All Bar One Opens Doors To Microsoft Sharepoint

Renowned southern eateries and drinkeries Toby Carvery, Harvester and All Bar One have have served up Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration software to “allow employees to spend more time with customers”.

As flattering as that is, the head of business change at the three outlets’ owner, Mitchells & Butlers, gave it to us straight. He said that the Microsoft implementation was part of the company’s ‘Good to Great’ cultural change program, which effectively gave the restaurants and bars just twelve weeks to buck up their ideas to reduce ‘administrative problems’.

Delivering

Pete Brown said: “There was no room for negotiation in the delivery time of twelve weeks, timescales had to be committed to the shareholders. We had to find a way to deliver.”

The Microsoft SharePoint implementation was overseen by Hitachi Consulting. Brown said: “With the timelines we had we needed a partner that could deliver both the front end development of the portal and the back end integration with our data.”

The transition was a success, according to Mitchells & Butlers, with the new tools being an ‘instant hit’ with staff. The software has also helped the company better manage employee churn, with Brown explaining: Staff churn has always been a big cost for M&B. Through the new portal, we’re able to monitor churn more closely and – because we’re more transparent about it – delegate more responsibility to regions and individual outlets to take action around it.”

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