I read an interesting article a couple weeks ago about who has control of your digital menu board system and I thought that was a strange question. I assumed all the larger brands had complete control but understood how some of the smaller chains or single unit operators would not have the resources necessary for that. However, after some further study, I learned that several of the major brands really don’t control their own system.  It’s usually a simple matter of neither the franchisor or the franchisees have a staff qualified to do that. They simply rely totally on their venders to do that for them.

After hearing several of the franchisees complain and taking a closer look at how their systems are used, I believe that is a problem. I hear complaints all the time about how expensive digital menu boards are so I think when a chain has them installed they should want to get the most out of them to increase their ROI, but unfortunately, I don’t always see that happening. I spend a lot of time traveling around to observe how the chains use their systems. Some systems are really well operated and some are to the point of “Why waste your money?”

Typically when a chain installs a digital menu board system it takes several months to learn all the capabilities of the new system so they keep learning and improving as they go. Unfortunately, there are several chains where this has not happened and I don’t understand why. I hope some of you will respond and explain why this does not happen.