I AM TAXONOMY PAGE

Chapter: UAE

Accelerating Remote Sales of Realty

Relata a specially designed platform by Cognilements Pvt ltd, provides modern realty businesses with cutting-edge tools to accelerate their sales. It empowers property developers, brokers, and others involved in realty to sell properties faster and to a wider audience remotely using advanced technologies. In the year 2020, company’s revolutionized approach to connecting customers has seen 20,000 hours of Virtual site visits to sell millions of dollars worth of inventory. Today at our disposal, we are looking to help real estate players across markets to sell $3 Bn worth of inventory.

“What can you expect from your favourite restaurant in the future?”

Food is a human requirement and restaurants have been fulfilling this need over hundreds of years and generations. While restaurants, food trends, and service formats have changed, customers’ preferences and taste palates have also evolved over the years. To understand the food establishment of the future, it is first important to understand changing consumer behaviors. For this, we need to look into the different tiers of the F&B industry and their target customer bases. Broadly, one can classify the sector into the following segments :

  • The high-end, fine-dine experience
  • The high-end, lounge & bar experience
  • The mid to high-end, casual-dine & lounge experience
  • The mid-level, bar & pub experience
  • The mid-level, gourmet & artisanal cuisine experience
  • The mid-level, cuisine dine-in/take-away/delivery experience
  • The mid-level, café experience
  • The lower mid-level, cuisine dine-in/take-away/delivery experience

Each of these segments caters to a different set of customers but also sees a shifting in consumer behavior amongst the categories within the tiers. The same customer is likely to dine-in / order from a mid-level cuisine restaurant during the working week and indulges in dining at a high-end lounge restaurant over the weekend or while entertaining, thus seeing a transition in preferences within the same consumer set.

Today’s consumers are well-traveled, well-educated, and exposed to the nuances of different world cuisines, thus expecting superior cuisine quality coupled with great service. With this being established as the baseline, F&B operators & venues vie and compete to offer their best at valued prices thereby hoping to attract the customer pool to their restaurants, ahead of competitors.

Customers, while being not so loyal, do however yet tend to frequent certain establishments owing to location and convenience, such as in the case of visiting a neighborhood café to grab their morning fix of coffee or to visit a restaurant at the office complex for lunch. The clear preference in these cases is pricing, convenience, familiarity, and cuisine acceptability.

Restaurants of the Future will need to be Disrupters and Create change

To keep pace and stay ahead of the competition, restaurants must innovate and disrupt by deploying a few tactics & strategies, as below:

  • Disruption by Need
    • This can be clearly identified by the need for a particular cuisine or venue format and experience. It is a must for F&B operators to cater to the different taste palates thereby satisfying the cuisine needs of customers and adding to the existing variety within the existing F&B landscape
  • Disruption by Choice of Eating
    • Eating choices are evolving and emerging owing to customers either having certain preferences or compulsions owing to health reasons or allergens.
    • Restaurants must create new menu forms and newer food spaces within the F&B universe with diets such as gluten-free, keto, plant-based, vegan, and lactose.
  • Disruption by Experience
    • Customers expect and demand newer experiences. Such experiences may serve great food but in formats that are unique, futuristic, heart-warming, and hold high-value propositions
    • A few unique formats creating disruptions could be in the form of dark restaurants where customers eat in pitch darkness, restaurants where everything is prepared and served by using robotics, and dining experiences that are specially curated and private in the form of supper clubs
  • Disruption by Tech
    • The much talked about, hyped about disruptions of all times is the Food Tech phenomenon, which is now global in different shapes and sizes. Technology has long been an enabler, supporting businesses and industries for many decades. With food, however, technology, while initially being an enabling tool, seems to be fast overcoming and becoming the leader in establishing new venues, formats, experiences, and trends. This is causing a huge disruption in the “ways of doing the F&B business” from the traditional point of view to one being “led by tech” in almost all forms of decision making, be they to decide which cuisine to operate, to which location be the most appropriate, to even deciding what customers would want to eat and drink.

New Restaurant Evolution Formats shall break barriers

Food has evolved through generations, being passed down from one to another, developing newer flavors, integrating with other cuisines to create fusion recipes, modernizing cuisines, and yet going back to traditional practices every now and then.

Food is the binding factor for cultures, nationalities & all humans, which today is prepared and served in various formats. The latest emerging trends in the F&B segment are:

  • Food Halls
    •  These are essentially large spaces converted into a common dining space with multiple F&B establishments setting up kitchen spaces to prepare fresh, made-to-order, gourmet-style food.
    • Customers enjoy the openness of the space; intermingle with each other while savoring dishes of their choices.
  • Cloud Kitchens
    • As the name suggests, these are large production facilities, which cater only as delivery locations, from where fresh food is produced and dispatched to customer’s
    • These have become extremely popular the world over as they provide huge cost savings for F&B operators by means of reducing space requirements, labor costs, head office expenses, fleet costs, and inventory management.
    • Cloud kitchens are generally structured in a manner by which food production spaces are efficiently optimized, menu selections are crisp, production times are shorter, thus allowing the food to be prepared and delivered to the customers within shorter time-frames, thereby improving the end experience.
  • Pop-up Markets
    •  A very common sight for the last few years, over weekends, especially in the better weather months, is the emergence of pop-up markets in parks and communities.
    • These have become so popular with residents within different communities that food and non-food vendors, establishments, and entrepreneurs get a chance to showcase their products and gain encouragement from the local community. Some established players also participate in these markets, thereby creating diversified sources of revenue for their establishments and attracting customers, alike.

Restaurants & Customers alike are all part of the much-needed value chain of life and thus will always work hand in hand to serve each other’s needs and those of the larger community. Simplicity, trust, superior food quality, sustainable food chain, and exceptional customer service are going to be hallmarks for restaurants of the future.

Despite a perfect strategy how things can go wrong

To understand, “Despite a perfect strategy how things can go wrong”, one needs to understand what it takes to “formulate a perfect Strategy and how to Execute the same perfectly”.

 

How to formulate a perfect strategy:

A perfect strategy formulation is a process of using available knowledge to document the intended direction of a business and the actionable steps to reach its goals.

A well thought-out strategy:

  1. Starts with a Purpose.
  2. Considers Current Events.
  3. Takes into account internal and external Data, Case Studies and Trends.
  4. Has Goals well defined and effectively communicated throughout the organization.
  5. Has the flexibility to adapt to changes.

 

How to execute a strategy perfectly:

Good strategy execution requires a team effort, wherein all managers have strategy-executing responsibility in their areas of authority and all employees are active participants in the strategy execution process.

A good strategy execution:

  1. Ensures all stakeholders and decision-makers are in unison and in agreement with the strategic plan.
  2. Aligns jobs to the strategy, “right man for the job”.
  3. Empowers employees thru clear communication.
  4. Measures, tracks, and monitors performance thru well-defined KPIs.
  5. Balances Innovation and Control.

 

So, coming back to, “Despite a perfect strategy how things can go wrong”.

The simple answer would be that successfully executing a good strategy is just exceptionally hard. But that is hardly a gratifying answer. There are many other things that are exceptionally hard, but where we succeed, nevertheless.

Therefore, to start with, we need to have a good understanding of the problems that organizations face when executing their strategy. When we know these problems, we understand the underlying reasons why strategy execution fails, which helps us find the solutions.

Though there could be numerous reasons for problems in Strategy Execution, in my experience the following 5 key reasons are usually the culprit:

  1. No or insufficient communication
  2. Insufficient or inadequate resources
  3. Insufficient management capabilities
  4. Strategy is not adapted to changes
  5. Poor leadership

To conclude, Strategy Execution has always been the essential complement of Strategy Formulation. In an intensely competitive business environment and with the increasing speed of technology-enabled change, the importance of strategy implementation has increased exponentially.

Senior executives recognize the importance of strategy implementation, but a majority admit that their companies fall short. Executing strategic initiatives successfully is extremely “essential” for an organizations’ competitiveness. Most firms often struggle to bridge the gap between strategy formulation and its day-to-day implementation. Poor implementation means that a company’s stated strategy fails to shape what happens in practice.

There is no silver bullet to achieve better strategic implementation, but companies that rate themselves highest in this area share a range of characteristics. They report greater levels of C-suite involvement, better feedback mechanisms, more resourcing—particularly providing human resources—for initiatives and more-robust processes.

 

To sign off, “Vision without action is a daydream. Action with without vision is a nightmare.”   —Japanese proverb

 

Game changing management strategies

There is no doubt these days, the pace of business is accelerating with no window to breathe. Some Professionals are still hesitant or incapable to adapt and understand that to maintain a competitive edge, a business has to respond at the speed of the change if not faster. 

One day you are in vogue but a few weeks or months from now, you are out when a competitor storms the market with that unique idea and better service. 

New technologies emerge every year, which means we have to be ready as leaders to catch the next wave and adjust. What do you need to do as a leader in a company and as a professional, is not a hidden recipe!. In fact, it is in your hands to do and your ability to execute your plans at speed. 

True Leadership and future like-to-demand professionals would have a One-key word in their achievements profiles: “Fast”!! 

Hence, the best recommendation as an individual to shine in the “near” future: 

  1. Be quick in building blocks of your projects (no need to be “perfect” but “good to go”). 
  2. Be efficient in identifying your challenges to fix (don’t ignore small issues and act proactively) 
  3. But most importantly, is “execute with speed” and be faster in your delivery and be ahead of your business environment expectations. 

In parallel to succeed in your company: 

  • Appoint a collaborative team to work with you. 
  • Identify teammates in different business units who get excited about change and are eager to improve company processes. 

You would create your best ambassadors – special agents whom you can trust to use the first few blocks to build a “winning” culture for the future to benefit all, make it your “Personal Purpose”  

Some professionals are saying teams hate to work for speedy leaders.. honestly, this needs to be reviewed!!!. We all talk that we are working in an “Agile Business Environment” but we most forget that “Speed” is the DNA for success. There were proven studies which I read some articles about and am seeing in my work at some companies that employees love to work with speedy leaders who get things done and accomplished vs expected work was on hold due to politics or non-sense reasons or incompetent staff are around. 

My advice to you, talk to professionals outside of your work circle and meet new people over forums, workshops or meetups, but don’t be surprised that all of a sudden you might find yourself and your company left in the dust! 

Bottom-line is that speed of execution is the ultimate competitive edge in any organization. In today’s world, economies of speed are more important than economies of scale. 

Execute Slow.. then, Your Future Is Questionable.!!!!!!! 

 

 

SKY2.0

SKY2.0 is a revolutionary standalone nightclub by Sky Management, anchored in the heart of Dubai Design District, UAE. Best known for its originality, authenticity, and taste-making, SKY2.0 follows the success of award-winning SKYBAR Beirut and mirrors the city’s renowned festive energy and celebrates its guest’s cultural diversity with first-class global scale service and topnotch food and beverage offering for unforgettable evenings. Innovative and experiential, SKY2.0 provides an interactive experience by employing modern technology in the venue; Bendable screens, grand lighting design, and a lilting sound system wrap the walls of the sphere-shaped venue. Enigmatic and designed to perfection, SKY2.0’s architecture is a collaborative genius between Chafic El Khazen and French architect Michelle Sarfati.

Tresind Dubai

Trèsind, the multi-award winning & critically acclaimed flagship of Passion F&B, Dubai is the birthplace of ‘innovative Indian cuisine’, offering guests a progressive Indian fine-dining experience. Trèsind was introduced to diners in 2014 and since has been considered among the leading restaurants, paving the path towards fostering the legacy of Indian food and flag bearer of contemporary Indian food, showcasing the robustness of Indian cuisine and the hidden gems, yet unexplored. Complementing the elevation of space design, the dynamic, young team of chefs under the able guidance of the group’s award-winning, Corporate Chef Himanshu Saini, have skillfully crafted a new culinary experience that engages all the senses. Inspired by, and credited with reviving, the unique concept of gueridon service, the menu at Trèsind showcases traditional dishes from the sub-continent presented with a modernistic approach. Embracing various regional Indian culinary influences that have woven its way into the cuisine, Trèsind’s menu is sophisticated, imaginative, highly visual and engaging, lending each dining experience as a unique culinary journey. Trèsind is present in Dubai, Kuwait and recently opened one in Mumbai, India.