Shorefield Holidays reduces inventory management costs and boosts guest experiences with connected tech from Zonal
Introducing Shorefield Holidays
Family-run business
Established 1958
Award-winning holiday park operator
Collection of 9 parks across Dorset & Hampshire
“While we were looking for a new technology solution, we were looking for something that would be more integrated across the board, a cost saving for us as a business, and be able to take us to the next step.”Ryan Swatridge, Group Entertainments Manager, Shorefield Holidays
The business challenge
With a drive to deliver unforgettable experiences for their guests, owners and residents; as well as to join up their technology across their parks to deliver better integration and facilitate cost savings, Shorefield Holidays began the search for a technology partner that could help take them to the next level.
They needed a technology partner that would help them grow and expand, as well as deliver live, day-to-day insight over areas such as stock levels to enable more effective decision-making, something they were lacking at the time. The Shorefield team also wanted to be able to better understand their guests, including spending patterns, so technology that provided easy-to-digest and detailed reporting on how guests were engaging with the business was vital.
The system needed to be hospitality-dedicated, and ultimately make life easier for their guests and staff.
“Technology is a huge part of our business, from the iServes to the app, the loyalty, we massively embraced what Zonal brought to us. We’re just looking at different ways we can bring technology to what we do, we even have robots in our restaurant that will serve you your dinner.”Ryan Swatridge, Group Entertainments Manager, Shorefield Holidays
The solution
With a set of requirements and criteria in mind, the Shorefield team began researching different technology suppliers, as well as what their competitors were doing, and as a result chose to work with Zonal to implement a suite of connected hospitality technology across their parks to meet their business’s objectives.
With Zonal’s industry-leading EPoS at the core of their restaurants, the Shorefield team have since benefitted from real-time, accurate stock monitoring via Zonal’s built-in stock management module, enabling them to reduce costs on external stock counts. Zonal’s handheld EPoS ordering solution for staff, iServe, was also implemented, enabling staff to take orders at the tableside and automatically sending these through for fulfilment helping to improve guest experiences through speedier service and eliminating any room for errors, whilst providing significant time savings for staff by removing the need for orders to be re-keyed.
Alongside Zonal’s EPoS, the Shorefield team also chose to implement our purchase-to-pay inventory management solution, Acquire. With an end-to-end purchasing platform in place, fully integrated with their EPoS, the team have transformed their inventory management, enabling them to manage all of their suppliers and purchasing in one central platform, as well as reducing staff overhead by eliminating the need for their team to spend hours logging delivery notes and invoices.
“The difference is night and day; the money it’s saving us in not running multiple different platforms, and time it’s saving the team, and the fact that it’s just modernised us as a business.”Chris Weymouth, Assistant Complex Manager – Oakdene Forest Park, Shorefield Holidays
To further enhance their guest experience, Shorefield implemented Zonal’s Order & Pay app across their estate of holiday parks. Zonal worked with both the Shorefield operations and marketing teams to develop their app into exactly what they wanted it to be, including delivery to location functionality to enable guests to place orders for delivery to their accommodation – providing guests with convenience and flexibility.
All the functionality is backed up by Zonal’s robust suite of reporting. With Zonal’s integrated tech in place, the Shorefield team are able to drill down into more detail than ever, including a granular view of GP margins for every recipe item, helping them to expose any inefficiencies or fluctuations, and react accordingly.
- Industry-leading EPoS for holiday parks, complete with a robust stock management solution and real-time data capture
- Handheld ordering devices for staff to speed up service times and reduce room for error
- A fully-integrated purchase-to-pay solution, enabling the Shorefield team to centralise purchasing and supplier management, reducing costs and saving staff time
- A branded, feature-rich customer app, fully-integrated with their EPoS, to give guests more control over their dining experience during their stay, complete with deliver to location functionality to enable delivery straight to their cabins
- Robust, detailed reporting across their entire technology ecosystem, providing the necessary insight to help the Shorefield team to make more effective decisions
“You can see on the sales and profitability reports the GP margins for every recipe item, which means you can really expose any small problems you’re having with the fluctuation of figures. It gives you the ability to push that GP as much as you can.”Chris Weymouth, Assistant Complex Manager – Oakdene Forest Park, Shorefield Holidays
Results
