CASE STUDY
The Rolling Donut
THE ROLLING DONUT THINKS BIZIMPLY IS SIMPLY YUMMY
Hospitality
INDUSTRY
50+
EMPLOYEES
6
Locations
ocTOBER 2018
USER SINCE
The Rolling Donut is an Irish owned family business founded by Michael Quinlan in 1978, currently run by his daughter, Lisa. Here’s their story in her own words.
THE BACKGROUND
“The original Rolling Donut was set up by my father Michael Quinlan in 1978. My dad began running a donut concession called The Rolling Donut and brought it to concerts, shows and festivals around Ireland in the late 70s. Following that, in 1988 he set up the little donut kiosk on O’Connell Street that most Dubliners know and love! 40 years later it continues to make its mark.
I spent my childhood learning all there is to know about donuts & in 2016 decided to expand our range. Our customers wanted filled donuts so I decided to make handcrafted sourdough & vegan donuts making all our fillings in house.
We now have multiple stores & a team of dedicated bakers who make our donuts, fillings and toppings every day in our bakery in Dublin. We hope to continue to grow & develop the brand making the best quality handcrafted donuts every day.”
Today, the Rolling Donut has six stores and one bakery, all in the greater Dublin area and employing 50 staff.
THE CHALLENGE
The Rolling Donut faced challenges that will be familiar to all multi-location businesses in the hospitality and catering sectors.
For scheduling staff, the company relied on a combination of Excel or pen and paper. Store managers and employees used to write over the roster on the wall and employees stayed in touch via several WhatsApp groups.
“All in all, scheduling was horribly messy,” says the owner, Lisa Quinlan. “Updates to the rosters weren’t communicated so people relied on WhatsApp chat.” she adds.
To record their attendance, staff could clock in/out on the till. It served the purpose of recording times from a basic technical point of view, but it was essentially a PoS system. It could not track time taken for breaks, and it was far from ideal when team members had to queue up at the till during busy times!
“Time-recording was inefficient because we couldn’t see if anyone took their breaks. It was a very crude clocking-in system,” says Lisa.
At the end of the week the store manager would then have to reconcile attendance records with the roster, and send the results back to head office, where they would be entered singly on the Collsoft payroll system. All very time-consuming.
THE SOLUTION
In Oct 2017 The Rolling Donut, therefore, decided to implement Bizimply at its stores.
Communicating shifts became much simpler with shifts sent automatically to each employee via their MyZimply apps on their mobile phones. Employees also love the new way to clock-in and clock-out, including their breaks.
Import into payroll is much simpler and faster than previously. “Also, we capture all the information accurately,” says Lisa O’Brien, Payroll Administrator.
However, the benefits go much further. By entering sales, Rolling Donut’s managers get reports on sales turnover per hour and other KPIs. “It gives us great insights into store performance, allowing us to improve continuously,” says the owner, Lisa Quinlan.
“My managers have been really welcoming of Bizimply. They’re into the tech, and appreciate how easy it makes their life.”
“It’s hard to imagine what it was like before Bizimply. We wouldn’t be able to manage now without it. Bizimply is as yummy as our donuts,” concludes Lisa.
