Modern approaches to revenue management in the restaurant business: from analysis to practice

The restaurant business is one of the most dynamic areas of entrepreneurship. Analysis of publications on the subject of the study showed that despite high competition, shortage of personnel, rising prices of products, labor inflation and falling profit rates, the catering market in 2023 grew by 13.9 %. With about 50 % of restaurants closing in their first year, the need for effective management technology becomes apparent. Traditional management practices do not always ensure the organization’s performance and economic sustainability. Changing consumer preferences, rising operating costs obliges restaurants to seek innovative approaches to manage key aspects of the activity: income, expenses, profit. Practical management and audit experience of the authors shows that in small business enterprises (for the most part) managers use only 15–20 % of modern software solutions (e. g., iiko), as well as misinterpret data from analytical reports, which prevents them from making effective management decisions and leads to intuitive management. The paper proposes a revenue management model, which includes analysis of current revenues, forecasting future sales and budget planning based on data of digitized business processes. The practical application of the developed model in the part of block «Sales analysis» is presented. The article will be of interest to restaurant owners, sales managers and researchers in economics and management. The implementation of the proposed model will improve the financial results of restaurants and increase their competitiveness in the catering market.