Database Fundamentals: Internal and External Data Sources

CHD Expert has established an industry wide reputation as being a global leader in providing data to the foodservice industry. We have achieved this expertise by collecting, analyzing, segmenting and managing foodservice industry data from a variety of sources for over fifteen years. Over this time, one of the core strengths we have established is our ability to provide accurate and up-to-date data to our clients.

Accurate data is the cornerstone to any type of data management regardless of what industry you are in. But the main question is how are you utilizing your customer database? If you are interested in using data for sales and marketing purposes, here are a few questions to consider:

How would your company like to use data to facilitate future business growth?
Does your team have a strategy and plan of execution in place to collect, segment, compare and manage its data?
How can you make your data actionable, so your sales and marketing team can use data as an asset to bring in more business?

If you have some solid answers to these questions you are ahead of the game. Too many businesses find themselves below the curve when it comes to successfully using data as an asset.  What we find is that most businesses that have data or a database of information aren’t successfully utilizing it as a resource. And others just don’t even know where to begin.

Here is our first lesson on data. It is important to first understand where your data comes from, so you can decide the best way to pursue managing data. Traditionally, data sources are grouped into two different buckets. 1. Internal Data 2. External Data. Internal data is information that is procured and consolidated from different branches within your organization. Examples of sources of the data could be: purchase orders from the sales team, transactions from accounting, re orders from inventory management, leads from marketing, and any other internal source who collects information about your customers. External data is data that was not collected by your organization. This data would be obtained from a source outside of your organization. Examples would be, purchasing a list from a list broker or gaining access to a proprietary database (Like the CHD Expert database).

Now that you understand these basics, take some time and think about the goals you want to achieve with your data. Then check back frequently as we will be continuing to post about data in the future. In the meantime, feel free to give us a call and pick our brains as we can surely provide insight on data management.

Restaurant Database: CHD Expert’s Foodservice Marketing Solutions for Restaurants

Do you own a company that manufacturers BBQ sauce or some other CPG product? Are you looking for a way to get your product into new restaurants, hotels, and other commercial foodservice venues. If the answer is yes, you are about to learn about a new form of foodservice marketing that can help you get your product in front of the right people.

Here at CHD Expert we manage the FIND Database, which is the world’s largest global foodservice census with over 1.3 million operator contacts. “So what does this mean for my business and how can CHD Expert help?” is the question you are probable asking yourself. The good news is that you are in the right place, because CHD Expert specializes in helping foodservice channel members collect, manage and analyze data in the foodservice industry. We help foodservice companies pinpoint the right opportunities to help them grow their business. How do we do this? Through data. We manage the largest foodservice and restaurant database and are the only company to guarantee freshness and accuracy for each contact. So, let’s continue with our BBQ company example and identify the different foodservice marketing solutions we can offer.

Let’s say that your BBQ company is based in Westchester, NY and you currently have your product in a limited number of restaurants. One of the product solutions CHD Expert provides is restaurant data, from the Foodservice Industry National Database. Through our EASY2Find query tool, we are able to take a look at a segment of the market. So, for simplicity, say your BBQ company was looking to get it’s product into BBQ restaurants in New York City. Through our restaurant database, we can take a look at all of the restaurant operators in Manhattan who have a BBQ menu. Once we segment this data, we can pull operator information like average check or number of employees. We can also provide you with current operator contact information, if you want to reach out to operators who meet a certain criteria or who you think would be a good fit for your BBQ sauce.

Our goal is to provide foodservice operators with freshest, most up to date foodservice data in the industry in order to help the sales and marketing team target the right people. If this is you and you want more information – fill out this form. Someone on our sales team will contact you within a few hours to set up a live demo.

2012 International Restaurant And Foodservice Show in New York

As you know from previous posts, we will be attending multiple foodservice tradeshows this month, and this week we had the pleasure of attending the The International Restaurant & Foodservice Show at the Javits center in New York. This is one of our favorite annual foodservice trade shows to attend, which brings together thousands of foodservice professionals from all over the world.  Additionally this years event coincided with Japan week and had a whole section dedicated to JRO an organization that promote Japanese restaurants abroad.

One of the perks of attending foodservice trade shows is of course the food and drink samples, and this show was full of tasty treats.  Also, due to the strong presence of Japanese exhibitors we were able to try a lot of uncommon Japanese products including some rare bluefin tuna that sells for over $100 a pound!

Another segment that stood out this year was the fruit juicers. It is apparent that as a society we are seeing the value of drinking fresh juices instead of sugary sodas and juicers are working diligently to increase their market share in the beverage industry.

In addition to food and drinks manufactures and distributors, there are also a lot of companies showcasing their new foodservice equipment and technology.  We noticed that the gourmet food truck trend has continued to go grow since last year, and there were several companies offering both custom builds and franchising rights.  Also the eco-friendly products industry is growing stronger with multiple merchants offering biodegradable alternatives to Styrofoam, with products made of wood or bamboo. And finally we also want to call out a great product we saw that is taking food safety to a new level.  One company is pioneering a technology that uses RFID tags to monitor employees washing their hands and alerts the employee and management if someone “forgets”.  This is something that many restaurant goers will gladly embrace and we were glad to see a long line at their booth.

As for us, we of course had a lot of meaningful conversations with many of our foodservice colleagues as people are always interested in hearing about how our database can help increase their sales efficiencies. We have a lot of following up to do before we hit the road again for the other foodservice trade shows we are attending this month.  If we missed you at the International Restaurant & Foodservice Show and you want to chat please leave us a comment on this post, or call us directly at 1-888-243-0154

Bars and Nightclubs: What’s happening in the beverage industry

March is now upon us and we are gearing up to attend this month’s 2012 Bar & Nightclub show is Las Vegas, Nevada. As we mentioned in a previous post titled, “2012 Foodservice Trade Shows – Why are they valuable and which are CHD Expert attending?” we outlined the importance of attending trade shows in the different segments of the foodservice industry. Since everyone loves a good night on the town, we are excited to get a bar and nightclub industry update and to see what are going to be the new trends for the second half of the year.

As discussed on their website, the Nightclub & Bar Show is one of the best bar, nightclub and beverage trade shows for bar and nightclub owners, operators, bartenders and other professionals in the industry. The big advantage here is that attendees walk away with the tools they need to better attend to their clients, which really helps them improve their businesses. Overall, this is a great show to attend for players in the beverage segment of the foodservice industry.

In addition, The Beer Institute just released some timely news about the value of beer, which of course will have an impact on nightclubs and bars. The Beer Institute’s new report indicates that the value of beer sales in restaurants rose by more than 9% last year, totaling about $23.6 billion in 2011. In their article, QSR Magazine reports that restaurants are having a huge impact on introducing consumers to new brands of beer, especially premium and craft styles. Now the question is, will this same trend carry over into bars and night clubs?

As we just reported in our article titled “ 2011 U.S. Restaurant Trends: ‘The Hungrier Games” the number of restaurants in the U.S. marketplace declined by 2.5% last year, which represented a net change of 16,000 less restaurants nationwide. So, when the Beer Institute released the growth numbers on the beer beverage industry, it was exciting to see this positive trend.

With all of of that said, we are excited to see what the overall theme is going to be for the 2012 Bar & Nightclub Show and what the key take aways will be. Stay tuned for an update from the beverage industry, or leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts.