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Our medal smashing cycling heroes such as Bradley Wiggins in ‘Team Sky’ are managed by Sir Dave Brailsford. He knows a thing of two about success so, at the Enterprise Inn’s ‘I Love IT’ event last week, we decided to explore his management approach in an ambitiously titled workshop ‘How to Save £10k in 15 mins’.

Dave has become well-famed for a simple approach to delivering results and it’s all to do with a phased he call ‘marginal gains’…

For Team Sky this means that the cyclists have their own pillow because it helps them sleep well and get maximum benefit from their time resting. Another example is simply washing their hands regularly to prevent lowering their immune system. These changes don’t require much extra effort but the impact…well, it tastes of victory! So, back to you and your pub…what changes could you make today so that you get better results tomorrow?

Let’s apply this concept to managing your employees.

Let’s assume we are paying minimum or slightly above that threshold and average our hourly staff costs at £7 per hour...

Let’s break that into 15 min intervals.

If we save one 15 minute period per day, every day of the year at £7 per hour, that’s £638.75 saved, just like that. One small change and already the impact is clear. So, if you can tweak your rota by staggering shift starts or sending people home early, 30 minutes per day, every day could be saved. That would make you £1277.50 better off at the end of the year. I appreciate that’s not always easy to do with paper-based systems or excel spreadsheets but that’s why technology providers, shameless plug, such as Opsimize, exist and why Enterprise invited us along. Let software do the hard-work so you can enjoy the benefits.

Your monthly management accounts process is another example. Let’s look at just a 1% saving and your food costs. If you reduce monthly food costs of 25k by 1% every month, that’s a £3000 boost to your profits annually.

In the workshop we presented examples like these and, of course, discussed how our technology, along with others such as Evernote and Hootsuite, can save you time and effort. It’s simple, you and your managers are too valuable to be doing the admin so let IT do the hard graft for you. With time saved and improved visibility you have more control to implement the changes you want to but usually don’t have the time or funds to support it. Picture what money you could save simply from marginal gains? How would you spend it? Is it a new range? Improved beer garden? A fresh marketing campaign...

So, would you let Dave loose at your pub? If the answer is yes, start investigating technology solutions that can work harder for you. At the ‘I Love IT’ event the core theme between all the providers was that technology saves you time. More than that though, it can also make you more informed and better prepared to run your business. Thanks for having us Enterprise!

And the winners are...The Red Lion in Cricklade has won the coveted title of Best Pub of the Year, beating 16 other category winners. They also won the BII sponsored, Best Freehouse award was taken by Tom Gee.

The PMA and judging panel, including the BII's chief executive Tim Hulme, felt that they had excelled this year, delivering a clear vision for the pub. 

Delights, which include, 5 boutique letting rooms, an extensive beer offering, including 4 of their own microbrewery beers and a strong food offering from Chris White you was a previous Heston Blumenthal protegé. Turnover has increased by 23% this year.

It was a pleasure to award Tom and his team the Freehouse title in an event that saw the great and the good of the UK's pub industry attend. 

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/General-News/Great-British-Pub-Awards-2013-winners-unveiled

http://www.theredlioncricklade.co.uk/

The 2013 national winners are:

Best Charitable Pub - The Longhorn, Walsall, West Midlands

Best Smoking Area - Cheers Café, Bar and Tavern, Fraserburg, Aberdeenshire

Best Cellar - Farmers Arms Inn, Combe Florey, Somerset

Best Family Pub - South Causey Inn, Stanley, County Durham

Best Food Pub -Treby Arms, Sparkwell, Devon

Best Sports Pub - Bar Sport, Cannock, Staffordshire

Best Entertainment Pub - The Grafton, Kentish Town, London

Best Spirits Pub -Rummer Hotel, Bristol

Best Wine Pub -Harris Arms, Portgate, Devon

Best Bar Team -Broadfield Ale House, Sheffield, South Yorkshire

Best Cask Beer Pub - Dove Street Inn, Ipswich, Suffolk

Best Managed Pub - St James Taven, Piccadilly Circus, London

Best Freehouse - Red Lion Inn, Cricklade, Wiltshire

Best Partnership Pub - So! Bar and Eats, Harrogate, North Yorkshire

Best Community Pub -Maypole Inn, Taunton, Somerset

Best Newcomer -Anchor Inn, Wingham, Kent

All you need to know about RTI and links to the free HMRC payroll package for up to 9 staff here at myliveupdates

I was at a BII meeting yesterday and listened to Darran Lingley from The Five Bells in Essex (http://www.fivebells.net/), the BII licensee of the year 2011.

He and his wife Caroline had hit highs in the boom years, had apparently become complacent about the business - something assisted by his accountants patting them on the back, and then found themselves in 2009 having the worst financial year in their history. After a lot of soul searching and embracing new thinking, by way of regular and stringent business coaching, a corner was turned.

The pub became the hub of the community with great ideas like "StichnBitch" (http://stitchnbitch.org/), the staff have ownership of their roles and the business, and they are winning awards left, right and center. 

Global domination is next, with the launch of the St. Arnold Group. Two more pubs have been bought, and it's only the beginning. The Lingleys inspire, not only because of the evident successes, but the manner in which they were achieved. Every example Darran described had integrity at its core. 

And then tonight I was inspired again. 

What does it mean for you as a hospitality operator?

First things first - Cheers! Today the beer element of the Alcohol Duty Escalator has been scrapped. It has been a huge campaign from Camra, The Publican's Morning Advertiser et al. And on top of this the  Chancellor has taken 1p off a pint of beer. Great news for the pub market. 

Not such great news from the wine and spirit market as duty continues to be applied at 2% above inflation. Consumers will have seen wine duty increase by 50% and spirits duty by 44% since the escalator was introduced in 2008. According to the WSTA:

Duty on a 750ml bottle of wine is now £2 up by 10p

Duty on a 70cl bottle of vodka at 37.5% is now £7.41 up by 37p

Duty on a litre bottle of vodka at 37.5% is now £10.58 up by 53p

Duty on a 70cl Bottle of gin at 40% is now £7.90 39p

Duty on a litre bottle of gin at 40% is now £11.29p up by 57p

No cut in VAT. Let's start the ball rolling on that campaign now for the hospitality trade!

Other points that will help businesses:

There will be a £1200 contribution from the government towards childcare costs for those wanting to get back to work. As an employer of mum's re-entering the workplace, this is fantastic news. 

It also helps massively for your workforce that the personal income tax allowance will be raised to £10000 by 2014, part-time workers and families will really feel the benefit of this.

The cost of employing people, is eased with the news that the first £2000 of Employers National Insurance annually will be a new allowance, and not paid by you, the employer. 

While we have to wait until 2015, businesses will be that we will now benefit from the lowest Corporation Tax in the world at 20%.

The fuel duty escalator being frozen until next year will mean suppliers cannot pass on those potential costs in their prices.

Good, hoped-for news for the industry or more pressure?

Reports that the government has already ditched the plans for a 45p-per-unit minimum alcohol price in England and Wales could mean an announcement today, of new government policy on alcohol minimum pricing.

BBC political editor Nick Robinson said today, "Mr Osborne may be considering scrapping the beer duty escalator, which automatically increases alcohol duty by 2% above inflation every year. If so, he will feel under pressure to increase taxes on cheap but strong alcoholic drinks to show that the government has not abandoned Mr Cameron's campaign to crack down on cheap booze"

This could reduce the numbers of people drinking at home, as supermarkets are less appealing with fewer loss-leading offers. But the likelihood is that they will then apply this principle to other alcohol streams not affected and continue the impact on the pub and dining our sector.  Alcohol prices when drinking out need to be high to squeeze a few pence of profit for the operator. If the beer duty escalator is scrapped, pubs could use this PR to entice people back to their barstools. Let's wait and see.

We are also ever hopeful that there will be a cut in VAT, bringing it down initially to 17.5%. VAT on restaurant food and hotel accommodation in France currently sits at 7%. A decision to be innovative and take a brave step to emulate this by Mr Osbourne is unlikely but we can only hope. I suspect however that after the furore surrounding the confusing and laughable "pasty tax" effort last year, Mr Osbourne may steer clear of this sore topic.

To put the beer duty tax into perspective, since 2008 it has risen by 42%. So how much of your potential profit slips down the proverbial HMRC plughole? JD Wetherspoon pay out 11 times their profit in taxes. And in real terms, the staggering facts are that the average pub pays just under half of its turnover in taxes of one sort or another. Sales are increasing in the sector, but with operating costs up and taxes designed to squeeze at every turn, profits are down. Never before now has it been imperative to have a tight control of every area of your business and move away from the traditional habit of monitoring sales levels, in favour of monitoring profit levels. 

My sister will kill me, but I had to share this story in the Evening Standard. Discuss!!

Hannah: Can I video you for my sparkly new blog?

Mystery guests: Well, as you've asked!

Call the hotline on 01993 810730.

The pubs advice line was launched yesterday by Community Pubs Minister, Brandon Lewis, and will help locals with advice on how to buy their community pub.

Is this something your community would consider? What’s happened to your pub to warrant it needing to be saved?

Our local community has just saved Exeter Street hall, by stoking the community fires and raising well over £100 000 of shares to buy it.

The same can be done to save the life-blood that is a community pub. As an ex-landlady of one such pub, it was always a privilege to be so involved in the day to day activities and support of my local community.

It's a great initiative. Who wouldn't want to invest in the future of our trade by taking the keen youth of today and moulding them into the successful and savvy hospitality operators of tomorrow?

How though does a small community pub with limited staff and payroll budget, invest the already strained man/woman-hours on training and over-staffing due to the need for supervision of the 16/17 yr old.

Apprenticeships are of course not limited to this age-group and with intermediate and advanced levels, is it not short sighted not to consider investing in this scheme?

If you can find that piece of gold out there who is keen and wants to excel within the trade, you will also surely benefit from the framework of education that your apprentice will bring to the role.

Click on the links to find out more:

Hospitality and Catering Apprenticeships

It’s the first one!! Forgive the title - I'm partial to a bit of alliteration.

I've moved the blog: read on for fresh ideas, thoughts and musings to getting more from your life running a pub, restaurant or bar. Profits - first and foremost, best practice, top tips, industry insiders advice, case studies, downtime. I’m de-mystifying instant management accounts and shouting about why getting answers today about your business (as that’s all management accounts are) will make your life SO much easier.

Challenging perceptions of food and drink through art or the next foody fad?

I've been lucky enough to enjoy a few meals out of the years. There have been some amazing highs; where the chefs have trancended the boundaries of culinary expectation, and in doing so have challenged every sense. Events like that, and they are events, have the power to create a memories that will live forever: sharing the tastes, discussing their innovation, enjoying the journey that the flavours and textures take you on, not to mention the basic premis that sharing a great meal out is a great memory anyway....

And then there are the lows. Where you leave an establishment feeling cheated by the lack of care, thought and love put into the rubbish you have been served. It's just a waste of everyone's time. 

So what of this experimental dining and drinking? It is more than just a meal, it is food meets art in all of its bonkersness (it's a word now!) and it has apparently been an undergound movement for some time. Boundaries? There are none. 

The Experimental Food Society was founded to front the UK’s most talented and pioneering culinary creatives, featuring ground-breaking gourmet artists that will challenge ones perception of food. Who are culinary creatives was my next quesiton? And the list is eyebrow raising to say the least: food magicians, jellymongers, sonic food artists, cake sculptors, gastronomic tailors, culinary cabaret troupes and one-of-a-kind dining conceptualists of course! But where to get in on the action? I'll be having a good look at their exhibition this November at Canary Wharf and make my mind up then where seven and a half thousand square feet of culinary art will be featured and on offer to sample in every way imaginable. 

Before you roll your eyes and turn off completely, wait for a second.

Financial accounting is keeping records of historical financial data and is used for external purposes: HMRC, Companies House, the bank, your accountant etc etc.

Management accountancy is primarily forward looking. It is an internal process to help you analyse patterns in the past and present and forecast what patterns you think the business will have in the future. This provides you with the basis to make informed business decisions that will allow you to be better equipped in your management and control functions.

I mentioned the number 1 KPI (in my opinion) in an earlier blog – year to date net operating profit. This indicates with utmost clarity whether the business is succeeding, milling along or struggling. It does not however automatically tell you where your business successes or failures are, and where you can make changes to show improvement, whatever your current state of affairs in the future.

Some KPIs that every business should want to monitor regularly are:

Actual operating profit v forecast profit – self explanatory: Where am I today in relation to where I thought I would be?

Where has my money come from? What is the total revenue of the site, departments, dates and categories?

Where has my money gone? What is the total expenditure of the site, departments, dates and categories?

How does expenditure relate to income? What is the gross profit margin (GP) and wage percentage for my site and each of my departments? – How much money is each of my departments making for me?

Why online management tools are the answer

I read a great article in the Caterer and Hotelkeeper (10-16 August) this week extolling the benefits of online management tools. 

It's taking a while for our trade, particularly smaller independents to see the benefit of ditching the excel spreadsheets and inefficient paper-trail practices, but the shift is happening.

While the article was concerned mainly with E-procurement, it is a simple step forward to see the benefit of online managagement accounting for the trade. And guess who can do that (?!)

It was illustrated neatly in the article that, if you don't manage your company in real time, when your costs go up by 5% e.g, but your prices aren't adjusted to reflect this and you sell 100 portions, it is a lot of money to lose. Having the ability to track the impact to your realtime net operating profit, or being able to cost items correctly after price-hikes can only make your business more successful.

The bigger chain operators have had e-tools in place for some time now. But now the smaller operator can have the benefit of sophisticated reporting, translated simply for ease of understanding for less than the price of a cappucino per day.

Hotelympia 2012’s Innovation awards had over 130 entries, and 24 finalists from across the Equipment, Food & Drink, Interiors, and Technology sectors.

The hunger for challenging old thinking with new is competitive, and thankfully appears to be strong within our industry.

Amongst each of the six finalists for each category was new cooker and refrigeration product development aimed at cutting costs and making life easier for chefs.

The food and drink finalists ranged from innovation with breads, cheese, juice and jus, not to mention flavour-bursting edible pearls.

The interior category had display glassware that could cope with extreme sub-zero liquid nitrogen temperatures to table systems, table dressings, special external varnish coating and bed-ware - a diverse category to say the least!

The technology area continued this theme. Three different software systems, and three food and drink systems were finalists, with a portable draft beer dispenser pipping the others to the post.

Despite the unbelievable range of entrants to this award, there was a common theme. Every one of them was created to add value to your current product or service offering, or to make your life easier behind the scenes.