For Immediate Release Dec. 23, 2003 Contact: Greg Waddell, 800-937-1290

Arby’s Largest Franchisee Selects RTI’s Internet Software to Control Food and Labor Costs

(Marietta, GA) Atlanta-based RTM Restaurant Group, Arby's largest franchisee, has selected RTIconnect software for its restaurant food and labor cost controls. RTIconnect, an Internet-enabled software system, was released in late 2003 by Restaurant Technology, Inc. (RTI). Over the past six months, RTM installed and implemented RTIconnect in 723 of its Arby’s restaurants.

According to John Mecum, Director of Restaurant Systems for RTM, “RTIconnect automates many of the time-consuming portions of our existing business processes. Being able to handle many routine tasks with ‘one-click’ automation not only saves time, but it also ensures consistency and accuracy. It has helped our restaurant managers report accurate inventories, track purchases and transfers, and pinpoint variances in actual and ideal food usage. Giving the managers specific food variance information allows them to solve real issues in their restaurants, and quickly—and successfully—control their food costs.”

Controlling food cost is just one of the benefits that RTIconnect provides. Another benefit is the reduction of time a restaurant manager spends each week tediously preparing employee schedules. “The RTIconnect labor scheduling features have proved so efficient that we have been able to decrease our weekly scheduling time from approximately 3 hours per restaurant to around 30-45 minutes each. This frees the managers’ time to focus on serving the needs of our customers,” says John.

“After looking at a number of other systems, we chose RTI because of its long-standing history of providing effective solutions to the QSR community,” he added. “The centralized database lowers our costs of maintenance, and ensures that all of our restaurants operate from the same standards. Overall, we felt that RTIconnect provided us with the best combination of cost and functionality. Given the results that we’ve seen so far, we expect to achieve an excellent return on our investment in RTIconnect through improvements in our operational performance.”

About RTIconnect

Technology and price make RTIconnect different from other Web-based systems. RTIconnect was built according to Microsoft’sâ .NET framework for smart client software. This advanced technology enables RTIconnect to run like a Windows program at the restaurant, making it easy for store managers to learn and use, while in the background it takes full advantage of the Internet to move data effortlessly between the restaurant or corporate office and RTI’s Data Center. In addition, the system is designed to update itself automatically to the latest version each time the user logs on. The .NET technology also offers improved reliability, stronger security, and faster performance than conventional software applications.

RTIconnect is also cost-effective; offered as either a hosted subscription service at $99 per store monthly, or as a licensed software application for larger operators.

RTIconnect is currently in use by a number of quick-service operators, including Arby’s, Wendy’s, Bear Rock Cafe, and Cinnabon locations.