Three restaurant tech trends for 2024: insights from new research report

As a restaurant operator, it’s easy to feel a little isolated.

When we were running our own restaurants and faced operational challenges, we often asked ourselves “are we the only ones experiencing this?“.

Every operation manages orders in slightly different ways. But despite this, the state of restaurant tech means there are plenty of shared experiences (and challenges) in the running of day-to-day operations and the pursuit of growth.

To shine a light on these shared restaurant tech trends, we partnered with KAM, a hospitality-focused consumer research agency, to conduct research into the relationship between restaurant operators and the tech they use.

Our new research report ‘Hospitality tech 2024: Bridging the efficiency and profitability gap is out now.

Discover three top restaurant tech trends straight from the report below…

Restaurant tech trends for 2024 and beyond

Trend #1: Growing brands are changing their focus area to efficiency

Unsurprisingly, growth and profit are the top focus areas for restaurant operators:

However over 50% report that a lack of time is blocking them from achieving these business goals.

A significant time sink for restaurants is caused by the constant battle of managing a fragmented tech stack.

Hours of manual menu updates, laborious account switching and other complex admin tasks stop businesses from operating efficiently. In fact almost 40% of operators recognise that having multiple providers is inefficient.

However, only 28% of operators report that improving efficiency is a top focus area for the business.

In order to achieve the profitability and growth operators are looking for, focus needs to shift to efficiency first. By solving these inefficiencies that are getting in the way, brands will experience exponential growth, faster.

Trend #2: Operators have been stung by overly complex tech

Managing fragmented restaurant tech is a complex, time consuming job.

Tech innovation might have opened up new revenue channels for operators, but with so many individual point solutions to manage, this has come at a significant cost.

Constant account switching, mind-numbing manual admin, inevitable human error; and that’s just to update menus.

When the tech that was supposed to make life easier is itself causing new problems, it’s understandable that one in five operators feel risk averse to any further change.