Vianet : Hawthorn teams up with Vianet to gain estate-wide insight

Hawthorn teams up with Vianet to gain estate-wide insight

8 April 2021, Why Vianet

Hawthorn, the community pub company, has signed a new partnership with intuitive software and insight platform, Vianet, following a successful trial of its iDraught platform. The £350,000 investment will see iDraught rolled out across Hawthorn's Leased and Tenanted estate, and will help Hawthorn identify key areas for attention and development through estate-wide coverage, as well as providing its Partners with retail support as pubs begin to reopen.

The Vianet iDraught software enables pub companies to intelligently monitor all aspects of their bars to ensure the very best in returns. The platform works to maximise profits in the draught beer category, and has proven capability in delivering end-to-end solutions for its customers with over 13,500 pubs connected and 220,000 unique points of capture.

With Vianet's 20-years of experience spanning across more than 300 on-trade partners, the iDraught tech will benefit Hawthorn's Pub Partners by capturing data through tap-to-till reconciliation to monitor shrinkage and minimise loss, planning and management to significantly improve margins, and monitoring line-cleaning and delivery to provide them with the best pint possible and remove waste. Partners will also benefit from a dedicated account team and support from a cellar management trained ABCQ (Award in Beer & Cellar Quality) team.

Andrew Parker, Managing Director of Leased and Tenanted Operations said:

'Working to successfully re-open our Leased and Tenanted businesses following the 15-week lockdown, we have found the Vianet information incredibly insightful. The new iDraught technology has really opened our, and our Partners', eyes to using this data in a more forward-thinking manner for the future, and we're looking forward to making the most of our partnership once our pubs are back up and running.'

Scott West, Client Director at Vianet, said:

'We have worked with Hawthorn for a number of years and couldn't be happier with their feedback. Their trial of the iDraught solution has opened up the entire Hawthorn Leased and Tenanted estate to the very best in data collection and, as a result, maximised profits in the draught beer category.'

Trevor Jenkinson, Hawthorn Pub Partner at The Needles, Derby, said:

'During the trial, I used iDraught on a daily basis to check my sales by product against the previous year, and to order in my following week's stock as I can just replace what we have sold.

'I am now also 100% confident in my line cleaning as the system identifies that the correct amount of solution has been used to enable a maximum clean. I can give the stock taker the actual pints lost figure as it measures these exactly.'

This new partnership is one of many ways Hawthorn has worked to support its Partners through lockdown. The community pub company has already pledged £9.4million in CAPEX spend in Q3 investments in order to prepare its pubs for a post-Covid environment, as well as committing £250,000 in matched investments through its Pub Partner Investment Fund, launched in October last year, to help improve outdoor spaces across 100 of its sites.

Hawthorn's ongoing support has been met with positive feedback from Partners. During the first lockdown, 97% of Partners & Operators said the PubCo had met or exceeded expectations, and KAM Media's recent Licensee Index saw Hawthorn outperform its peers across a wide range of categories, including COVID-19 support (9.2/10), quality of BDM (8.8), and likelihood to recommend the company to other publicans (8.3).

About Hawthorn

Hawthorn, the community pub company, was established in 2014, and owns more than 700 leased, tenanted and operator managed community pubs across UK villages, residential neighbourhoods, towns and city centres. Hawthorn is proud to serve its communities, and its ambition is to be the UK's number one community pub operator.

Hawthorn is not your typical pub company, and is passionate about its people and pubs. It empowers its teams to give the Partners the support they need to deliver best in class service, and meet the needs of the communities they serve. Hawthorn is always seeking to add to its growing portfolio, by identifying and acquiring community pubs that deliver substantial and growing returns. For more information, please visit: www.hawthornpubs.co.uk

BACK TO NEWS