Sushi Sushi makes progress with digital transformation

Sushi Sushi, an Australian chain with 170 locations, is expecting to make “good headway” with a digital transformation that has enabled technology-driven improvements for store operations.

General manager of IT Anthony Sok told an Aussie Broadband investor day presentation that the company has grown from one location in Melbourne in 1998 to 170 locations today, with ambitions to reach 300 stores nationally by FY28.

Sok – who joined about a year and a half ago – used his starting months at Sushi Sushi to gain the “trust and respect” of franchisees, which make up 70 percent of its store locations.

The remaining locations are company-owned.

Sok said staff “want to sell sushi” rather than be caught on the phone with IT in a bid to troubleshoot issues being encountered.

“In QSR [quick service restaurants] our teams are leaner so our cost per click or cost per phone call is a lot of money and time, and franchisees and staff don’t want to be stuck on the phone.”

Sushi Sushi immediately rolled out a fleet of Juniper core switches, which afforded store operators and Sok’s team key visibility into store environments.

“Franchisees loved that we didn’t have to hold them on the phone for two hours over something so basic as networking,” Sok said.

From there, the chain elected to undergo a digital transformation, which has so far driven a “point-of-sale migration” and will enable a planned introduction of a mobile app, online ordering, click-and-collect and beacon technology, which Sok said is “a big play” for the company.

Underpinning all of this is connectivity. 

Sok said the company has undergone “a large deployment of Juniper [core switches] for our stores”, and switched all locations over to use Aussie Broadband voice and internet services, in place of a mix of carriers previously.

It used Aussie Broadband’s Carbon platform to self-serve the provisioning of the new services.

“You can’t imagine when you’re [setting up] one of our stores, the amount of stress it takes to get three or four NBN visits to get your line in,” Sok said.

“You just stress about it for eight weeks.

“The ability to change what is an eight-week greenfields stress pit into what is almost 20 clicks in 15 minutes [meant] the ROI [was straightforward].”

Sok said the “single pane of glass” of Carbon provided full visibility of connectivity across the store network, and early indication of any outages, although Sok said there’s only been one instance of an outage so far, impacting only one store location.

“The best thing is you get to inform the franchisee first,” he said. 

“They don’t want to call you about a problem, so if you can see it first in a single pane of glass, then you can [proactively communicate it to them].”

This, Sok said, helped his small team fulfil its role as a key support mechanism for franchisees.

“If we can take internet troubleshooting and network visibility away from you, we’re living up to our reputation of being a support office and making sure we’re customer experience-led,” he said.