a big business technology at small business prices purpose-built for hospitality. We make it easy-to-use, in fact we use most of it for you.”
The Wranglr platform, for example, takes real time sales data, real time labour costs and provides an operational view on the performance of the venue compared to forecast.
“We believe we have the only industry database collecting relevant data from multiple sources”, says Sullivan. “This enables a rich understanding for our clients. For example, we help clients forecast sales, tracking them in real-time and providing operational alerts.”
Sullivan says the company’s expansion was inevitable once it realised there was no-one else who was fulfilling all of these different needs and making this easily available to the hospitality industry.
“As our journey progresses, we continue to see more areas to close out, and that’s what we are continuing to do, fuelled by our relaunch as Quantaco.”
Find out more at www.quantaco.co or email Quantaco on sales@quantaco.co