In the bustling world of the food and beverage (F&B) industry, where competition is fierce and customer expectations are high, every restaurant aspires to stand out and excel. But what's the secret ingredient that separates the thriving establishments from the rest? It's simple: FRIES. No, not the crunchy side dish often served alongside burgers, but an acronym that encapsulates the essential elements for success in the restaurant business. Let's break it down: F - Food: At the heart of every great restaurant is, of course, the food. Quality, consistency, portioning, and presentation are paramount. Customers expect nothing less than excellence on their plates, whether they're enjoying a fine dining experience or grabbing a quick bite to eat. A restaurant's reputation hinges on the taste and freshness of its offerings. R - Restaurant: Beyond the food itself, the overall restaurant experience plays a crucial role in attracting and retaining customers. From the ambience and decor to the level of customer service, every aspect of the dining environment contributes to the overall impression guests take away. A welcoming atmosphere and attentive staff can turn a meal into a memorable experience worth returning to. I - Integrity: In a world where trust is paramount, integrity is non-negotiable. Restaurants must uphold high standards of honesty and transparency in all their dealings. This includes ensuring that quality is consistently maintained, prices are fair and reasonable, and promotions are genuine. Customers appreciate authenticity and will reward establishments that operate with integrity. E - Engagement: In today's digital age, engagement with customers extends far beyond the walls of the restaurant. Social media channels provide a platform for interaction and feedback, and it's essential for restaurants to actively engage with their audience. Responding promptly to customer complaints, queries, and suggestions demonstrates a commitment to customer satisfaction. Ignoring or neglecting these interactions can have costly consequences, as the value of a lost customer far outweighs the effort required to engage with them. S - Sentiment: The power of online reviews and customer sentiment cannot be overstated. Every interaction, whether positive or negative, leaves an impression that can influence others' perceptions of your restaurant. Monitoring and managing online reviews and feedback is crucial for maintaining a positive reputation and fostering customer loyalty. Negative reviews, even if unfounded or false, can spread quickly and tarnish your brand's image. Therefore, it's essential to address customer concerns promptly and professionally, turning potential detractors into loyal advocates. By prioritizing customer sentiment and actively managing your online presence, you can safeguard your restaurant's reputation and ensure continued success in the competitive F&B industry. In conclusion, the recipe for success in the restaurant industry is simple: every establishment must have FRIES. By prioritizing Food quality, creating an inviting Restaurant atmosphere, upholding Integrity in all dealings, actively engaging with customers, and delivering exceptional Service, restaurants can set themselves apart and thrive in a competitive market. So, the next time you dine out, remember to look for the FRIES – because where there are FRIES, there's sure to be success.

Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) is a crucial metric that businesses use to assess the success of their marketing spending and efforts. However, it can be a complex and confusing topic, particularly for businesses with a mixed online and offline presence. In the past, measuring the effectiveness of marketing activities was a challenge as there was no clear attribution model for offline marketing. But with the rise of digital marketing, there are now plenty of tools and data points available to help businesses assess which channels and ads are driving conversions. Conversion rate optimization has become a central topic for businesses across all industries, but ROMI remains a hotly debated issue for many. When it comes to measuring ROMI, businesses should start by considering how they allocate their marketing budget. Typically, the marketing budget is a specific percentage of projected sales, which establishes a strong relationship between spending and achieving specific sales objectives. However, a significant portion of marketing spend often goes towards less-measurable objectives like brand awareness, which can make it challenging to accurately measure ROMI. To effectively measure ROMI, businesses must prioritize their marketing objectives and build a team and strategy around those goals. For instance, an online e-commerce platform such as Amazon or Ali-express requires different expertise and tools than a mixed business model such as many retail brands and restaurants. When evaluating ROMI, it's essential to consider the desired results beyond just sales vs. budget. Sometimes, budgets are set irrationally, for example, any given business can be achieving higher transaction numbers or an increased average ticket value meanwhile, not hitting the overall sales budget. Based on years of experience launching products and promotions at different execution scales, it's clear to me that if a marketing mix delivers the desired results, there is a positive ROMI. In other words, a successful marketing campaign cannot be solely judged on sales vs. budget only or specific product performance only. It's crucial to have a more comprehensive understanding of the goals and objectives behind spending marketing Dollars to evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing strategy accurately. many marketing activities may have a decay effect, or in other words, a marketing campaign launched this month, can drive results weeks or months later. there are a few other factors that businesses should consider when measuring their ROMI. Firstly, it's essential to identify the specific metrics that are most relevant to the business's objectives NOW. This may include metrics like customer lifetime value, cost per acquisition, or brand sentiment. Businesses should take into account that there are many other factors out there that can push or pull the sales performance needle, and work on tracking these changes as much as possible. Thirdly, businesses should continuously track and analyze their marketing data to identify trends and patterns over time. This can help to identify areas where marketing efforts are most effective and areas where they may need to be improved or refrained from. Finally, it's worth noting that marketing ROMI is not a one-time calculation but an ongoing process that requires regular evaluation and adjustment. By consistently monitoring and optimizing marketing efforts, businesses can ensure that they are maximizing their return on investment and achieving their marketing objectives. keeping track of all online and offline marketing efforts, and changes on the micro and macro levels will not only help with setting the right mix that works but also will help set more rational future budgets and overall objectives with sufficient granularity. Now, it's your turn to weigh in. On measuring ROMI - what do you think? whether to measure it per project, as a total budget vs. overall year objectives, or both? do you think we might get trapped in double-booking using any of these methods? Or do you have a unique approach that you find works best? Share your thoughts in the comments below and join the conversation.

With a temperature reaching as high as 60 celsius degrees plus during summer, it only makes sense that delivery sales would outsell all other channels by a margin for some of the major restaurant brands, especially the ones with a large customer base and presence in their respective markets. Back in the era when food delivery orders used to be only managed in either self owned or outsourced call centers, the process ownership was transferred to the restaurants as soon as the order arrived in a way or another at the outlet from the call center, then the delivery would take place order by order from these same restaurants’ outlets where the request was placed. The aggregators have now replaced this entire process by investing in their own delivery fleet, where their model is based on charging the restaurants for an agreed upon percentage of the meal value that covers their contracted commission, in addition to the cost of delivering the order. This leaves us with 2 main common types of aggregators — restaurants contracts: 1- Marketplace Listing Whereby the restaurants list their product for a set of delivery areas, then the actual delivery is still managed by the restaurants through their directly employed drivers or a logistics partner. 2- Complete Logistical Listing Under this type of contracts the restaurants list their products for a wider range of areas, then it’s the responsibility of the aggregators to deliver the orders through their own network of drivers within these pre-agreed upon geographical parameters. shortly in the following articles we will tackle more of the differences between these listings, so for now I will leave it to your own judgement and analysis to evaluate which listing sound more reasonable based on the information I have provided thus far. Given the very easy registration of the brand(s) on any of the aggregators mobile applications and the ease of reaching out to more customers through their touchscreens, the presence of aggregators surely brought in so much value to the restaurants, however as soon as this was realized, the restaurant cost spent on every started increasing. I was so lucky to have witnessed one of the biggest delivery platform’s launch in Kuwait, and the cost we used to bear was negligible that we even didn’t account for it in many promotional feasibility studies; and that was not a decade ago; now i can tell that the cost has inflated over 10 times in some cases, depending on the brand name, average guest check and other factors. Food delivery has now become more than just a meal order, there is a huge business and technological advancement that are attached to it before even the order reaches the restaurants’ kitchens. Let’s face it, Aggregators are technology companies at the end of the day, thanks to the internet and smart phones penetration, they now possess the know-how that managed to replace the call centers with a suitable User Experience (UX) in most of the markets within the region, this gives them access to the customers, restaurants and day to day behavioral data. They use this data as they want to get some valuable insights that allow them to make wiser decisions. These decisions today are giving the Aggregators the edge over the conventional delivery methods to re-shape the whole industry, keeping the upper hand in innovation limited to them only. We shall talk about this further in the following chapters. Deliverution is fierce and fast P.S. I found the term “delivery revolution” so appealing as I was reading a report by KPMG regarding the trends in the F&B industry within the UAE market, hence I adopted it as a theme for this series of articles. More to come…

...Well, sounds like the sort of investment that everyone should be rushing into then. Let's discuss it thoroughly... Knowing the restaurant business, with its high level of variability and complexity to be able to stay afloat, tailoring your operations to everyday's ever-changing human behavior while maintaining the quality that is asked from you, is a difficult equation to master and conquer. It was reported by a well-known food-aggregator that only 1% of restaurants worldwide are serving their customers through online ordering, This indicates that there is still a big room to invest in restaurant online servicing, and the pie is still so big for them to grow, and for other investors to kickstart. There is a plenty of off-the-shelf aggregators' software systems available online that perform well across all platforms, hence the investors do not even need to develop their own, but the question remains whether these systems and applications can handle the day to day complexities and our business current and future needs? I witnessed first-hand the growth and evolution of one of the region's most renowned aggregators over the past 5 years, how they have developed their platform design according to what they learned from their markets, in a way that helped them maintain their position as the leader in a sea that is quickly getting filled with smaller fishes, who mostly are working hard to excel in areas like User Experience design and ease of use. Accordingly, before investing in such a market, I would first and foremost develop an in-depth understanding of the market need I'm filling, not to fall into the trap of high operations cost and delayed gains that are not worth the marginal Return on Investment I might yield. My words are not meant to scare any potential investors, on the contrary, I see a great opportunity in the future of the aggregators' business, but before investing, make sure that the right starting team is in place, ready with a product that would shake the market and standout with its unique initial offering that is not present among the current market players. Quickly enough you would realize that your competitive edge can be easily copied, hence you need to also be always one step ahead with your innovative ideas and integrated system that steadily captures new customers while keeping your existing ones happy and coming back, in addition to equipping your team with marketing tools and product development plans targetting an overall customer experience from order to delivery through your platform. So when it comes to development, yes you can purchase it online, but it takes way more than that to rise and shine. Edited by Mahmoud Rashed