No one know what normal is really going to look like after the economy opens up again, people start to return to work, and the risks are lessened but one thing is for sure – we have all changed from this experience. The pandemic and stay home order has rocked every industry and forced companies to change the way they were conducting business. Some had to pivot to new offerings, some had to close down and weather the storm, and some were able to continue business as usual with an overload of increased demand, this is some of the ideas we’ve seen that may begin to shape the new norm for the baking industry.
The Switch to Working from Home
During the shut down, if you could work from home, you were encouraged to. This means that many people began to experience both the benefits and the hardships of working and living in the same environment. Obliterating commutes and working with Cloud based ERP software like FlexiBake allowed admin staff to continue taking orders and planning production from the safety of their home office (or kitchen table). We wonder how many bakeries saw the increased productivity and costs savings of not running an office in the production facility – will this become a new normal for order takers, production planners, and accounts teams?
Flexible Working Hours
With people needing to balance homeschooling and/or childcare with work, due to daycares and schools shutting down, the concept of flexible work hours has been introduced. In some ways this is an awesome option for people, allowing them to work split shifts in the corporate world, or work their day job part-time and have secondary “side hustles” like skip the dishes delivery drivers after their kids have gone to bed. ERP systems like FlexiBake create organized processes for order management, production planning, etc. and with the option of using it on-the-Cloud, allow employees the flexibility to balance work and home life.
Delivery Culture
While being stuck in our homes, online purchasing and home deliveries have sky-rocketed. The convenience of online shopping has become a must-have for most stores, even small town boutiques are now offering online ordering. Offering your customers a wholesale online ordering portal, like FlexiBake’s, means they don’t have to revert back to calling, texting, emailing, or even faxing their orders in. They do it on the fly and you don’t have to worry about an order being missed. With more online ordering and deliveries in our personal lives, people will not only be more comfortable with online ordering but even come to expect it. As your deliveries start to pick back up, make sure to offer your drivers the tools they need to stay as organized, efficient, and effective as possible by using a sleek DSD app, like FlexiBake’s, where all your driver needs is a smart phone or tablet.
Check out our Online Ordering Portal – https://flexibake.com/modules/online-ordering/
Check out our DSD Driver app – https://flexibake.com/modules/dsd/
Dine in or Take out
People are getting tired of cooking at home every night and everyone is looking forward to food service opening back up but the question is: will people go back to dining in or has society changed enough that take out becomes king? We’re looking for the answer, just like everyone else and while we expect it may be slow going back to our old way of live – the social aspects of eating out together will eventually come back in full force. We’d love to hear your thoughts: https://flexibake.com/contact-us/