#345 From POS to AI: Alexander Ponomarev on Elevating the Dining Experience

[00:00:00]

Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the CTO show with Mehmet. Today, I'm very pleased joining me here from Dubai, Alexander, who's the COO and uh, the, the man in charge for Syrve in the Middle East, uh, [00:01:00] Alexander, you know, the way I love to do it is I keep it to my guests to introduce themselves. So tell me a little bit more about you, uh, your little bit about your background and what you are currently up to.

Mehmet: So the floor is yours.

Alexander: Yeah. Thank you MeMed. Um, I'm very pleased to be at your show and, uh, thank you for having me. Um, a few words about what we're doing and who I'm, I'm the, um, chief Operating Officer at Syrve, uh, in the Middle East. We're covering the MENA region. I'm, um, a person with 12 years experience in tech for food.

Alexander: Basically in automation of the hospitality enterprises, restaurants, cafes, and what sorts of, uh, all, all sorts of, uh, uh, food serving entities. Um, and, um, since four years already, I'm working in Dubai, exploring the Middle Eastern market, exploring the Middle Eastern food, uh, um, uh, companies, uh, with different brands, local ones, [00:02:00] global ones, and, uh, provided them with solutions to make their work.

Alexander: More efficient to help them to serve better, serve more, serve better guests, um, and, uh, increase their business efficiency, uh, and, uh, uh, reaching more profits, reaching more, um, business success to say so. So that's the purpose of our company. That's our motto. And this is what we have been doing throughout all the years, applying the digital technologies, applying the, uh, digital environments and infrastructures.

Alexander: To the, uh, day to day operation of the people, the teams in the restaurants on all of the levels. So that's basically in a few words, uh, you know, we are running, uh, we're creating a solution, which is so deeply integrated and so on so many levels. So you literally, you could be speaking hours and hours about that.

Alexander: So we will discuss this,

Mehmet: we'll discuss this, you know, kindly bringing why you're doing this. I mean, what's the main [00:03:00] idea behind Syrve? Uh, but before I, you know, go to that direction, Alexander. So, and this is kind of out of my own curiosity because, you know, I've checked and you have like, you know, background in IT as well as the food tech.

Mehmet: So what actually drew you to take I would say the FNB industry as your main, um, as your main, I would say, uh, area of interest, like rather than maybe something else.

Alexander: Well, um, that's a very interesting question. And I would say that it's, um, as many things are happening in our world, in our lives, this is, this was kind of a game of a chance because previously I've been busy with completely different, um, Uh, different areas.

Alexander: I was more into the, uh, hardware technology. We were, uh, I was working in a company providing the, uh, hardware and equipment for airports. So my life [00:04:00] is a little bit connected to the aviation, which I'm a big fan of, but it's like now more of a hobby. Um, and then, Um, I was on the, um, and that was 12 years back by the way, and I was on the, um, and I was younger and I was trying to explore what else is there for the career opportunities.

Alexander: And I was invited to a company which was doing the restaurant automation back then. And, uh, um, I found that, uh, this could, uh, Um, this could marry two passions of mine except for aviation. Obviously, the food, the restaurants, and the technologies, which were back then, uh, arising and the internet was, uh, developing and, uh, the differents were developing.

Alexander: And I didn't know anything about the technologies in the restaurants. I, all I knew is that there are restaurants and some of them I like and of are not. Uh, and, uh. made me think, okay, I might, might start [00:05:00] exploring that. And the opportunity was quite lucrative and the offer was quite lucrative, but that's like, uh, back then again, 12 years back.

Alexander: Um, and uh, when I entered the company and I was invited to do the international business development. So another, my kind of passion kicked in the travels. Um, I understood that, um, I didn't know anything about the restrooms and, um, it opened to me that there is a whole, whole big world of not only business.

Alexander: Um, and saying about the business, like, um, the restaurants in people's minds, in a lot of people's minds, the restaurant is something. You open when you are already reached. Do not, um, the normal people, they do not frequently, um, describe questions for them as a business. And I understood that it's a business.

Alexander: It's a serious thing. It's a very serious business, which is based on figures, which [00:06:00] must be based on figures. And actually there is a lot of customers, which we have to persuade that, yeah, you have to start calculating stuff in your, in your enterprise. Um, I understood that. Um, that's a very, um, interesting amalgamation of passion, um, because all the restaurant owners, all the people who start the restaurants and have this craving for, for serving food to people, they put a lot of passion into that.

Alexander: And, um, that's like, um, uh, an amalgamation of this passion and mind and business and scrutiny, which you. don't really see in a lot of other, uh, in, in, in some other businesses. If you're a startup production facility, there is mostly purely, um, uh, an engineering mind applied and the passion of a different kind.

Alexander: But here there are artists, which are Western owners, the people who start restaurants trying to run their businesses [00:07:00] in an efficient manner to get profits, which requires these, you know, it's like the, um, Place where the left part of your brain, uh, is, uh, in a tight communication and tries to, to, to make friends with your left part of the brain, which amazed me.

Alexander: And, uh, since then, yeah, I was, I was, um, advocating for technology to the restaurants. I was advocating for restaurants to technology because it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a marriage made in heaven. And, um, uh, another thing which is very important at this stage is that. Serving food actually is one of the, one of the most ancient activity of person or of people, the restaurants that existed thousands and thousands of years back.

Alexander: And technology in a sense, the digital technology which we are currently having is Quite young. So we've started the first computers. They are less than 100 years old. The first pro, pre computer technologies are less than [00:08:00] 200 years old. And, um, that, that is, um, um, the display of how we as humanity are, Bringing us ourselves, our operations, our works, our lives to a whole new level within the industries, which exists for a thousand years.

Alexander: So that's, that's what amazed me. And this is how I digged in and I'm still, still diving

Mehmet: deeper and deeper into this field. Fantastic. You know, I love when you hear about someone who does this. Of course, as a job, but at the same time as a hobby. So this is, uh, uh, you know, great to hear. Now you mentioned something which is very valid.

Mehmet: Like the serving, uh, food to other people is something very old. And, you know, this industry, is an old industry. Now, the question is, you know, when, when trying to implement new technologies, and especially I know like you at Surf, I mean, as a company, you, [00:09:00] uh, you use these technologies. So for example, AI forecasting, face ID, uh, I'm sure like maybe people would think that this will bring to me more challenges.

Mehmet: So can you tell me like from your perspective, how, um, actually if you face these challenges when, when trying to implement it using your technologies, especially in our MENA region, right? Uh, and you know, how did you overcome them?

Alexander: So, um, if we're speaking about the challenges themselves, which we encounter while trying to implement these technologies to the businesses, how Obviously, there is a certain drawback from, from the perspective of, uh, having this old industry with a lot of different practices, which are already established over a hundred years.

Alexander: It's sometimes a very difficult thing to implement something new, a new practice, and have a breakthrough in how people, uh, run their businesses and, and, and how do they do the [00:10:00] operations because, uh, from the perspective of the, um, Business itself, restaurant is a very intense thing. It's much more intense than, than, than any normal production, because you have, um, again, the amalgamation of these technologies, like from the food processing perspective, uh, so basically any restaurant is a kind of a factory where you have supply, you have the processing and it has to be on a certain level of.

Alexander: Hygienic standards and you have to maintain that and apply all these things. Then there is a front office Uh front of the house where you have to be more Uh humane you have to apply your hospitality to the guests speak to them. So it's a more of a humanitarian thing And uh when technology comes in Um, it's sometimes it is Quite difficult to prove to the owner of the business or to the managers of the businesses that, um, uh, it's, it's actually going [00:11:00] to bring, um, um, a certain advantage to their business.

Alexander: It's going to bring good to their operations. Uh, the good thing here is that Apart from their work, apart from their rest, they're using this technology all the way in their day to day life. Uh, the face recognition is at everybody's phone, so they do see how quicker and how more convenient it became for them to start using their phones.

Alexander: They don't need to input the code, they don't need to apply their fingers, they just grab the phone, recognize them. Um, and the same thing is like for, uh, speaking about the, uh, face recognition, which you've mentioned, uh, previously in the, um, uh, in like 20 years back, all you had to do in order to access the POS station and the restaurant was the PIN code.

Alexander: You had to remember that PIN code, they were distributed among the people and they could exchange them. So there was a certain security breach. Then there were magnetic cards, then there were magnetic keys. Uh, then there [00:12:00] were all sorts of, uh, different types of devices. Uh, now it's just a fingertip. So you have your access card with you all the time.

Alexander: Um, and then it's the face, which recognizes you on the flight. Um, and, uh, once People see it's in action and they do understand at a certain point that okay, they don't need to spend a second to approve the operation or to start operating the terminal which they are going to be using to apply the order to close the order.

Alexander: Sorry. Um, it, it brings the new level of understanding of how efficient the restaurant, they do not have to spend a single second, a single minute to, uh, go on, uh, uh, and to pause their action, their thing, which they are going to be doing, which they were planning to be doing. Um, so, [00:13:00] um, Again, back back to the challenges.

Alexander: Um, this is where the humanitarian part of the business texts. And so we need to be the diplomats. We need to be the ambassadors of the technology. We need to show people our passion. We need to show people, um, and the decision makers in the businesses that, um, If we believe in this technology to the level that we are 100 percent sure that it will do the improvement to your business, this means there is something behind that.

Alexander: This means that you should, at least you should try it. You should give it a chance. And, uh, uh, if not, then not. Okay. There are practices which you've been using the hundreds of hundreds of years previously, so your restaurant will work fine. Um, and, uh, we will just try to bring you some, some other technology.

Mehmet: Now, my question, uh, Alexander is if I want to compare a kind of, because you mentioned business and here we're talking about food tech. [00:14:00] Now let me break the question so it becomes easy. So let's first take from business perspective, from restaurant perspective. So, So if I want to see with what you offer, uh, uh, Syrve from tangibility perspective, you know, these technologies that you offer are, and I understand like, it's, uh, like all in cloud.

Mehmet: This is what you call it on your website. All in cloud, um, uh, restaurants, all more,

Alexander: it's more, more of an all in one, but cloud based. That's, that's it. Yeah. All in one

Mehmet: cloud based. Yes. So if I want to take the journey before and after, you know, if I want to compare the life of a restaurant owner, for example, before adapting your solution and after adapting that, how would that be?

Mehmet: If, if, you know, if the question is accurate.

Alexander: Yeah, the question, the question is quite understandable. Uh, the, the story here starts with the solutions, obviously, which you [00:15:00] have been using before, sir. So that is, that is, that has a certain imprint and impact on, on the perception of the new technologies which are coming to your life.

Alexander: Um, this, this requires a little bit of a History, I would say like 20 years back, um, the POS was something new that these normal touch screens, which you have, uh, and you can see in every restaurant, which are printing the bills for you when you're visiting that for breakfast or for dinner. Uh, they were not really common.

Alexander: They were not really obligatory and, um, uh, people were doing and handling their businesses just by papers. They were taking the orders, bringing that to the kitchen. Then somehow they have these written receipts, which they then applied as the document. Um, Today, it's not the case. Everybody has the POS.

Alexander: Everybody has some piece of technology in the restaurant, and it's now becoming a commodity. And over the years, over the last 25 years, if we're speaking about the development of the [00:16:00] industry, the percentage of the funds allocated while opening your business, while opening your restaurant is Constantly growing, which the percentage, which you're allocating for the technology, because previously 20 years back, the restaurant owner, the, who starts a new venue or it's his first venue.

Alexander: He was thinking more about the design of the interiors. He was thinking about buying a new furnace, new open, which is more expensive. So the funds were all there. The people frequently we had situations where, uh, okay. We, we forgot about the POS station. We're opening three days. How we're going to be doing the checks because the.

Alexander: importance of the technology was not at that point as it is now. Um, and, um, um, that's, that's the first idea. The first idea is that everybody is now trying to apply the technology and some of them are becoming the commodity, like the POS stations, every restaurant, at least in Dubai, at least in many other cities across the board, across the globe, the are, [00:17:00] um, equipped with the digital POS station.

Alexander: Um, and then. People start, um, exploring, uh, people start exploring what else is there from the technology perspective. So, uh, uh, what else could help them to run their businesses? What else help, can help them to ease their operations? And so on and so on. Uh, so, uh, now we are coming to the point where, um, almost everybody is a good with the technology.

Alexander: So what, else could our technology bring in? Um, and, um, there is, there is a certain, uh, few points, uh, of what difference could, could serve, for instance, make. We're referring to ourselves as the all in one system, which is cloud based, and many of the businesses in our field, they do refer to themselves, and their main product is the POS, point of sale.

Alexander: Um, we more prefer to name ourselves as the restaurant management system, so this is the [00:18:00] first difference which we, uh, See, uh, in comparison to our competition. Um, as I've mentioned previously, the restaurant is a very intense and a very, um, specific type of business. It has everything starting from the production to sales, to, uh, uh, managing the employees, and it's a very intense thing.

Alexander: Uh, and the people who are working in the restaurant, they have. a very, very different level of knowledge and competence and discipline and uh, uh, the level of their skills is very different. Uh, chefs are not really, uh, usually are not really talkative to the guests and the waiters. They have to be on the hostesses.

Alexander: They have to be very kind to the guests and they have to be very talkative and have to be very friendly. So this is, um, and every single small restaurant has 10 different positions which require a different level of nature of the personality which requires different levels of efforts applied to the business and [00:19:00] yeah coming back to To to the differences in the technology.

Alexander: So many companies refer to themselves as the POS and the POS is what they do and We refer to ourselves as more as the restaurant management system. So we are covering everything which is happening in the restaurant and front of the house, how we call it, which is the sales, obviously, which is the things happening in the kitchen.

Alexander: We have the displays for the, uh, control over the production queue so that all the items are delivered on time. We have the tools to control the attendance of the staff and the crew of their salary and the efficiency of calculating of these. And we have the whole, uh, lot of the features in the back of the house.

Alexander: So the back of the house is another thing. Where, uh, all of these boring, or restrictions, boring stuff happens like recipes, calculations, wastages, uh, the efficiency of the stock, the, uh, stock balance, the cost of the sales, the financial part of the P& [00:20:00] L, and the allocation of the funds, the budgeting, all sorts of the things.

Alexander: And the concept of CERF is we are covering, uh, All of possible activities in the restaurant, um, we have the, uh, delivery subsystem, we have the loyalty system to increase the revenue by, uh, doing more loyalty mechanics to your guests and so on and so on. Um, uh, that's, that's the main thing. And, um, uh, An important thing here is that we are applying a little bit different approach to how you do these operations.

Alexander: One of our mottos is that we're not automating the input of the figures, we're automating the operations, which figures are then the result of these operations. I'll try to explain on, on, on, um, some examples. Simple examples like, um, there is a process in the restaurant business, which is called wastages when you break something or something is spoiled or you are, or the guests are denying the item, which is not [00:21:00] properly cooked.

Alexander: And in order to maintain the sufficient costs, the, the accurate cost of sales, which is a crucial metric for the restaurant, you need to do the proper wastage registration. Like imagine in a bar, you have dropped an expensive bottle of wine and it's broken and you need to let the accountant or the manager know that it's on the books, that it's broken.

Alexander: This this product will not deliver revenue to the restaurant, there will be no margin, there will be no profit on that, but already the cost has been, has been sent. Previously, how would you do that? You would write it on the paper, then send this paper to the head office. Now it's more simple, you will still Write it on the paper, most probably, or you will drop the message to the, uh, to the accountant over WhatsApp.

Alexander: Then he has to input these figures into his books, into his systems, and so on and so on. But the communication still involves, uh, a lot of things. Uh, so purely, the nature of this [00:22:00] operation is back of the house. It is registered in the back of the house, but the physical activity, the physical, um, uh, the physical part of the world happened in the restaurant, in the front of the house.

Alexander: And we have the tools where you can register this wastage right on the POS and it will be in the books and the owner and the manager and everybody will see that on the reports. And, uh, you just do this operation once you register that and it's everywhere across all of the. people who has any connection to this activity with the decision making and the figures, uh, and auditing and so on and so on.

Alexander: So we have this, uh, approach of, um, crossing the back of the house with the front of the house and marrying them at some certain point of time to reduce The level of efforts which is required to actually do this operation. And, um, uh, another pillar, which sort of stands on is our API and our practice and our say, [00:23:00] philosophy of, um, um, free, um, uh, how to say that, um, of the flexible integrations to, uh, different other solutions.

Alexander: Uh, where we allow the third party companies to have access and to exchange data with our system or to post the data into our system or to fetch the data from our solution, which generates a huge amount of data on the restaurant, obviously. Um, and, uh, uh, we are currently integrated with dozens, if not hundreds, different types of solutions.

Alexander: And you can imagine. Again, coming back to the nature of restaurant business, it's very complicated on many levels from speaking to the guests, to the back of the house, to the analytics and to the, uh, to all sorts of different sorts of operations. Specifically, it became very obvious and very important during the pandemics when the deliveries grew up and the world we're living in is currently heavily influenced by the pandemic.[00:24:00]

Alexander: development of the restaurant businesses through pandemics, through the challenges like we are having all of these deliveries three times a week, four times a week. And we have this habit because it happened there because there's a certain level of technology has been applied. But again, I'm taking the side paths to the dialogue.

Alexander: Uh, so the API is, uh, uh, the, another pillar, which, which sort of stands on. And, um, Uh, we do encourage companies to do the integrations. Why do we, uh, pursue, um, uh, in, in, in, in a sense where why do we pursue this path? Because we do believe that there are, um, thousands of different good solutions which can appeal to people and which people like and which businesses like.

Alexander: And we don't want to limit our customers, which are restaurants, in using the technology globally. So, um, just a short example, we have our own loyalty subsystem inside of our [00:25:00] infrastructure inside of our, uh, uh, environment and it's pretty flexible. It would cover 90 percent of the demand for any kind of product.

Alexander: hospitality enterprise out there in the market. It has the list of the customers. It has the threshold bonuses. It has the bonuses. You can pay the order to a certain percentage. It's very flexible and it's very powerful and it is there already in the suit, in the package, in the suite. So you don't have to pay additionally for that.

Alexander: It's just the implementation as a part of our structure. But there are a lot of, Um, systems which are, which are more powerful than ours. Um, a lot of loyalty programs, a lot of loyalty companies, which are, um, better equipped with the features maybe. Then we are, which have the expertise in this certain field.

Alexander: And, um, we can integrate with them and, um, let the customer use the benefit of, uh, both [00:26:00] solutions. So in this sense, uh, surf is becoming, um, a technological core of the restaurant. And this is what we are actually aiming for. So apart from having all of these nice and efficient and very, uh, important features, uh, by ourselves.

Alexander: We like the extensions by third party companies. And this, by the way, also brings us to, um, to another important topic. What is the solution? Uh, as I've mentioned, as I've mentioned, we have the loyalty, but we are not a company which is experts on loyalty. We are not, we are, we're experts in automation. We have all of these scenarios in our product.

Alexander: We have all of these, um, uh, uh, Technological routes on how to apply some certain mechanics in the restaurant in our product But we are not a marketing agency. We're not a company specializing in the in the loyalty and therefore We to [00:27:00] some certain extent we can advise you which loyalty campaign to start or how to analyze the data We have this abc xyz analysis Uh, which is like ai para ai and so on But we're not the people who have spent 20 years on loyalty.

Alexander: We're not the people who can Take you and provide you this solution in a broader sense apart together with technology together with consulting together with a certain support on that and so on and so on. So this is why we are, uh, like embracing all of this technology with, uh, our, um, uh, hospitable, uh, AAPI hands, basically

Mehmet: that's fantastic.

Mehmet: It's kind of, you know, running the whole business. through one single platform, but at the same time, giving the flexibility, um, you know, I come from a enterprise, also technology background. [00:28:00] And a lot of times, you know, this removes friction because when you tell someone you have to remove everything and use my solution.

Mehmet: Uh, they freak out, right? Uh, and I like, you know, the approach you took is that, okay, we can offer you everything if you like, but of course we can integrate with better solutions. So really, I like this approach. Now, you mentioned a lot of technologies here, Alexander. And, you know, one thing that, you know, you know, get struck in my head as they say, So you're also enabling somehow the food and tech.

Mehmet: I mean, mainly the F& B industry to have the data insights because you, you must be. enabling them, you are not collecting the data. So just to make sure. So they are collecting now a lot of data, which they can do a lot of things with it. So what are like the most use cases is, I know like what forecasting of course is one of the things which is very obvious, but what other use cases is like related to data and you know, maybe AI [00:29:00] that you've seen restaurants where now able to do because you enabled them to collect all these data points.

Alexander: Sure. Um, so obviously, um, the, um, um, so first thing first, what is, what is, what is technology in, in, in a sense of civilization to say so. So technologies help us to do the tasks which we were doing previously. But in a more efficient manner so we can drive faster. So the cars allowed us to drive faster, to get from A to B in less time than we were doing that with horses.

Alexander: The planes let us travel, uh, uh, uh, between the continents, but still it is traveling. We could do that a hundred years back. We could do that 500 years back, of course, with a certain conversion because you need to, to, to, uh, swim through, uh, Atlantics and so on and so on. Um, so the amount of effort you're doing to do the same tasks and to achieve greater results is reducing by using the technology.

Alexander: [00:30:00] So normally every action, not normally, but if you would apply a certain level of efforts and a certain level of human resources, which will be abused, you could run any restaurant, any chain with using just Excel, if you can do that even on paper, but that will. costs you a lot because the, uh, amount of time you will be spending to get the PNL report would be enormous.

Alexander: Um, and, uh, by technologies, we are reducing this time of delivering this result, uh, to, to almost no time because the data, which is generated by the system, not only collected, but also generated by the system. Um, and applied to certain, certain interfaces and certain formulas and certain way of allocating that in, in, in, in people's minds to say, so, uh, that makes it, uh, easier to, uh, get to the point to get this data, to get this valid validation of your activities or to give you the insight of what exactly needs to be done.

Alexander: [00:31:00] And for instance, Um, uh, speaking of all the forecasting is obviously like you're forecasting the, uh, revenue, which you're going to receive tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and so on and so on. But that's just the first step by forecasting the revenue. This does not. Um, um, this, this does not give you anything in terms of what to do, but if you apply the next step to that, by predicting tomorrow's revenue, the system could help you to predict the amount of resources, the amount of supply, which you will need.

Alexander: This is where the important story thing starts. This is where the decision making starts. And, uh, the system basically helps you to understand what amount of supply and the products and the food you need tomorrow to serve. The guests to the level to support your revenue. Uh, by that you would understand whether you can afford this or not.

Alexander: Uh, by that you can understand whether the supply could be on time or not and how can you [00:32:00] change that? Or you need to instruct your waiters to offer other items. In order to not let the guests know that you're short of something. Um, and there's like various different other techniques. And, uh, Um, At some point it help, it can help you to, um, Um, to, to do the thing which we call menu engineering to say so.

Alexander: It's like the ABC XYZ analysis, which helps you to understand the efficiency of each and every item from, um, uh, several different points. How frequently does it, is it sold in your restroom? Uh, what is the markup on this item or what is the general profit on this item? Um, how, um, Efficient is this item from the economical perspective So if you have an item which is sold in big numbers like thousands of every month, but it's not profitable Or even if there is a loss, uh, does it really make sense to you to sell it?

Alexander: um, of course it [00:33:00] makes sense to sell it because It is popular. People are coming to eat it, but this means that you need to either change the price or change the supplies for this item, or, uh, you need to, uh, to think of how to, how, how would you be bringing the costs of the sales for each of these items to a normal level?

Alexander: And this is what systems help you to do. Because amount of data, which is there on every data point, um, is generated by the system. It's generated by the operations. You can just, um, put them into a certain interface and they'll show you and give you the insight and hint. Um, this is one of the, one of the one, one of the things which we are, uh, promoting and strictly promoting throughout of the, all of the decision makers in the restaurants, that all the decisions in the restaurant be datadriven.

Alexander: So, uh. You have to support, um, you have to support your decisions and base your decisions on the figures, uh, which reflect [00:34:00] the reality, uh, as accurate as possible. Um, so that's, that's, that's what we do. Uh, this is why it's, it's the operational software. It's not an accounting software. It's not the bank software.

Alexander: It's the operational software. And the purpose of it is to provide the most accurate. Um, data in no time in the online, because there are frequently like 20 years back, you would imagine a standard scenario in the restaurant would be that you're selling some item for a month. At the end of the month, you get the report and you understand that this, uh, item has become unprofitable a month ago because the prices with the suppliers changed.

Alexander: So this means that you've been losing. on this particular item for a month already. It's a loss, which you will not be able to regain again. Uh, and, uh, uh, today's systems, they just help you to instantly understand that and give you this insight that, okay, the price has changed. The cost of things item [00:35:00] has changed.

Alexander: You have to do something about that. It's either you go to speak to the supplier or change the supplier or change the price or put the item to the stop until you decide what you're, what you're going to be doing. So this is basically, again, you could do that all with a big piece of paper, but the amount of, of, of, of labor, uh, put into this, into this paperwork and the amount of, um, not the amount, I wanted to say the amount of brains you need to apply, uh, the amount of, Uh, organizing with this paper, imagine how it would be like you have, you have a restaurant of, of, uh, three tables and you have 20 people in the background doing all of this paperwork in order to make it efficiently with what you would just do with Excel and then with the specific professional systems.

Alexander: Uh, this is, this is the technology. This is the marriage of the traditional hundred years, thousands of years industries with what we are now, uh, doing in our [00:36:00] world, digitalizing, uh, Uh, everything around us.

Mehmet: Absolutely, Alexander. It made a lot of sense. So you started with something when you mentioned like technology's aim always is to make things better.

Mehmet: And this is always also, I say, like when we say make something better, so either you do it faster, you do it cheaper, not better, not

Alexander: better, not better. Because what's good, what's bad is a very philosophical question. Right? More efficient. Because, you see, I'm, I'm, I'm a tech, I'm a tech guy. I have a paper, I have a pen, a fountain pen, and this is my day to day operation.

Alexander: I do write the tasks into my paper, uh, is it good or bad? It's less efficient, but it helps me to

Mehmet: plan. Same here.

Mehmet: Uh, no. What is is technology which

Alexander: lasts ,

Mehmet: uh, yeah. Efficient. Yeah. You are right. I should say efficiency, but I mean, when, when we talk in, in business [00:37:00] language, so any business owner, they want, one of the few things that, that I will mention now increase revenue, right? They want to decrease costs, right? Yeah.

Mehmet: They want things to be faster. They want to avoid risks and in the f and ps, this is very important and they want to, and this is where I ask you, like from two sides, I'm sure like all this affects the customer, but let me let, let

Alexander: me interrupt you, let me interrupt you here before you ask me the question.

Alexander: Uh, again, what's good and bad, of course, as a business. And this is what the beauty of the restaurant industry comes here. Um, as every business we want to cut costs and increase our profits, but in the restaurant industry, sometimes, um, The profits, it's, it's again, it's a very rare and cinematographical scenarios and so on.

Alexander: And this is where the, um, restaurant industry as the art industry, as the, [00:38:00] the, the, um, uh, the industry of artists, uh, steps in, uh, some things, um, some things which are not profitable, they generate your, uh, your traffic. Which makes the other part of the business profitable. So sometimes you need to have these, um, skill or these six cents or whatever.

Alexander: And this is what makes these artists, this is where we are marrying this passion and the sixth sense with the common sense of the figures and so on. Like, um, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's an example from, um, not from the restaurant industry, but it perfectly describes what I'm trying to say, like us, okay. Um, grocery chain, Costco, they have their, uh, combo of a drink and the hot dog for 1.

Alexander: 5 since 70s. They are unprofitable, hugely on that, but the, uh, stand, [00:39:00] the booth with these hot dogs is in the end of the, uh, Store and people are going there and they are buying something from from all of the sites because they are going for this 1. 5 hot dog Which makes them hugely unprofitable on that We are losing clearly about a bunch of money on that every year But they are not cancelling that because it generates a lot of money Other stuff.

Mehmet: Yeah. You need to see the big picture in business sometimes. Yes. And you don't focus, of course, like, yeah, I fully understand this, but I wanted to say, before I ask you the question, which is actually you answered indirectly. So all these things you mentioned Alexander, because you optimize, let's say the, the operation.

Mehmet: So that reflects on the end user for Restaurants, which is us going there. Yes So I would feel out feel like this menu is designed from price perspective You know for me because now they know my my [00:40:00] let's say habit budget whatever so they would know who usually comes to their place at the same time, you know, like Of course, now we see, we see it everywhere, especially here in Dubai.

Mehmet: And this I'm relating to my, to the question. So we see like the adoption of technology and makes the customer happy at the restaurant or, you know, in, in, even if you are sitting in the hotel and, you know, ordering something, they are leveraging this technology as well. So because you cover multiple, you know, uh, countries and, you know, so from, from your, from your point of view, Um, especially when we talk about them in the region, like how have you seen the adoption for the technology?

Mehmet: And, you know, the reflection of also like, we are a technology driven kind of economies now. And so do you think this is, uh, now as the expectation is, or should it be like much more? And if not, like, uh, how do you see things, you know, you know, from adoption perspective in the FNB for the technology in the [00:41:00] coming years?

Mehmet: How do you see the trends that you believe will be transformative for, for the sector?

Alexander: Well, um, uh, well, obviously the adoption of the technologies is happening and it's happening very fast. For instance, um, and specifically in the MENA region. For instance, if you are visiting restaurants and places, I don't know, like three years back, you would have to pay for the, um, uh, for the, uh, Uh, for your order, either by cash or by cart, and you have to wait for the waiter.

Alexander: Now, almost every restaurant is equipped with a QR code. So basically you don't have to wait for anyone. You just, uh, uh, lobbying, you just scan the QR code, uh, and you do the payment and it allows to, uh, make it more convenient if you are, uh, dining in a group that everybody can pay for their item only.

Alexander: And they don't have to wait for the waiter. That's one of the examples, um, for instance, we're still struggling with some, at some point with the, in the, in the region [00:42:00] with the, um, uh, tips, for instance, once you're, if you, you can, uh, remember that once you, the waiter comes to you, Uh, to your table. Uh, and your order is somewhat like 260 dirhams and you're telling him like, okay, let's make it 300.

Alexander: Your service is very great. He's done. He's doing that manually. And then he gets the check. And at the end of the month, he has to tell the owner that, yeah, or the manager or our business. We found the this is the amount of tips which I have been granted and so on. So it's a complicated process and there is still a technology to be applied to make this process easier and so on and so on.

Alexander: Uh, so, uh, speaking about the adoption of technologies, obviously we are looking at ourselves as the, uh, intro. user of these technologies to the market and we're doing everything which is possible to apply these technologies to restaurant operations and to make them usable and to [00:43:00] make them the day to day life and in the operations of every restaurant.

Alexander: If we're speaking about the trends Obviously, AI is the new trend, it's overhyped and so on and so on. Uh, and, uh, it is going to be heavily in use in the restaurant business, because, and this is already in many cases, and we use that in our solutions as well, in our, some of our integrations. Uh, because the amount of routine work, which is, um, Currently being, uh, used in throughout the industry, we can dedicate that we can delegate that to to the A.

Alexander: I. Uh, but that is only about the A. I. That is only about the routine work, uh, to my mind. Um, speaking about the topic of A. I. Um, It will help greatly to reduce the amount of labor we need to do this routine, day to day, simple, but, um, uh, [00:44:00] but, but big in bulk, big in, in, in amounts work. Uh, this can be done by AI.

Alexander: But as I said, The art of creating a restaurant and the art of feeling the people of speaking to the people this can never be replaced by ai I think because uh to my mind the Ai cannot create things It can reflect things it can Gather the experience and create the amalgamation and some mixture of something which has been already created but creating the experience is the prerogative of, of, of, of human beings.

Alexander: So this is what makes us unique and this is what will not replace the main technology in the restaurant is like a human, human being. Um, and, um, um, speaking about more of the regional development, um, I see a lot of efforts by applied by the governments of the, um, Of the, uh, of the region to introduce more technologies into the [00:45:00] day to day life.

Alexander: And you can see that again, Dubai, where you have all these digital interfaces and you can apply to any kind of governmental body for anything using this, uh, UAE pass, for instance, which is a great piece of technology, which allows you to skip all of the queues and. A lot of, uh, a lot of routine is again, uh, uh, taken, taken off from your life.

Alexander: Um, and I see that the region, um, um, as I've mentioned, the governments are trying to apply as much technology as they can. Um, I see that the region is craving for technology. And from the geopolitical perspective, the region is more and more interesting for the people. From across the globe, as you see in Dubai and in other countries of the region, the people are coming from all over the world.

Alexander: They're bringing the best with them. They're bringing their technologies. They're bringing their, uh, their experience. They are bringing their, uh, approaches in business. And, um, I believe that there is going to be [00:46:00] a lot of, a lot of, uh, news and changes throughout the next few years in the, uh, um, in the, day to day lives of ours.

Alexander: And, uh, since the Westerns are important part, Westerns and overall hospitality enterprises, they are important part of our day to day life. So this is what we are going to be seeing in, in these, uh, in these venues as well.

Mehmet: Absolutely. Now, one question for you also, Alexander, which is, interestingly, you, you, you, How I would say this, um, you have a good verge only, not only on from the technology part, but from on the operations part of, of the FNB business.

Mehmet: So, and there is a saying, you know, which started when all this digital transformation things started to happen, where we start to tell customers, I mean, to tell enterprises in other sense, Hey, you have to become a technology company yourself, or you will become, you [00:47:00] obsolete, right? So from, from your, from your perspective, if we want to think about, yeah, okay, I want to have to be this kind of company, but can you tell me how this will allow me, let's say to scale, how this will allow me maybe to go and open in other places, in other geographies?

Mehmet: Um, what's your, what's your advice actually to, to, uh, people in this business I mean, in F& B business, who might be listening to us today, or people who are like fans of food tech and you know, everything that enable the sector, how this can be a way for them to grow across borders, in your opinion?

Alexander: Um, so that's a very interesting question.

Alexander: And, um, I would, I would start answering that indirectly. Absolutely. For, like, how the nature of your business, what is the nature of your [00:48:00] business? Obviously, if you are a restaurant, your nature, the nature of your business and the purpose of your business is to serve food to people. This is what you're passionate about.

Alexander: But how about becoming an IT company serving food? For instance, we have, um, and, uh, there is, there is again an indirect example. Which is not related to F& B business at all. For instance, Amazon, which has started as the bookshop and then later became, uh, it's a great great example of entrepreneurial spirit and then to like, Bezos is now an icon for most of the business people in in the world and now they've started as the bookshop then they became a marketplace and then Uh, now in the I.

Alexander: T. World, Amazon is known as the A. W. S. So it's now a technological company. And how did it happen? They've started growing as the marketplace, and they required a certain I. T. Infrastructure, and they decided to grow [00:49:00] it in house and the level of competence and the level of technologies which they delivered to themselves first came so they were Uh, obvious and came so, came so, um, appeared to be so high level that they've started selling that and now I'm not mistaken.

Alexander: I just don't want to to be to be wrong with the figures if um, The estimations are right. I'm not sure that again, it's correct, but the overall understanding is there that 80 percent of their revenue is generated by the AWS services and whatever they are now applying and selling out to the other businesses.

Alexander: So this is the example of changing of the nature of the business, changing of the, uh, of the main business, not changing of the product, if you wish. And there are companies Which have actually started as I. T. companies. Um, a great, great, great example is the, uh, uh, pizza, pizza chain, uh, Dodo, which is, which comes from Russia.

Alexander: They've started as the I. T. [00:50:00] company selling pizza. So the core of their business started as an I. T. product. to make it as efficient, uh, as the, uh, as it's, as it's possible to serve pizza to people. Uh, they are now opening in Dubai. They have opened a couple of places in Dubai. Um, and, uh, uh, that's what they do.

Alexander: They deliver their, uh, all the pizza. to all of their franchises, to all of their business partners. They're delivering this solution, which runs, helps them to run the business in the most efficient manner inside of their pizzerias, inside of their delivery processes, inside of their supply chain and so on and so on.

Alexander: There are certain disadvantages of this approach in terms of the restaurant business, but it is what it is. It helps them to grow. They are now hundreds of, uh, uh, hundreds of pizzerias across the globe. They are a significant player in the market. Another example is, the adoption of the technologies of the I.

Alexander: T. Technologies to another pizza giant from U. S. Dominus. Um, the dominance at some [00:51:00] point of time, they understood the value of the technology. They've understood that this is what will help them to make their business Uh, efficient and to raise their efficiency and to maintain their efficiency and leave adopted and they bought some technology They bought some technological company to run the operations and now they are delivering that they're developing that in house and that helped them to Uh raise their Uh, market cap greatly because now at any moment of time, they understand what is their revenue going to be in the week time in a month time.

Alexander: What are the areas which they are not covered? What are the areas they want to go? What are the areas they don't want to go? And there is a whole lot. Uh, a whole amount of data sets, which they are generating and operating to apply to that. And this is what investors like the, any investor would, would, would, um, be happy to invest in the company, which knows their revenue in the month, which know [00:52:00] on the biggest scale.

Alexander: I imagine they have 50, 000 restaurants across the globe. How do you manage this kind of, uh, these kind of, uh, uh, behemoth business, which is again. Intense. It's a production of food, which has some sanitary conditions where the people who are not very well educated and not very well, um, uh, competent in something work, like imagine who are the people who are starting their careers.

Alexander: They don't have experience. They come from a lower level of education and they are building their careers and donors. But at this level, we. Can do mistakes and you have to run all of these huge, huge infrastructure in, um, dozens of, uh, legislations. This is another thing that legislation, um, uh, is a very important part in the restaurant business to say so, because there is a whole bunch of different fiscal laws and different countries [00:53:00] and different means of how do you provide this fiscal information to the government?

Alexander: And it's obvious because. Now, this is where it comes that restaurant is not just a piece of art. It's a business and an entity and a legal entity where you have to follow some certain guidelines and directions in every country. And they are different even in the same regions. So, uh, speaking of this, um, The advice is yes, you definitely need to apply your the technology to your to your business.

Alexander: You definitely need to analyze what fields of operation you're lacking in. Either it's a revenue, then you need to work on the loyalty and then to to add more guests. Uh, either it's on the efficiency of your internal structure. Your internal business processes. What is the cost of your, uh, sales on average?

Alexander: If you don't know that, that's the problem because you cannot control something you don't know. So you need to start calculating your costs. Uh, do [00:54:00] your, uh, employees work on time? Are they always late or are they on time? Maybe you're, Not, uh, applying an efficient, uh, schedule for their operation. Uh, this all helps you to go beyond your borders.

Alexander: First, you, you first expand your business to the borders of your district. Maybe you get more, uh, customers, uh, and then in the end, you, you, you find the right business model, which helps you to expand, which helps you to either earn the money to open the second restaurant or be, um, attractive to the certain level to your investors, uh, or to the people who wants to start the restaurant, but don't know how, but you know how, and you don't have money and you get their money and you get the share.

Alexander: So. Uh, starting the first efficient restaurant definitely, um, is something to, to, uh, it's, it's the first step in the way of a thousand miles.

Mehmet: Absolutely. And just, I want to add [00:55:00] something to what you mentioned, Alexander, just, you know, for fun, I'm adding this, um, because you mentioned about market cap and investors and, you know, like, The only thing that people will keep doing, whatever happens is eating food.

Mehmet: So, yes, if you want to stay

Alexander: in the business for a long time, you need to open either a restaurant, uh, or a barbershop or, uh, not the nicest one, but the retail salon, because people will keep eating, they will need to cut their hairs and they will unfortunately die. You need to be burdened with this.

Alexander: Absolutely, absolutely. These are three, three pillars of business, which you will never, never, uh, never be out of the game.

Mehmet: Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, but great insights, Alexander. Alexander, time flew, actually. I don't know how time flew. I really enjoyed the discussion. Before we leave and close, tell me where we can, you know, find more about you and about Surf.

Alexander: Well, obviously first thing is [00:56:00] our website, which is Syrve. com and for the, uh, uh, Dubai version of it, a. Syrve. com. Uh, we have our social media, which is Instagram. I'm not really sure what's happening on our Instagram because I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not an Instagram person. Uh, so obviously some of the things, uh, can be found there.

Mehmet: You are, I mean, not you as you, uh, you as the company, because I just saw the link. So,

Alexander: yeah, yeah, we are, as a company, we are on Instagram definitely. But me as a person, I don't have my Instagram and, uh, I'm not using that. Uh, we have, um, um, recently, like a few years back in 2020, we've started something which is called a restaurant community, which is the gathering of, um, of the, uh, industry enthusiasts.

Alexander: And we are conducting, um, every three months, we're conducting a gathering where we are trying to deliver some important new information and experience from, uh, different speakers. We're not speaking about serves [00:57:00] there. So it's purely for the, uh, restaurant, restaurant community. And we have once a month, some small events, which are more specific.

Alexander: Uh, if you would, um, uh, visit. Um, restaurantcommunity. com, I believe is the website. You can register there if you are a restaurant owner or an F& B business owner or a manager, so you're welcome. Um, and, uh, yeah, that's, that's pretty much, uh, all of the general, all the general resources where you could find information, information about us.

Mehmet: Sure. Great. Uh, and the audience, they don't have to worry about, uh, following what we said, all the links to the social media handles, the website. Great. They will be available in the show notes and in the description for the YouTube. So you don't have to, uh, repeat so you can hear that. So that is provided to you in the show notes.

Mehmet: Again, Alexander, thank you very much for being with me here today. I really enjoyed the discussion. I'm passionate about tech and anything that touched our lives and food, of course, [00:58:00] is one of them because to the point, of course, we need to keep eating food. And this is how usually I end my episodes. So this is for the audience.

Mehmet: If you just discovered this podcast by luck, Thank you for passing by. I hope you enjoyed. If you did so, please subscribe. Not only this, share it with your friends and colleagues. We need your support. And this is also for the loyal followers that keep sending me their suggestions and feedback. Please keep doing so.

Mehmet: I like to read all what you sent to me. And also I'm inviting anyone who is doing something fantastic about technology. Thank you. And doesn't have to be only deep technology. It can be any field. Today we talked about food. In some episodes we talk about finance. Anything related to technology, startups, entrepreneurship, please don't hesitate to reach out to me.

Mehmet: I would love to hear your stories. And as I say always, thank you very much for tuning in. We'll be again very soon. Thank you. Bye

bye.

[00:59:00]