Summary: As a result of working with Tahola, TOCA is now able to:
- Share accurate hospitality data analytics across the entire business without the requirement for any manual intervention
- Ensuring all staff are looking at the same numbers in a single platform for reporting and analytics
- Interact with data quickly solving the performance issues of the previous system
- Develop new products based on insight and feedback that data in the system provides
- Scale their business internationally with the confidence that the right technical architecture is in place
TOCA Social is an innovative and interactive social entertainment concept that combines football, technology, and dining to create a unique experience for its guests. It is designed as a recreational hub where friends, families, and sports enthusiasts can come together to enjoy a blend of football challenges, games and dining, all in one vibrant setting.
This is the world’s first interactive football and dining concept bringing a totally unique customer experience. TOCA are building an international consumer business so understanding their guests and how they’re engaging with the products and experiences is key to providing great guest experiences. This is where Tahola comes into play…
Scoping the project – TOCA needed to build a futureproof platform, because ultimately data plays a critical role in their ability to go international
Before working with Tahola, TOCA built a small data warehouse where they aggregated different sources of information. Over time it became sluggish and slow, and they wanted ideas of how they could improve, how they could move forward and provide higher quality information to the business.
We needed some urgent intervention in order to continue operating. And that’s where we engaged with Tahola who very quickly took all that information, replicated the dashboards we were already familiar with, so the business could continue to operate seamlessly.
Conrad Spiteri, Global Head of Technology, TOCA Social
They were running on the notion that they needed more and more data, which quickly became a very column rich environment. They were hoarding historical data causing their system to slow down, and preventing the exploration of real time data.
Choosing a partner: TOCA chose Tahola, the UK’s leading hospitality data analytics provider, to build their platform for data-driven decision making
Tahola’s first port of call was to help TOCA understand how their data could be ingested and, based on their ambitions, to help them grow and to grow quickly. Tahola were there to guide them on the technical architecture needed to ensure they could scale multinationally. As an agnostic data provider, Tahola was able to show TOCA all the benefits of data analytics and the best systems out there for them, and how best to implement them.
From the very start, it was very obvious that Tahola knew the industry very well. They knew the hospitality industry. They had shown us a number of different companies they worked with which were very much aligned with what we wanted to do. Therefore, we had the confidence that Tahola were the right partners for us.
Conrad Spiteri, Global Head of Technology, TOCA Social
Tahola gave TOCA ideas, brainstormed, and came up with the right solution that met with TOCA’s technical strategy. For example, one of the exercises carried out very early on was understanding what TOCA’s operational structure needed to look like. How many people do they need to be able to serve, and based on market demand, what are the ideal opening and closing times. And all of this information, together with working out optimised pricing, gave them a thorough understanding of which space they needed to operate in to give the best guest experiences with optimal revenue management.
The product: TOCA choose Snowflake to help maximise their data’s potential
TOCA chose a Snowflake cloud data warehouse with Qlik Sense SaaS as the data visualisation tool on top. This has worked a treat for them. TOCA needed to understand how the business is doing. They now had some indications, but it wasn’t a full picture. They had a specific set of KPIs they wanted to see, to analyse, and to understand. They decided to abolish spreadsheets because they needed to consolidate everything within their Business Intelligence systems and ensure everyone in the business worked from the exact same numbers.
A lot of people build BI systems, but they do it in a slightly mechanical way. I think one of the things we’re really impressed about Tahola is that they’re able to really guide us through what we needed to know in a very kind of gentle and supportive way and have really kind of gone beyond what you’d expect people in their kind of role to be doing.
Conrad Spiteri, Global Head of Technology, TOCA Social
And that’s when they embarked on the second phase of the project with Tahola, which looked at how the business operates in terms of the daily KPIs, the daily dashboards that each individual in the business needs. By abolishing all these different spreadsheets, consolidating them into a single dashboard, they would have a single source of truth within the company.
For anybody embarking on such an adventure with data, always be mindful of the more information you have, the better – but collecting data, for the sake of hoarding the data is pointless. If you are in this position, you need a partner like Tahola to help you make sense of that data and give you insights both into your business and even things that you never expected.
Conrad Spiteri, Global Head of Technology, TOCA Social
The result: a goal-scoring strategy
The single source of truth is one place where all the data is connected together; and then there’s the dashboard that lets everybody interact with that data. There is no ambiguity in where these numbers are coming from. And Tahola was instrumental in getting TOCA there.
As part of comprehending the customer data, it was important to put the right information in front of not just the right people, but everybody. Understanding what numbers other people are looking at and how they are taking decisions stems from additional ideas. This speeds up the understanding of whatever decisions others are taking, and therefore TOCA became more agile as a business.
TOCA says: “I encourage you to start working with Tahola and see where the journey takes you.”
TOCA saw an almost immediate return on their investment and have gained a better understanding of their own business as Tahola guides them through the data development and analysis process. Tahola cut through the data that TOCA really needed to know to help them with future marketing strategies.
It’s been an absolute pleasure working with Tahola. There are key individuals within the company which are extremely talented. They instantly understand before you finish a sentence. They already comprehend and can build the structure of what you’re trying to get to or what you’re trying to imagine way ahead of time.
Conrad Spiteri, Global Head of Technology, TOCA Social
TOCA has found great satisfaction with the outcomes of their collaboration with Tahola. They hold the firm belief that Tahola possesses unmatched expertise in the UK when it comes to leveraging data to revolutionise the competitive edge and scalability of a rapidly growing restaurant chain. Delighted with the results, TOCA enthusiastically endorses Tahola as a top choice for other restaurant chains and hospitality providers seeking to harness the power of data-driven strategies for success and expansion.
I would encourage you to talk open book with them at the beginning about what your business needs are. Let them get under the skin of your business. Let them really understand what’s important to you and I think you’ll find they’ll do a fantastic job to help you better understand your own business. We’ve found them to be a really strategic partner and extremely helpful. Whenever we’ve needed any extra things alongside the project, they’ve been extremely supportive. I would encourage you to start working with them and see where the journey takes you.
Alex Harman, President, TOCA Social
Conclusion
Thanks to Tahola’s hospitality data analytics platform, TOCA has experienced significant improvements across various aspects of their business. By leveraging the platform’s insights, they successfully enhanced sales, streamlined operations, and effectively managed costs, leading to overall growth and expansion.
Delighted with the results, TOCA would recommend Tahola to other operators in the industry believing they will realise similar benefits.
Contact Tahola today to learn more about how they can help you transform your hospitality or leisure business with data analytics in the hospitality industry. Find out more