Tips for F&B Business Management for Beginners

Starting an F&B business can be challenging, especially if you're a beginner. You need guidance to ensure your business lasts long and grows. The F&B industry is quite popular, so competition increases every year. You need to understand how to manage your F&B business properly.

Luckily, this article will discuss tips you can follow for managing an F&B business as a beginner. What are the tips? Find out in this article!

Tips for F&B Business Management for Beginners

Sumber: Freepik.com

When starting an F&B business, you need to learn these 7 management tips to ensure your business succeeds and grows:

1. Determine Your Business Type and Capital Needs

As we know, the F&B business is very broad, ranging from food to drinks, snacks to main courses, traditional to modern dishes from various regions and countries. The presentation, packaging, and flavor variations are also diverse.

The first step you need to take is to determine the type of F&B business you want to pursue. Like any other business, starting an F&B business also requires capital. The amount of capital you need depends on the size of the business you want to start. If you want to open a restaurant, the capital required is different from opening a simple food stall.

With limited capital, it's better to start with a small-scale F&B business. For example, by selling snacks like chips or ready-to-drink beverages. Over time, your capital can increase to expand your F&B business.

2. Use a Cash Register Application

Using a cash register application makes it easier to manage your F&B business and brings many benefits, one of which is making your business look professional. Moreover, transaction records can be done automatically, eliminating the hassle of organizing receipts daily.

Many cash register applications or POS applications are available, such as ESB POSLite for small F&B business management or ESB POS for restaurant business management.

3. Choose the Right Supplier

The next F&B business management tip is related to raw materials. You will need a supply of raw materials to be processed into dishes that can be enjoyed. You need suppliers who can provide the raw materials you need.

For beginners, you might start by shopping at markets. But if your business grows, buying from suppliers or producers is the right step. Like starred restaurants, you can directly get the best ingredients on the market. Besides, with agreements with suppliers, you might still be able to make payments later. So, find responsive and responsible suppliers to make it easier to run your business.

You can also find raw materials through ESB Goods, software with a B2B marketplace service feature supported by a digital supply chain system connected to ESB Core. This way, you can choose from 1000+ best products filtered by product type, shipping distance/location, and product price.

4. Determine Your F&B Business Target Market

The target market greatly influences the F&B business you will launch. If you target the upper-middle class, the F&B offerings must be more than just homemade dishes. But this will also affect the capital you need.

On the contrary, if you target the lower-middle class, the capital can be smaller. Therefore, creating a small business plan is essential. This business plan includes market research that can help you run the business later.

5. Activate Social Media and Hold Promotions

In this technological era, social media is a must-have when starting a business, especially in F&B. With social media, you can attract more potential customers without spending millions on advertising.

You can use Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. These three are still the most widely used social media platforms by Indonesians. 

You can also use ESB Order for online food orders in your F&B business, and then you can include the order link in your Instagram bio. This way, your customers can easily order food without having to leave their homes.

When running an F&B business, there will be phases of busy and quiet times. When your sales are down, you can hold promotions to attract customers. The promotions can vary, such as discounts, buy one get one, package deals, and more. Just make sure to calculate the promotions well to avoid losses later.

6. Easily Accessible by Consumers

It's not just about where your F&B business is located, but also how easy it is for digital consumers to find your F&B business. In this digital era, people are more likely to search for information by browsing the internet. If you want your F&B business to be easily discovered by many people, you can leverage technological advancements by registering your F&B business on platforms like ESB Order, which is connected with Ayomakan. Ayomakan is a website for finding F&B information, ordering food, booking places, and systems already integrated with GoFood and GrabFood.

7. Manage Finances and Evaluate Business

Essentially, a business is an activity to make a profit from the difference between expenses and income. If expenses are higher, your F&B business won't last long.

Some F&B businesses fail due to mistakes in managing expenses, especially home-based F&B businesses without separate assets. Therefore, it's better to separate personal money from the business capital. Many business failures are due to owners depleting company funds. Financial reports need to be evaluated to monitor and assess business conditions.

Don't hesitate to criticize yourself during evaluations. It's an important step to ensure your F&B business's longevity. After evaluation, strategic planning is crucial to achieve business targets.

These seven tips can guide you in starting an F&B business. Besides these tips, you can also learn F&B business management from various sources, including friends around you. So, don't give up easily, and make sure not to take the wrong steps in starting your business!