The Other Bird is a hospitality group based in Hamilton, Ontario focused on offering unique and charming culinary experiences. Some brands under their wing include The Mule, Arlington Hotel, and Hunter & Co.

Looking for User-Friendly Software

When looking for an inventory management system, Matt Johnny, VP of Operations at The Other Bird, said user-friendliness was a top priority. Before they implemented MarketMan, their staff had difficulty keeping up-to-date pricing in their inventories and spent hours managing and reviewing Excel spreadsheets. This compounded with already high employee turnover rates in the industry, it was integral to find a platform that employees with limited tech experience could utilize.

“When I did a lot of research, MarketMan seemed to be the most user-friendly, and also seemed to have the most background capabilities comparatively to other cloud-based inventory management systems,” he said.

With MarketMan, employees were able to quickly and easily navigate the dashboard, allowing Matt and others to manage the backend data and focus on analyzing the reports, reducing time spent on inventory sheets by 6 hours.

Invoicing and Ordering

Updating inventory prices before MarketMan was “inefficient and time-consuming.” Beyond that, they hadn’t fully built out their pars and order guides. Matt said they no longer had to worry about individually maintaining an inventory list, order guides, or invoice tracking systems.

Managers who are tech-savvy now use their phones to quickly submit orders, saving them time with just a few clicks.

Instead of entering the data into an email, managers can now transfer the data from their paper order guides into MarketMan. “It’s become a very effective tool for them to do their job,” said Matt.

Reducing COGs with MarketMan’s Reports

Matt emphasized that the COGs report in MarketMan is a powerful tool for costing and monitoring costs. “For us as a restaurant group, it’s effective to be able to look at the numbers on a weekly basis,” he said.

Since using MarketMan, Matt said they’ve seen a significant drop in COGs. With their six locations in total, some restaurants have dropped 8-10%, while others that only required some minor adjustments dropped 3-4%.

Accurate Inventory Counts To Save Time and Money

Matt was spending 10 hours a month creating, editing, and reviewing inventory sheets. With multiple spreadsheets created by employees, there was no way for Matt to detect if inventories were up to date or not.

With MarketMan, The Other Bird teams take more efficient inventory counts. Eliminating the need to create excel sheets, build out inventories, and rely on managers to keep their inventory up to date, Matt now spends only an hour a week editing these inputs.

Plus, he can see anyone’s inventory sorted by category and spot items that haven’t been categorized with ease. With this increased visibility, there’s little space for confusion and miscommunication.

“There’s less room for error because I can visually see that error now,” said Matt.

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