Building a Data-Driven Forecasting Platform for a Modern Hospitality Business
Background
The Plough in Harborne is a busy, community-led pub and restaurant where small changes in footfall can have a significant impact on staffing, stock levels and revenue.
Like many hospitality businesses, the team relied heavily on experience and instinct to plan rotas, order stock and prepare for busy periods. That approach worked most of the time, but it left little margin for error when conditions changed quickly.
Weather, local events, sporting fixtures and reservations all influenced demand, but there was no reliable way to bring those signals together into a single planning view. Managers could see what had already happened, but predicting what was about to happen remained difficult.
The leadership team wanted a better way to forecast covers and revenue so they could plan more accurately, reduce waste and improve margins without adding complexity to day to day operations.
What The Plough Was Looking For
The brief was not for a generic reporting tool or a complex enterprise system.
They wanted a purpose built platform that would:
– Predict covers, transactions and revenue by hour and by day
– Combine historical performance with real world signals
– Be simple enough for floor staff to contribute to
– Give managers a clear operational dashboard
– Improve staffing, stock planning and decision making
Most importantly, the system had to fit naturally into how a hospitality business actually works.
The Challenges to Solve
The core challenge was that demand in hospitality is driven by many external factors that traditional reporting tools do not account for.
From initial analysis, we could see that The Plough’s demand is influenced by:
– OpenTable reservations
– Point of sale transaction history
– Local events from Ticketmaster
– Big sports fixtures
– Weather conditions
– Local traffic conditions
– Staff observations recorded during service
Each of these existed in isolation. None were combined into a single forecasting model.
The Human Factor
As well as marrying external signals with internal performance data, there was also the human angle to consider.
The Plough’s team held valuable context in their heads. They knew why guests were visiting, which areas were busiest, and when unusual conditions were affecting trade; all incredibly valuable knowledge, but it was never captured in a structured way.
And finally, this could not be a one off data project. Any solution needed to be secure, supported, continuously improving and easy to maintain as the business evolved.
What Dr Logic Proposed
Rather than adapting an off the shelf forecasting tool, Dr Logic proposed building a bespoke Cover Revenue Forecaster designed specifically around The Plough’s operation.
The proposal centred on four principles:
- Build a model that learns from The Plough’s own data
- Enrich predictions with real world external signals
- Make data capture simple for staff and managers
- Operate the platform as a managed, secure service
This would not be a reporting dashboard. It would be a living forecasting system that improves over time.
What We Built
Dr Logic designed and delivered a web based forecasting platform with three distinct audiences in mind: staff on the floor, managers running the business, and the underlying systems that feed the model.
Capturing Human Context During Service
Staff use a simple input screen to record what is happening during service.
They can log table numbers, guest counts, reasons for visits, seating areas, whether guests are watching sport and general notes about the day.
This allows the model to learn not just from transactions, but from human context that would otherwise be lost.
Over time, patterns begin to emerge that no point of sale system could capture on its own.
Giving Managers an Operational Forecast
Managers and administrators access a statistics dashboard that shows predicted and actual revenue, transactions and covers by hour and by day.
Rather than presenting raw data, the dashboard is designed to answer operational questions.
When are we likely to be busiest.
How accurate are our predictions this week.
What effect did the match have on trade.
How is performance changing over time.
This gives managers a practical planning tool rather than another reporting screen.
Integrating Real World Data
The platform continuously enriches its forecasts using live data feeds.
These include reservations, transaction history, weather forecasts, local and national events and traffic conditions.
By combining these signals with historical performance and staff input, the model builds a far more realistic picture of likely demand than any single data source could provide.
A Learning Forecasting Model
At the core of the platform is a machine learning model trained on approximately two years of historical data.
It predicts revenue, transactions and covers by hour, day and week. It retrains continuously as new data arrives and can be manually retrained by administrators when required.
As more data is captured, the accuracy of the model improves.
This is not a static forecast.
It is a system that learns how this specific business behaves.
Ongoing Support and Platform Management
Dr Logic did not deliver this as a standalone application.
We operate the platform as a fully managed service.
Infrastructure, hosting, monitoring, security patching, encrypted backups and disaster recovery are all included. Performance and dependencies are monitored continuously and the platform is maintained as production infrastructure rather than an experiment.
This ensures the system remains stable, secure and ready to evolve over time.
The Results
As data is gathered over time, The Cover Revenue Forecaster will give The Plough a level of operational visibility that was not previously possible.
Managers will be able to plan staffing with greater confidence, reduce over and under ordering of stock, understand the impact of events and weather, and make decisions based on evidence rather than instinct.
And crucially, it only gets better and more accurate over time. Instead of guessing what a busy Saturday might look like, the team now has a forecast that reflects how their business actually behaves.
Why This Matters
This project illustrates something important about modern innovation.
Not long ago, building a bespoke forecasting platform would have required a large data science team and a significant capital investment.
Today, with the right architecture and engineering discipline, highly tailored systems are achievable for small and mid sized businesses. For The Plough, the Cover Revenue Forecaster extends far beyond being just a reporting tool; it’s a decision making platform that improves margins, reduces waste, supports staff and continues to learn as the business evolves.
This is what innovation looks like when it is built properly.
If you’re relying on instinct, spreadsheets or generic reporting to run your business, we can virtually guarantee there’s a better way.
Dr Logic’s Innovation team designs bespoke systems that turn data into decisions, without adding complexity or risk. Talk to us about building tools that fit your business, not the other way around.
