In hospitality, small operational inefficiencies can add up to significant financial losses. Without proper stock control and insight into sales trends, businesses often find themselves with excess stock, wasted inventory, and missed opportunities to maximise profit margins.
At Capcon, we work closely with hospitality businesses to transform their approach to stock management, ensuring that they are making informed decisions that drive profitability. This case study showcases how our expertise helped one of our clients streamline operations, improve stock efficiency, and increase revenue.
The Challenge: A Business Losing Profit Through Poor Stock Control
Before working with Capcon, our client – a multi-site hospitality operator – was experiencing a number of challenges:
- Overstocking: Large amounts of unsold inventory led to waste and unnecessary costs.
- Lack of focused sales strategy: The business stocked a vast range of products, many of which were low-margin and slow-moving.
- Inconsistent pricing: No structured approach to pricing led to some high-margin items being under-promoted.
- Inefficient reordering: Without a clear ordering system, stock levels fluctuated unpredictably, leading to last-minute purchases at higher costs.
Despite strong footfall and customer demand, these inefficiencies were eating into their profits. They needed a solution to optimise stock control and increase profitability while maintaining a seamless customer experience.
Our Approach: Data-Driven Insights and Strategic Stock Management
Since working with the client, we implemented a structured, analytical approach to their stock and sales strategy, focusing on:
- Identifying High-Margin Products
Using data analysis, we helped the client identify their most profitable products and guided them to promote these more effectively. By streamlining their offering and cutting back on low-margin, slow-moving stock, we helped boost overall profitability.
- Reducing Waste Through Smarter Purchasing
We introduced real-time stock tracking and reordering recommendations, ensuring they only ordered what they needed. This reduced stock waste and lowered costs associated with excess inventory.
- Implementing Structured Pricing Strategies
By analysing competitor pricing and historical sales data, we helped adjust pricing on key products, ensuring they were positioned to maximise margin while remaining competitive.
- Focusing Sales Efforts on High-Performing Items
Rather than stocking everything, we advised the client to highlight their most popular and profitable products through promotions and menu positioning. This created higher sales volume on fewer, better-margin items.
- Enhancing Staff Training for Upselling
We provided training to staff on which products to promote, ensuring that guests were guided towards higher-margin items that still matched their preferences.
The Results: Increased Profitability and Efficiency
Since implementing these changes, the client has seen dramatic improvements in stock efficiency and revenue growth:
- Reduced stock waste by 22% by ordering only what they need
- Improved gross profit margins by shifting focus to a balanced mix of high-margin and high-demand products
- Lowered purchasing costs by 15% by implementing smarter reordering strategies
- Enhanced cash flow by reducing slow-moving stock and increasing sales of profitable items
- Improved customer satisfaction through a streamlined, more focused offering, with guest feedback highlighting better menu clarity and quicker service times
- More engaged staff with a clearer understanding of what to sell and why, reflected in increased upselling success and positive internal feedback from the team
Conclusion: Data-Driven Decisions Lead to Profit Growth
This case study is just one example of how Capcon helps hospitality businesses optimise stock control, increase efficiency, and improve profitability.
By working smarter, not harder, hospitality operators can make small, strategic changes that lead to significant financial improvements.
If your business could benefit from a structured, data-driven approach to stock management, contact the Capcon team. We help many well know hospitality sector businesses maximise profits, reduce waste, and streamline operations, and we’re here to help you too.
