Name: John Ognenoff
Title: director of information technology, Cousins Submarines Inc., Menomonee Falls, Wis.
Birth date: Aug. 30, 1956
Place of birth/current residence: Milwaukee
Education: selected business administration and information systems courses at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee; continuing education courses or seminars, such as the IT Manager Institute, Columbia, Tenn.
Career highlights: started working for the then three-unit Cousins in November 1975 while in college, beginning in operations, with initial assignments covering store and district management; began concentrating on information technology, or IT, in 1988 and subsequently was named IT manager; title changed to director of IT in 2004
Manages: three
Reports to: Kendall Richmond, chief financial officer
Family: married, with five children
Hobbies/activities: baseball, volleyball, camping, landscaping and gardening
POS systems: Radiant Systems RPOS/Enterprise version 6.2 running on Radiant hardware; Xpient Solutions Intelligent Restaurant Information Systems (IRIS) version 3.7.8 on ParTech Inc. hardware; Panasonic 5000
Primary unit-level, back-office applications: Radiant Enterprise and Xpient back-office programs
Enterprise accounting and human resources management tools: Sage Software PFW ERP version 5.6 for accounting and Payroll Data Services for payroll
Cousins Submarines Inc. director of IT John Ognenoff had an affinity for electronic brains early in life, but his growing company's need to automate was the bigger factor behind his decision to start down the career path he's walked for 20 years, he indicates.
"I had an interest in computers, taking a class or two in high school and then in college. Do you remember the old punch-card systems? That's what I learned on," explains Ognenoff, who began working for Cousins at 19 in 1975, just three years after its founding in Milwaukee by the late James Sheppard and William Specht. "After moving up at Cousins to a district manager role, the owners and I saw a need to move the company forward in regard to computerization."
Such a new assignment didn't seem out of the ordinary for Ognenoff, who fits the classic foodservice profile of someone who literally worked his way up through a company where he now holds a prominent position. "Being [with] a small company, I wore several hats," he says before adding, "It seems I was involved in everything except marketing at one time or another."
Sheppard and Specht, Cousins' chief executive, were real cousins who, after relocating to the Midwest from their native New Jersey, missed the hoagie and grinder-style sandwiches of their youth and saw a business opportunity in the scarcity of those comestibles in their new region of residence. Today, based in the Milwaukee suburb of Menomonee Falls, the company operates 15 Cousins Subs-branded restaurants and franchises another 135 or so to others.
What were some of the IT projects recently completed by Cousins?
We virtualized all servers and implemented SalesForce.com for franchise sales and marketing.
Outline some of the IT projects slated for the months ahead.
We'll continue the rollout of Xpient POS; implement [the] MIRUS [subscription service] for above-store reporting; [work on] Payment Card Industry [Data Security Standards] compliance; [test] online ordering with ONOSYS; and update our portal application.
What did your company look for during its recently ended search for an above-store reporting package?
The ability to bring all the data from all of our register and POS systems together, simplify the look [of reports] and make it easy to create reports. The exception-based reporting concept [that MIRUS] really promotes makes information [collected] more actionable.
In terms of deploying above-store reporting capabilities, what happens next?
We're accumulating all [register/POS] data on our servers and will begin moving it to MIRUS in the next week or so. After that, we should begin getting good information on a store-by-store basis within a week or two. The next phase will be to figure out a way to normalize the data [for systemwide reporting]; there are [multiple] POS and electronic cash register [brands] in use, but we'll first concentrate on the three we have the most of, with the idea being that we'll bring in the others later.
Just what is your mix of transaction processing systems?
We have 50 restaurants with Xpient, including nine corporate stores; 35 are Radiant [POS] stores — six corporate, the others franchised; and about 60 [locations, all franchised] are on Panasonic 5000 [systems]. A handful [of units] have SpeedLine [POS] because they are dual branded with Figaro's Pizza.
How did that multi-system situation arise?
Panasonic was in 99 out of 100 stores in 2000 when we moved to Radiant for corporate stores, of which we had about 45 at the time. Xpient was picked [as the new platform] in 2005.
Is there a timetable to move the chain to one POS system?
Corporate stores [on Radiant] are converting to Xpient at a rate of one every other month. The conversion [to Xpient] timetable is three years for locations with Panasonic registers, or by Jan. 1, 2009, and four years for locations with Radiant, or by Jan. 1, 2010.
What was Cousins most recent IT win?
When we virtualized our servers. We had four [physical] servers before, now we have 12 on two boxes. We have more servers, but we didn't have to buy all that [additional] hardware. It changed our whole backup plan [for the better]. We finished that last fall using VMware.
Are there "green," or environmental, benefits from virtualizing your servers?
That's not why we did it, but if we were actually using 12 boxes [or freestanding computers], we'd be using more energy from operating and cooling perspectives. So there are some green benefits that are inherent to virtualization.
Did you use quad-core processors for your virtualization strategy?
No. Dual processors.
Related to complying with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards, or PCI DSS, what has Cousins accomplished and what remains to be done?
We have hired a consultant to help us identify the gaps in our compliance, and scans of all corporate locations are currently being completed. We need to refine and/or develop some of our policies and procedures. We still need to work with our third-party support vendors to comply with PCI [standards].
Is Cousins doing anything with WiFi?
We tested it [as a guest amenity] in a half of dozen [company] locations in 2002. We found that there wasn't a business case to be made for it. Now it is almost expected [by many guests], so we're trying to help guide franchisees [who want to offer it] to a managed solution. Most franchisees that want it, want to provide it for free.
Earlier, you mentioned an online ordering test. What's going on in that arena?
Four companies came in and made presentations and the solution ONOSYS [a division of O-Web Technologies Ltd.] presented was selected. We're working with them to configure the site and will pilot test it at 20 locations in the Milwaukee area. We're looking at probably a three- to four-month pilot before a rollout, if things go well. It's a fairly big initiative.
What do you envision as the hallmarks of the Cousins Subs online ordering experience?
It will have to be PCI compliant, [because] to place an order, you will have to pay in advance with a credit card. We want it to be as simple and easy to use as possible.
Any newer technologies interests you?
Ireally like digital signage and marketing boards. I'd like to be able to explore that [fully]. It's cool what you can do and that you can control it centrally.
Are you planning any tests?
I'm reviewing this [technology] with my vice president of marketing to see where we want to go with it.
