Customer story · Hospitality and entertainment
27 spreadsheets retired. One live view of risk across 56 venues.
How the group that owns Strike Bowling, Holey Moley and Archie Brothers replaced their legacy risk system and a pile of spreadsheets for one live, board-ready compliance engine on top of Mitti, in a few weeks.
- 27+ to 1
- Spreadsheets, a Power BI and a legacy risk platform replaced by one live system
- 56 venues, 3 countries
- One view of risk across Australia, New Zealand and the US
- A few weeks
- From "here's our framework" to live, built to their board-approved bow tie model
- Approved on the spot
- The CEO approved Dan's business case in the room
The challenge
So much data, but a lack of true visibility
Funlab runs eight brands across 56 venues. Bowling lanes, arcades, mini golf, bars and kitchens under one roof, staffed by a young, high-turnover casual workforce. Every venue was already capturing everything in Mitti: injuries, issues, inspections, food safety checks.
The problem was turning it into answers.
“All our information lives in Mitti. The problem was analysing it quickly, so the right people have the right information. We wanted real answers immediately.”
Dan LopezRisk, Safety and Compliance Manager, FunlabRisk lived somewhere else entirely. Funlab's enterprise risk system had been built for a different industry entirely. Risk owners and executives didn't log in. Every rating, review date and control update was manual. The control library was full of duplicates. There were no key risk indicators at all.
So the real work happened in spreadsheets. 27 of them, plus a Power BI, each on its own cadence. Every board question meant pulling a date range, cleaning it, chasing owners and pasting it into a deck. When the team finally checked the old Excel calculations, some of them were simply wrong.
“My biggest strength is being in venues, seeing the problems they face. My problem was being burdened with millions of different spreadsheets, stuck in support office, not able to support our venues in real time.”
Dan LopezWhy Funlab moved to Frontline
The legacy system contract was up for renewal, and the team was drowning in spreadsheets. Funlab had two non-negotiables: replicate the bow tie framework the board had already approved, so there was no re-approval cycle, and link risk directly to what was happening in venues through Mitti.
“I went to the full executive leadership team with a business case and said: I've found a far better partner. It integrates with Mitti which the business already loves. It's a win-win. It got approved on the spot.”
Dan LopezWhat Frontline solved for Funlab
We built Funlab's risk system to Funlab's spec, not a template, then connected it live to their Mitti data.
- Bow tie risk, built to their framework. Causes, preventive and mitigating controls, actions and consequences, across global, ANZ, US and project registers.
- One shared control library. Each control is defined once, linked to every risk it protects, and traced back.
- Live KRIs against risk appetite. Level 1 to 3 injuries and issues from Mitti flow straight into key risk indicators, on Funlab's own 13-period financial year, with green, amber and red tolerances calculated automatically.
- Reviews that run themselves. Review cadences, overdue flags and status changes happen automatically, not in someone's calendar.
- Food safety as one live control. Daily, weekly and periodic checks and licences in a single view.
- Board reporting on demand. The material risk summary the board sees is generated from live data, with a full audit trail.
“It has been ridiculously quick. We said this is what we need built for our risk framework, and two or three weeks later it's built and everything is talking to each other.”
Dan LopezRisk, Safety and Compliance Manager, FunlabThe results
- 27+ spreadsheets and a legacy platform retired. One system, one source of truth.
- Real answers, immediately. Live on Mitti data. No exports, no guessing, no backdating.
- Risk to control to action, finally linked. When an incident happens in a venue, it shows up against the risk and control it tests.
- The board gets numbers it can trust. Monthly data collection and report prep across every business unit is now automated, with history on demand.
- The CEO approved it on the spot.
“With the food safety program as one control, live, we can make tangible change in the safety committee. We know this control is being met, or we know it isn't and our licences are at risk.”
Dan Lopez“The most dynamic risk system I've seen. It's the first time the register and what's actually happening on site have been the same thing.”
Funlab is now centralising its whole compliance back office on Frontline
By week two, Dan was scoping new modules himself. Since go-live, Funlab has added restricted categories for sensitive issues like whistleblowing and grievances, and is moving into return to work, contractor prequalification and a compliance obligations register, all on the same engine.
“Before, every time we'd see a gap we'd have to put together a business case to go out to market for a new system, and then 6-12 months of implementation. That immediately goes away. Now we just come straight to you and ask: can this be built on your platform?”
Dan LopezRunning risk on spreadsheets?
Send us the spreadsheet you run today. When your spot comes up we migrate it and walk you through it live, with no IT project and no data cleanup first.
“We had Microsoft go out last week and half those spreadsheets didn't work. Spreadsheets aren't needed.”
Dan Lopez- We take a few teams at a time
- Your data, your framing
- No IT project