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Toast Sales

To empower the restaurant community to delight guests, do what they love, and thrive by creating the world's most customer-centric restaurant technology ecosystem

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Align the strategy

Toast Sales SWOT Analysis

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To empower the restaurant community to delight guests, do what they love, and thrive by creating the world's most customer-centric restaurant technology ecosystem

Strengths

  • PRODUCT: Comprehensive all-in-one restaurant platform
  • ECOSYSTEM: Strong integration ecosystem with 100+ partners
  • RETENTION: 95%+ revenue retention for subscription services
  • BRAND: Strong restaurant industry reputation and trust
  • DATA: Rich restaurant data insights across 74K+ locations

Weaknesses

  • COMPETITION: High competition in restaurant POS space
  • DEPENDENCY: Revenue heavily tied to restaurant industry health
  • PROFITABILITY: Ongoing challenges in achieving profitability
  • INTERNATIONAL: Limited global market penetration vs competitors
  • ENTERPRISE: Lower adoption among large enterprise restaurants

Opportunities

  • EXPANSION: Untapped mid-market and enterprise restaurant sector
  • FINANCIAL: Expand financial services offerings beyond capital
  • GLOBAL: International expansion beyond current limited markets
  • LOYALTY: Enhanced guest engagement and loyalty platform growth
  • DATA: Monetize restaurant industry data intelligence services

Threats

  • MARKET: Economic downturns impacting restaurant industry
  • PRICING: Increasing price competition in restaurant tech
  • CONSOLIDATION: Industry consolidation reducing TAM
  • DISRUPTION: Direct payment solutions bypassing POS systems
  • SECURITY: Data breach risks affecting customer trust

Key Priorities

  • PRODUCT: Enhance enterprise-grade features and scalability
  • EXPANSION: Accelerate international market expansion strategy
  • FINANCIAL: Develop comprehensive financial services suite
  • DATA: Create industry-leading data intelligence platform
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Align the plan

Toast Sales OKR Plan

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To empower the restaurant community to delight guests, do what they love, and thrive by creating the world's most customer-centric restaurant technology ecosystem

ENTERPRISE DOMINANCE

Become the go-to platform for enterprise restaurants

  • ACQUISITION: Increase enterprise customer acquisition by 40% through targeted industry vertical campaigns
  • PLATFORM: Launch enterprise-grade management console with multi-location analytics by Q3
  • PARTNERSHIPS: Establish 5 strategic partnerships with enterprise restaurant groups representing 500+ locations
  • RETENTION: Achieve 98%+ revenue retention rate for enterprise segment through enhanced customer success model
GLOBAL EXPANSION

Accelerate international market penetration strategy

  • MARKETS: Successfully launch in 3 new international markets with localized product offering
  • REVENUE: Generate $12M in international ARR by end of quarter, representing 65% YoY growth
  • PARTNERS: Establish 10 regional reseller partnerships to drive international customer acquisition
  • COMPLIANCE: Complete regulatory certification in 5 target countries to enable 2026 expansion plan
FINTECH ECOSYSTEM

Build comprehensive financial services platform

  • CAPITAL: Expand restaurant capital program to $150M in deployed funds with less than 2% default rate
  • PAYMENTS: Increase payment processing attachment rate to 85% of new customers through bundled pricing
  • PAYROLL: Launch integrated restaurant payroll solution in 10 additional states reaching 60% market coverage
  • BANKING: Pilot Toast Banking services with integrated accounts, cards and financial management for 50 customers
DATA INTELLIGENCE

Create industry-leading restaurant insights platform

  • ANALYTICS: Launch predictive analytics dashboard with AI-powered forecasting for 1,000 beta customers
  • BENCHMARKS: Develop industry benchmark reporting across 20 KPIs segmented by restaurant type and geography
  • INSIGHTS: Deliver automated operational insights generating measurable 5%+ efficiency for participating customers
  • PLATFORM: Release data API platform enabling 3rd-party developers to build on Toast restaurant insights
METRICS
  • ARR: $1.32B (+13% QoQ)
  • NET REVENUE RETENTION: 110%
  • GROSS MARGIN: 48%
VALUES
  • Customer-First
  • Solve Together
  • Embrace Change
  • Innovation
  • Diversity and Inclusion
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Align the learnings

Toast Sales Retrospective

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To empower the restaurant community to delight guests, do what they love, and thrive by creating the world's most customer-centric restaurant technology ecosystem

What Went Well

  • GROWTH: ARR increased 35% YoY reaching $1.17B with strong customer adds
  • RETENTION: Subscription services maintained 95%+ net revenue retention
  • EXPANSION: Average revenue per location up 12% through cross-selling
  • PAYMENTS: Processing volume grew 42% to $33.7B with margin expansion
  • ADOPTION: New product adoption rate exceeded targets by 22% QoQ

Not So Well

  • PROFITABILITY: Adjusted EBITDA margins below target by 2.3 percentage
  • ENTERPRISE: Enterprise segment growth lagged expectations by 18%
  • INTERNATIONAL: Expansion timeline delays in key European markets
  • ACQUISITION: Higher than projected customer acquisition costs in SMB
  • TURNOVER: Sales leadership changes disrupted go-to-market momentum

Learnings

  • SEGMENTATION: Need targeted sales motions for enterprise vs. SMB
  • BUNDLING: Product bundles drive higher conversion than à la carte
  • DIGITAL: E-commerce channel represents untapped customer acquisition
  • PARTNERS: Channel partners deliver 3.2x higher customer LTV vs direct
  • RETENTION: Customer success engagement directly correlates to growth

Action Items

  • RESTRUCTURE: Realign sales organization by segment with clear ICP focus
  • ONBOARDING: Enhance implementation process to reduce time-to-value
  • PARTNERSHIPS: Expand ecosystem with 15 strategic integration partners
  • ENABLEMENT: Launch comprehensive sales certification program by Q3
  • METRICS: Implement real-time sales performance dashboard by end of Q2
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Drive AI transformation

Toast Sales AI Strategy SWOT Analysis

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To empower the restaurant community to delight guests, do what they love, and thrive by creating the world's most customer-centric restaurant technology ecosystem

Strengths

  • ANALYTICS: Advanced data analytics capabilities across platform
  • INTEGRATION: AI-ready infrastructure and data pipelines
  • ADOPTION: Strong customer adoption of existing technology
  • SCALE: Massive restaurant dataset for AI model training
  • TALENT: Growing AI/ML engineering talent acquisition

Weaknesses

  • MATURITY: Early-stage AI implementation compared to competitors
  • SILOS: Fragmented AI initiatives across product lines
  • RESOURCES: Limited dedicated AI research and development team
  • VISIBILITY: Unclear AI roadmap communication to market
  • EXPERTISE: Gaps in specialized AI restaurant domain knowledge

Opportunities

  • FORECASTING: AI-powered demand forecasting and inventory mgmt
  • PERSONALIZATION: Hyper-personalized guest recommendations
  • AUTOMATION: Labor optimization through AI task automation
  • INSIGHTS: Predictive analytics for restaurant performance
  • VOICE: Voice-activated restaurant management solutions

Threats

  • COMPETITION: Tech giants developing restaurant-specific AI
  • COMMODITIZATION: AI features becoming standard across industry
  • ADOPTION: Restaurant hesitancy to embrace advanced AI tools
  • REGULATION: Emerging AI regulatory constraints and compliance
  • TALENT: Fierce competition for limited AI engineering talent

Key Priorities

  • PLATFORM: Develop unified AI strategy across product portfolio
  • INTELLIGENCE: Create restaurant-specific AI predictive models
  • AUTOMATION: Launch AI-powered workforce optimization tools
  • EXPERIENCE: Implement personalized guest experience AI engine