Aben, the first Intelligent MarketingOS, announced that Tammy K. Billings will join as a co-founder to introduce the solution to the restaurant industry. Leveraging an unparalleled scale of proprietary data from credit card network and POS partnerships, Aben uses data science to guide – and measure – capital allocation decisions.
Aben’s machine learning algorithms measure key external attributes such as frequency, share of wallet, average check, etc., and provide unique context for a restaurant. The software is able to determine which individual locations are over and under performing against a distinct competitive set that contains all food and beverage spend in the local market, including independent restaurants, grocery and other food spend categories. This allows restaurants to know with certainty where there are gaps in the market, and where to invest their limited resources – for marketing, store remodels, labor recruitment, and more. Aben extends beyond analysis with prescriptive recommendations to correct predicted negative sales patterns and its ability to quantify the results of those recommendations using data from inside – and outside – of the four walls.
“The industry no longer has to rely on inaccurate legacy benchmarking solutions that are self-reported, may only contain chains, and do not accurately reflect a consumer’s choices,” says Tammy K. Billings, Co-Founder and & Head of Industry, Restaurants. “At Aben, I’ll be able to help data-driven marketing teams get meaningful and actionable data that will drive ROI for every individual restaurant in their system.”
“Tammy is a unicorn. She deeply cares for and understands the restaurant vertical better than anyone we’ve ever met, and has an innate ability to extend products to solve customer problems rapidly. We’ve known Tammy for years, and her background in restaurant marketing and technology, coupled with her experience working with data-oriented tech companies, made her a slam-dunk partner,” adds Jordan Thaeler, Co-Founder of Aben. Notably, Thaeler also writes the well-read blog, Reforming Retail, which has been tackling restaurant POS and payments data challenges with bad industry actors for years.
In her new role, Tammy is charged with bringing the solution to market which includes leading sales and marketing efforts, and guiding product enhancements. Marcus Viscidi, industry veteran and VP, Enterprise Sales – NRA Show & Food Service Conferences at Winsight, LLC rallied behind Billings and Thaeler, “Combining Tammy’s strategic marketing perspective with Jordan’s unparalleled savvy using big-data is already a win-win. And they are both great people who genuinely want to help restaurants.”
Tammy’s restaurant career started with In-N-Out Burger as a teenager but blossomed when she transitioned into the industry at age 30 as the Director of Marketing for LA Live, with 14 restaurant tenants. “We opened during the recession and the City of LA had made a big bet on us as the catalyst for the revitalization of downtown LA. I was charged with helping those restaurants keep their doors open at a time when nobody had money to dine out.” After LA Live, Tammy went on to work for SBE and Grill Concepts, leading their marketing efforts across several brands. During her career she has opened, remodeled, and/or rebranded more than 30 restaurants. When she made the move to the vendor side she was a top performer at Fishbowl (now Personica). At Marketing Vitals, she is credited with growing sales more than 200% over a short period of time. In her last role at Wisely, the (former) CEO, Mike Vichich said, “Tammy was instrumental in driving our acquisition by Olo for $187M.”
