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Based in Tucson, Les White sports a blond goatee, favors cowboy hats and boots, and owns 26 Subway franchises. He measures his achievements not in sandwiches served or dollars banked, but in lives improved. While some may call his methods unorthodox, nobody can argue with his results:

• White initially purchased five operating Subway franchises with a partner in 1995
• In 1997, each was grossing approximately $3,500 per week
• He bought out his partner in 1997
• By 2003, each of his 18 restaurants was grossing an average of $14,646 per week.

White routinely joins his employees on the sandwich lines and takes pride in knowing all of his employees by name. But as his business grew to 26 stores and 300 employees, he found it challenging to maintain this personal approach.

He wanted to improve communications between stores and he saw room to improve the financial-reporting accuracy and operational efficiency of his restaurants. Before he began his network project, each store had a standalone point-of-sale system and traditional phone service. His company, Zeus Nestora, had no company network.

Consultants from IPcelerate, Inc., a Cisco Technology Developer Partner, connected White with Calence, a local reseller and Cisco Gold Certified Partner. Working with Cisco, the companies showed White how a network could help his business challenges.

Calence designed a system featuring applications that IPcelerate developed specifically for White's business style. The applications run directly on the Cisco Unified IP Phone displays. This makes particular sense for restaurants because it avoids placing a computer in a hot, moist, and space-constrained environment. And it's especially sensible for White, who has no IT staff.

The new system cost approximately $13,500 per store, but will drop to an incremental cost of approximately $3,500 per store as White's franchise grows.

Fresh Technology

Deployment of the first three applications began in February 2006. The applications show how the network and IP phones promote White's culture and presence throughout his organization.

• Process Compliance: Les developed timed steps for the daily operation of the restaurants. He compiled the task sequence into a binder known as the Red Book, which IPcelerate has now translated into messages that appear, and are heard in White's own voice, on the Cisco phones. Upon completing a task, the employee touches an icon on the phone's screen. If a task isn't checked off, reminder messages grow more insistent. "Les knew recorded messages would make the task direction whimsical and fun while still driving compliance," says IPcelerate's John Moore.
• Time-Card and Shift Management: Employees clock in to work using the IP phones. Time-clock functions on the IP network allowed IPcelerate to automate the process of finding fill-in workers. When a scheduled employee can't work, the shift manager uses the phone-based Shift Management application to locate candidates who have the needed skills and can work more hours without incurring overtime. Then the system calls them, one by one. If a worker wants the shift, he or she presses a key to commit. If the worker doesn't want the shift, the application calls the next candidate.
• The "Daily Les-son": Personal motivation is a central component of White's philosophy. In the past, he delivered a thought for the day to managers using voicemail; the new system extends it to all employees when they clock in. "I'm now gearing my daily mental motivators toward the employees in the store," White says.

Extending Success

White relied on Calence and IPcelerate to support the IT resources he lacked internally, but the partners offered more than technical acumen. IPcelerate shadowed White and his managers for days to learn how Zeus Nestora operated. That knowledge helped them develop the applications that would support White's operations.

While the rollout of the new IP phone applications in White's restaurants was still under way at press time, White expects the system will improve efficiency.

The second set of applications fills the following communications needs:

• The Daily Deposit: Rather than calling an answering machine at Les's home office with financial totals, store managers now enter data via the IP phones, saving time and increasing accuracy.
• 911 Alert: Crimes in restaurants often come in waves. When one of White's restaurants has a problem, the others get word immediately.
• Employee Recognition: Accolades for outstanding employees are announced on the IP phones' color screens.

Each of White's restaurants currently relies on a card reader with a dial-up modem, which can take a minute per transaction. In the second phase of his network project, he will replace these with a network-based card reader that processes transactions in a half-second. "Customers won't ever really know that it's there, but they'll see a big difference in the speed of service," White says.

White estimates that the time-card management and staffing outcall applications alone will save about $500,000 this year; double his initial investment.

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About the Author

Regular iQ contributor Fred Sandsmark lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.

iQ Magazine, Second Quarter 2006