Industries · Third Vertical
Food & Beverage
Multi unit and multi market operators are betting heavily on ERP, supply chain, and franchise system modernization, often with no independent check on whether the investment is protecting margin the way it promised.
Why Food & Beverage Needs Independent Transformation Assurance
Food and beverage companies run some of the most operationally complex transformations in the mid market: multi location POS and inventory rollouts, ERP consolidations after roll up acquisitions, supply chain systems tied directly to perishable inventory, and they run them with less internal transformation muscle than almost any other industry Aurelian could serve. That combination is exactly where independent assurance earns its keep.
Four pressures specific to F&B make this worse than average, not just as bad:
Thin margins amplify every mistake. Restaurant and food service margins routinely run in the single digits. A mispriced ERP rollout or a bungled inventory system cutover does not just cost the program budget, it shows up immediately in cost of goods and labor variance, the two levers the whole business survives on.
Frontline turnover breaks change management differently here. Corporate change management playbooks assume a workforce that is still there in six months. F&B store level turnover often exceeds 100% annually. Training completion and change readiness metrics that would signal ready in a stable workforce mean nothing if half the trained staff is gone before go live, a blind spot standard change methodology does not account for.
Growth by acquisition leaves fragmented, hostile technology stacks. Multi unit and franchise operators frequently grow by rolling up smaller chains, each with its own POS, inventory, and payroll systems. The ERP consolidation project is really an archaeology project, and Domain 05 (Data Readiness) and Domain 04 (Solution & Design Readiness) carry outsized risk here that a generic assessment would understate.
The internal team has no bench to catch what the SI misses. Unlike healthcare systems or universities with large internal IT and PMO organizations, most F&B companies run transformation programs with a skeleton internal team and near total reliance on their systems integrator's own reporting. That is the exact structural conflict Aurelian exists to solve, except here, there is no internal check at all behind the SI, which makes an independent read not a nice to have but the only check that exists.
What we bring
Aurelian has no implementation stake in the outcome. We are not the systems integrator building the program and we are not the internal team running it, which means our read on program health is not shaded by a commercial interest in the story being good.
Common triggers for engaging us
- A multi location rollout is behind schedule and leadership wants an outside read before deciding whether to push forward or pause.
- A new operations or technology executive has inherited a program they did not start and needs an honest baseline.
- A franchise wide go live is approaching and ownership wants independent confirmation the program is actually ready.
- The relationship with a systems integrator or vendor partner has become strained across multiple markets and an objective party is needed to assess what is actually happening.
- Leadership is negotiating vendor or contract terms and wants an independent view of program risk before committing further spend.