EPOS supplier Zonal expects turnover to top £50m
It comes as Zonal moves to a new headquarters in Tanfield, Edinburgh, to cope with increasing staff numbers as the business grows.
Last year around 100 new staff members were added to the business, which currently employs c340 people.
Zonal equipment is now used in more than 6,000 outlets in the UK, a number that has grown by about 2,000 in the past two years. The contract with the c1,600-strong Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) alone means “we need to have more engineers in the field”, said managing director Stuart McLean.
He told the PMA's sister title M&C Report that the group has contracts with the top five managed pub groups in terms of size: M&B, Wetherspoons, Spirit, Greene King and Stonegate.
Opportunities
McLean identified a number of emerging pub and bar operators as other key opportunities for Zonal, pointing to the likes of Loungers and Be At One, which both work with the group.
“We’re in quite a lot of these younger companies that are growing fast. That’s a good area of growth for us.
“We’re doing well,” said McLean. “The pipeline is as full as ever. There’s a lot of people we are talking to. There are a lot of opportunities.”
'Customer journey'
He told M&C Report that there has been “a lot more” spent in research and development in Zonal’s most recent financial year. Some fairly recent innovations have included the introduction of a loyalty card scheme with Whiting & Hammond, which lets customers collect points that give them money off purchases.
McLean said some “pretty big customers” have been trialling a similar scheme.
He said one of the advantages of Zonal’s systems is that it allows it allows operators to track the “customer journey”. For example, details of an online reservation are sent straight through the staff member who operates the till. It also helps to capture key customer data.
“You know when they turned up, you know when they ordered, you know when the food went into the kitchen; you know when it went out of the kitchen. You can begin to see how you’re doing as a business in every step of that customer journey.”
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