Participate in the key to bookU's workforce management tool

The workforce management tool from bookU makes things a lot easier for entrepreneurs in terms of planning, administration and time registration of staff. In order to further improve this tool, the Kortrijk-based company now wants to gain even more insight into the concrete needs of the neighborhood supermarket. Commercial manager Simon Sintobin and product manager Niels Vynckier are happy to reveal their plans for a possible co-creation. 

At its inception in 2018, the Kortrijk-based bookU focused mainly on administrative unburdening in the hospitality industry. When that closed during corona and Colruyt Group knocked on the door to develop a planning tool tailored to the supermarket, they shifted their focus. "Today, some 40 stores within the SPAR network use bookU as a planning tool," Simon explains. "With different functionalities, we support the entrepreneur. And we plan to take further steps in this soon."

Financial health 

The functionalities of bookU go wide. Simon: "Besides a handy overview of payroll costs, bookU also offers a forecast module. You enter the turnover you want to achieve, and the tool calculates how many people and hours you need to deploy for that. It should ultimately give you as an entrepreneur a good view of how financially healthy your store is. Are you doing well or not?"

"In addition, it is also possible to use the tool to find the most efficient mix of staffing. With the four datasets 'planned and performed payroll' and 'expected and realized turnover' you put that puzzle a lot easier. These are numbers that still too often remain under the radar for business owners."

"You enter the revenue you want to achieve, and the tool calculates how many people and hours you need to put in to do that."

Linking expertise

Both the company's short- and long-term vision is clear: continue to build expertise within the supermarket sector and become market leaders in the process. In that context, they are putting more and more emphasis on customer feedback and co-creation.

Simon: "It is the entrepreneur who determines where the needs and trends lie. We already work a lot with retroactive customer feedback, but we want to tackle this aspect in a more structural way. Where is the horizon? Where does the market want to go? We are therefore looking for entrepreneurs who want to share their knowledge, needs and ideas with us in order to build together the planning tool for the supermarket sector. We want to set up a kind of 'board of advisors'."

"Who are we to determine where the added value of our product lies for entrepreneurs? We want to hear their voices themselves."

The reason? "We want to link the knowledge bookU has about planning systems even better to the expertise of neighborhood shoppers," Niels explains. "Who are we to determine where the added value of our product lies for entrepreneurs? We want to hear their voice ourselves. We want to figure out what we as a company haven't thought of yet, but what is still relevant. And in doing so, create interaction between the customer and bookU, at all levels."

"If we can translate their day-to-day needs into new functionalities in the tool, you are only really building quality. And you don't even have to be a bookU customer to help us do that."

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