Ashish Tulsian:

Hi, welcome to Restrocast. Today, my guest is Kevin Bentley. He’s the head of North America for technology at Jollibee Restaurants. Kevin’s conversation was not only great, it was inspirational at many levels. Kevin is somebody who, you know, from being a professional NFL player for a decade plus, switched careers and how. Grit and perseverance is, I think, what he truly embodies. Through the conversation, I had so many reflections, you know, of the ideas, the ideals that Kevin was just embodying quite fluently and naturally. Apart from being a technology leader, I found Kevin to be, you know, extremely sensitive and curious about operations and business. Somebody I felt was truly empowering in his role as a technologist. He was looking at business, he was looking at operations, he was looking at all stakeholders. And that is exactly, that resonated with me because that is exactly how I believe technologists, you know, should be thinking. It was a great conversation. I learned a lot. I’m sure you guys are going to enjoy it too. Welcome to Restrocast. So, hey Kevin, welcome to Restrocast. Thanks for agreeing to do this. You know, Kevin, we’ll start with understanding what you do today. What’s your day job like? How do you define what you do, you know, today?

Kevin Bentley:

So, wow, that’s a loaded question. And the reason is because, you know, a lot of companies in our teams are really lean. So, I like to say I’m a man of many hats. I do, I’m in the restaurant technology space, but I do much more than that. I dabble in operations and marketing wherever the team needs me on a day-to-day basis. But my primary job is setting a strategic vision for the tech stack and how we engage our customers and make our operators more efficient through the use of technology. As of this past Friday, I actually took a new role as head of technology North America for Jollibee. We own six brands, global footprint. And so, really excited to…

Ashish Tulsian:

Oh, wow.

Kevin Bentley:

Really, yeah, I waited to hit you with that doozy. But did we miss that or did you, are you just breaking it here? I’m just breaking it here.

Ashish Tulsian:

Oh, perfect.

Kevin Bentley:

It’s just… All right. It just was like, MURTEC exec, I’m on the board here and it just broke. The news just broke today.

Ashish Tulsian:

That is so cool.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah.

Ashish Tulsian:

And hearing Jollibee, it’s even more special. Yeah. That’s a brand, you know, on the Asian side, right?

Kevin Bentley:

Yes. And out West, being from California, you know, I used to have their chicken all the time. We used to always joke, we’re going to the B because of the logo. And so, just bringing things full circle, it’s really been amazing from that aspect. But yeah, I’m going to lead their technology for North America division, which includes Canada.

Ashish Tulsian:

Super. That just makes this conversation even more meaty. I’m going to touch upon that later. Yeah. You know, but before that, before going in there, I would love to know, Kevin, where did it all start? You know, take us through your journey personally. Where did you grow up and how were the early years? And then we’ll power through to, you know, how did you land up in restaurant tech?

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah, no. So, quite a journey for me. I grew up in inner city in Los Angeles, California. Grew up with eight siblings, four brothers, four sisters, very poor. And where I grew up, it was all about education. Education was your way out. Everyone that I knew that was successful, either in business, life, et cetera, they all were very educated. And so, luckily my grandmother was very smart. And I assume I adopted some of those genes because I was too deemed smart at an early age. Was a trouble in high end elementary to the point where they were like, either we’re going to skip you or we can bust you away from your neighborhood to a magnet school. My parents decided for me to get busted at magnet school. And it was life changing for several reasons. One being, I didn’t fit in there because I was one of five black kids in the whole school. But when I came home to the neighborhood, I didn’t fit either because my vernacular was different, the words I was using, and I didn’t go to school with my friends that grew up in the neighborhood. And so there was that dichotomy and challenge of where do I fit in? And as I got to high school, I had a teammate. He was my teammate in high school, but we were competitors growing up. And he finally said, dude, I’m tired of you kicking my ass. Why don’t you come join forces and play with me? And I was like, man, you go to the hoity-toity private school. I can’t afford that. He goes, oh no, you’ll test in, you got good grades, and then I’ll give you a scholarship. And so I was like, oh, sweet. An opportunity to turn my sports and education into a scholarship. So I took the opportunity to go to Montclair Prep, tested very high, was put in all IEP classes, was literally the only two-time African-American winner of their academic achievement award ever in the history of the school. And I remember going into that situation, they initially wanted to put me in the lower classes, and I fought it like crazy. I was like, well, if you’re not going to put me in where I tested, I’m not going to come to the school. And so they’re like, all right, we’ll put you there, but we want to put you in the- What grade was that? This is 10th grade.

Ashish Tulsian:

Oh, okay.

Kevin Bentley:

And they’re like, we want to put you in the lower track first to see how you do for the first semester. I’m like, all right, we’ll make that arrangement, but I’m telling you now, you’re going to have to move me up. And it ended up happening, but it was just really awesome to win that award. And then my junior year, I got my first scholarship offer to Cal Berkeley. That was my first ever scholarship offer for football. And I was like, oh man, amazing. Goal achieved. I can’t afford college. My parents couldn’t afford it. Now I earned a scholarship. So I go through the rest of high school, earned several offers for football, ended up going to Northwestern. That caused an uproar because most of my friends wanted to go to UCLA, USC, stay at home. And I wanted to get as far away from home as possible. Again, growing up poor in the neighborhoods I grew up in, being bused to this hoity-toity private school where 16-year-olds were literally getting BMWs and Mercedes-Benz for their first car, and I’m skateboarding to school. This is insane to me. So I got as far away as I could, went to Chicago, had a great career there, was an academic All-Big Ten, as well as an All-American in football, and realized, wait, I’m actually good at this. I can make some money at it before I go chase my ultimate dream, which was to be a CEO in corporate America. And so played in the NFL for 10 years, was a team captain on several teams, Super Bowl with Seattle. And then it came this fork in the road. I was getting long in the tooth, body was breaking down, and it was like, do I continue to play a couple more years? Do I take a year off, go to grad school and start to dream that really is still burning passionately inside of me? And so ended up retiring, had an amazing retirement year, went to New Zealand for a whole off-season. I’m an Olympic-level snowboard coach, so I went to New Zealand, coached and snowboarded for their winter. So I had one year of continuous winter, which was amazing, and really bought into the culture and stuff over there. And I came back and went to Rice full-time, was in class full-time to get my MBA. Very challenging being an athlete and then being like sedentary for two years. My participation grades sucked because I was up and down the whole time, but ended up doing really well, getting my MBA, and then started my corporate career. I started at Johnson & Johnson as a brand manager, kind of fluctuated from our tech to tech, in operations back to tech. And then I was at a point where it was like, what are you going to do next? Because I was deciding between like fully retiring and moving to the mountains and just coaching snowboarding, or continuing down this path. And then the way I got into restaurant tech is Arby’s at the time, now Inspire Brands, the recruiter reached out and said, we have a perfect role for you to roll out their POS system. It’s about a six-month engagement. Think you’d be great. You’re well, you’re way overqualified. I was like, I’ll take it. Because it was a great cultural fit. When I met with the team, it was a great cultural fit. So I was like, oh, I’ll do this, figure out what I want to do. But did you have any experience with the POS systems? No, just technology. It was like a project manager role.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah.

Kevin Bentley:

And so I was like, yeah, sweet. I can do this in my sleep. It gave me time to figure out what I really want to do in life. Is it really retiring and moving to the mountains and literally disappearing from the surface of the earth? Or do I continue down and chasing this dream of a CEO, to be a CEO and fell in love with the restaurant tech? It was Arby’s largest project at the time, brought them in under budget, saved like $8 million. And then we came in six months ahead of schedule. That turned into a role as director of franchisee business and technology for Arby’s. And then a couple other roles within Inspire, broke off on my own for a little bit, the pandemic hit. And then I came back to Inspire in an operations and innovation role, but still with a tech focus and did some amazing work there, moved over to Papa Gino’s, where it was my first opportunity to really be at the executive level as a C-suite person, head of technology, built the whole team, did some amazing things there, and then transitioned to my new role, which I start actually in a couple of weeks as head of technology for Global North America at Jollibee Foods.

Ashish Tulsian:

Kevin, that is too much to take in. I don’t know how much you took in that career, but I think I’m just at a loss of understanding which question to pick first, but I’m going to dive in. It’s like an onion, there’s many layers.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah.

Ashish Tulsian:

I mean, 10 years as an athlete, and then coming back to a corporate career, I don’t know how many people are able to actually make that transition, leave alone successfully. I’m just saying, like making that transition. I want to ask you how hard that was, but more than that, I’m interested in understanding how hard was it to just decide that you’re going to do that?

Kevin Bentley:

So the decision to do it, I would say was not hard at all, because again, we’re talking about my childhood dream, right?

Ashish Tulsian:

And all the people that knew at that time were- But 10 years in sports is long enough for that dream to translate to something else, no?

Kevin Bentley:

Oh, it is. But I kept the fire burning the entire time I was in the NFL. I went to Harvard for a couple of executive programs, went to Berkeley for a couple of executive programs. I was a consummate learner. So I was always reading business articles and stuff like that when I was playing, just keeping abreast of what was going on in the business world.

Ashish Tulsian:

I see your LinkedIn and I see all those acronyms. Oh, man.

Kevin Bentley:

Well, interestingly enough, knock on wood, in three years, I hope to add another one. I’m currently doing my doctorate of organizational change leadership.

Ashish Tulsian:

Very good, because you know what? I actually wanted to ask you, why are you not Dr. Kevin already?

Kevin Bentley:

Working on it. And so, yeah, I’m excited about it, learning a lot in the program. But back to your original question, it was very challenging to not make the decision, but to actually do what it takes to be successful, right? As I mentioned, you go from this athlete who’s uber competitive, driven, always active to literally sitting in a desk or a chair eight to 10 hours a day. That was the most challenging part for me. The second piece was trying to get rid of the stigma of the athlete, right? The dumb jock, those type of stigmas. So when I went to business school, I didn’t tell anyone about my background.

Ashish Tulsian:

What are those stigmas?

Kevin Bentley:

Like dumb athletes, right? Dumb jocks, only good for certain things. That stigma, I didn’t want to follow me. So I tried to separate the two. And I will say at this point in my career, that was a detriment to who I am as a person because that influenced my leadership style, my soft skills, the things that people pay enormous amounts to try and attain. I had it naturally through sports. But again, I tried to separate the two and it really caused the identity crisis because I didn’t know how to articulate who I was because to that point, I had been nothing else. But this athlete that was a student athlete did well in school, but I was an athlete at that point. And it took about five to seven years into my corporate career to bring it back and understand that that’s a huge and critical part of who I am. And then I figured out ways to incorporate the two so that they made sense. So like if you read my resume, it says NFL, but then it’ll say manage a team of eight individuals instead of manage a team of linebackers, right? So I changed the verbiage to fit corporate, but finding my flair and style within that to create those similarities and synergies.

Ashish Tulsian:

What kind of culture shock was it when, you know, from being a sports person and being in a sports team, you know, everybody is just naturally motivated for the goal just by being, you know, by the virtue of being on the team, right? That’s how the sports work. But then when you come to the corporate, right, you know where it’s going, so when you come to the corporate, it’s a team, right? And the motivation, you know, is it’s literally eight people having eight different motivations and most of them may or may not even align. And your motivational talk to power through, you know, through a certain project or a crisis, even for that matter, generally falls flat because, you know, people have different motivations. What was that culture shock for you? If it was a culture shock?

Kevin Bentley:

It’s still a culture shock. To be honest, my dissertation is going to be on exactly what you’re talking about, which is leadership or the lack thereof in leadership positions. What I mean by that is most people are subject matter experts. They can crunch a spreadsheet really well. They can do marketing really well and they get elevated to these leadership positions and they’re not actually for or about people. They’re in it for self. And then, you know, this word is leadership and team are thrown around so harmoniously in corporate America, when there’s actually no real resemblance in most corporate settings, right? And so to your point, it’s not we’re a team, you’re in it for self. In the NFL, you’re taught when we win, the team did a great job. When we lose, I could have done better. And it don’t matter how well it’s actually quite reverse. Yeah, it’s actually quite reverse in corporates. It is in corporate is when we do well, as a leader, I take all the credit. When we don’t do well, I start pointing the fingers about who didn’t do their job. And so I really want to deconstruct the notion of team and leadership within corporate America. But more importantly, how do we develop leaders to have the skill set and the qualities to motivate, keep teams moving forward, buy in all of those things that leadership is supposed to be about, right? Because in the NFL, we had one goal, win the Super Bowl. It wasn’t go to the playoffs, it was win the Super Bowl. We all bought in regardless of what background we came from, what economic status, the race, ethnicity, all of these things didn’t matter. And almost think to a detriment, going back to your question about how hard was the transition? I come from a fictional world almost, right? Where you’re encapsulated by this culture that doesn’t exist in many places. The only one I can really think of that it really exists in outside of sports is the military. My dad was military, so he talked about a lot of the similarities between sports and the military. Now, we weren’t fighting life or death, but the similarities are there.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, I mean, it alerts you a match that you want to win that, you know, at all costs, right?

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah, at all costs, right? I can tell you numerous games where I played hurt, injured. I remember playing in San Diego, a lineman poked me in my eyes and I went blind for 30 seconds. And the only thing I can remember or hear in my head was my dad said, never let them leave you on the battlefield. So I literally crawl, bear crawl to the sideline, listening to the voices of my coaches and teammates. But that’s the kind of environment you’re willing to lay everything on the line for the betterment of the team. That doesn’t exist in a lot of places in corporate. And the ones that are doing it really well, you have loyal, passionate team members that are lifers, right? They’re living and breathing that culture every day.

Ashish Tulsian:

And those are the only teams and those are the only companies that really, really make it. Yeah. You know, one thing that I, you know, just to, in fact, it’s a comment or rather I would wrap it up as a question. You know, nobody on a sports team talks about work-life balance. And how are you doing with that?

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah. You know, there, there is no work-life balance, right? In the sports world, you get some downtime, but when you’re in it, you’re, you have to be fully engaged. There’s 16 games. You have 16, now 17 opportunities to go out, leave your mark and get an opportunity to play for the ultimate trophy, which is the Superbowl, right? I tell people all the time, football is the ultimate team sport. The reason that is, is it’s the only sport that you cannot get better with if you don’t have your teammates. Basketball, I can go shoot. Tennis, I can go work on my backhand. Golf is a single sport. I can’t even practice plays if I don’t have the other 21 guys.

Ashish Tulsian:

Baseball team.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah. Right. So it is the ultimate team sport that you cannot get better and improve unless you have your teammates. And so that is my north star of what teamwork, teammates looks like. And I’m trying to figure out how do I influence corporate America to start to, to bend the scale towards that type of environment.

Ashish Tulsian:

I think alignment, alignment of individual goals is something that I personally, and this is, this is more of my opinion as a leader, you know, I run a tech company and I’ve been running, you know, companies for almost 17 years now. I think what I, what I have learned in my journey is that, you know, especially in corporate, especially in, you know, you know, in running businesses, we believe that the company’s goal, probably the founder’s goal and an employee’s or your teammates goal are all aligned or all the same. Most of the times they’re not, you know, in fact, all the times they’re not, and that’s a problem, right? So when, when founder’s goal and the company’s goal is aligned. And when I say company, I mean, all of the stakeholders, your investors, your board, et cetera. Right. When they’re aligned, it’s one part of the magic, but then at an individual level, what your teammate really believes, you know, what are they in for? Right. I remember. What’s their why? Correct. Well, you know, I remember this one story from my own experience, right? Once I, way early on, I was, I think three years into the business. I asked one of my very high performing teammates you know, I was just feeling good about myself that day. Right. I thought maybe some more flattery will help. So I asked him, Hey, why do you work with me? Like, why do you work at this office? You have all, all the offers you can, you can do, you know you can get a job anywhere. And I thought that he’d say, you are great. This company’s great. This product is great. This office is great. The guy said, Oh, well, you know, I live nearby. So basically working here allows me to just walk back to my home and have lunch hot. And I was like, what? And I was really boiling. Trust me. I wanted to fire that guy. Like in my head, I was like, like, it was like, I shot myself and I gave myself like 48 hours and I really had to, you know, calm down through that. But then what dawned on me was really beautiful because what, what at least I rationalized it as it was that the guy didn’t say that we were bad. He of course is working here, right? What more praise do I want? What more validation do I look for? Right. But the other fact is that his motivation was actually hot lunch. And what’s wrong with that? It’s absolutely great. In fact, now I know what is his motivation. Probably I can help him and help me, uh, you know, better. And I think over the years that, that, that incident stayed with me, right? Because I kept on asking, you know, almost for every teammate, what is their why? You know, why are they here? And it’s, and there’s nothing wrong and right about it. There’s nothing, there’s no judgment about, you know, whether their why is small or whether their why is big. The fact is, it is their why. And until that why serves them well, they, they will be able to focus on really building and contributing, you know, the right most way. The day that why stops serving them, they won’t be able to contribute anyway.

Kevin Bentley:

That’s interesting that, you know, what I’m hearing you say about your, that interaction is, it’s really transformed you as a leader because you went in with expectations that he was going to say you’re great and all these things, and that didn’t come about. Right. And so what tends to happen with people in general is we, we go in with an expectation. If I do X, Y will happen. Yeah. Not always the case. You should go in and say, I’m going to do X because X is who I am as a leader, as a person. And then you remove what happened to you, which was the blow to your ego. And then once you remove that, you’re able to understand how to motivate that individual, because it’s not about you as a leader, it’s never about you and what you can do.

Ashish Tulsian:

And also your worldview is not the ultimate worldview. Everybody has a worldview, which, you know, is technically serving you well, because it’s somehow intersects. It may not be aligned. And I think difference between alignment and intersection is where, you know, at least for me as a leader, it, it, it actually did a lot. I mean, my, my conversations with my own customers changed because I started realizing that my customer is also an individual who is almost as much as like my teammate, and they may be buying my service or my product for entirely different reasons, not as exactly I see, but the fact that it is intersecting, the fact that it is helping them in a different way. You know, I need to know that way instead of just believing that, Oh, my product or my service is exactly doing what I think it is doing to the customer. No, probably customer thinks of it differently, but that different is also good. It’s serving them. That’s why they’re continuing to be a customer.

Kevin Bentley:

That’s exactly right. And as long as it meets their why, that’s what really matters. Right. And you talk about customers. This is a pain point for me within our industry, but specifically, but probably a bigger, broader challenge within corporate America where you’re, where you’re serving customers. Who’s your number one customer is the question you hear often. And what do people typically say?

Ashish Tulsian:

They will talk about the largest brand in their portfolio.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah. Or the person that’s paying right in the restaurant industry. It’s the customer that comes in and pays for the food.

Ashish Tulsian:

Correct.

Kevin Bentley:

That is not your number one customer. Your number one customer are your employees, the operators who are actually serving those guests.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah.

Kevin Bentley:

Because if they’re not enabled to do the best and they don’t have what they need, the guest doesn’t get what they need. But so, so much, so often we focus externally on the paying customer first, before we focus on our internal customers. Those are my key stakeholders. I want to make sure their needs are met because then they’re going to do a much better job serving the guest that walks in.

Ashish Tulsian:

I generally ask that question to people, you know, whenever they are not able to find an internal stakeholder, who’s their customer.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah.

Ashish Tulsian:

I generally ask them that. Okay. When you screw up, who gets beaten?

Kevin Bentley:

Oh, that’s a great question.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. And, and, and this is something that I ask in my own company all the time from literally everyone. When I ask them that who’s exactly your customer, right? For example, marketing, right? Who’s their customer? Like, well, we, we make the company look good. We do branding. We didn’t, I was like, okay, who’s your customer? Um, we, like everyone said, no, no, no. When you do poorly, who gets beaten? Sales. Like sales is your customer.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah.

Ashish Tulsian:

They’re your customer. When you do, when you do poorly, they get beaten instantly. They don’t have leads. They don’t know what to do. They, you know, they go, they go directionless. So absolutely on, on your point, uh, you know, when, when, you know, I love that question and I’m going to steal it with pride.

Kevin Bentley:

I have a saying steal with pride. I’m going to steal that one with pride. I’m going to add it to my repertoire, uh, for technology. Unfortunately, every function is our customer. Because if something doesn’t work, it impacts sales, it impacts marketing, and it impacts operations and finance.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah.

Kevin Bentley:

Right. And so, you know, when I started out as a brand manager, people used to always say marketing’s the hub and spoke to business. As we start to transition, technology has really become the hub and spoke of business because it touches any and everything and everybody.

Ashish Tulsian:

Absolutely. So, you know, going back to your journey from sports, you came to the corporate America and your first role you said was not in the restaurant tech.

Kevin Bentley:

No, my first several roles was not in restaurant tech.

Ashish Tulsian:

And, and they were, were they, were they, you said marketing and tech?

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah. So I started out as a brand manager at Johnson Johnson.

Ashish Tulsian:

Brand manager.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah. So strictly marketing. I love marketing. I love the influence of people. I wanted to be a CMO as well. And so, um, and back then marketing people, you know, I haven’t spoke of business. So I was like, Oh, I’ll learn that one. Then I became an IT consultant in the change management space. So big on process improvement, um, change management, bringing people along for the journey. And I was like, Oh, this is really awesome. Then it migrated to MarTech at Owens Corning where I was doing a little bit of both. And then the, uh, Arby’s role came up as an opportunity. Um, I was at inflection point with Owens Corning. They wanted me to move to Toledo, Ohio, where the selling point was, Hey, we’re getting an Apple store in six months. Are we serious? Like that’s your selling point. And the zoo, I’m not going to move my family for that. Um, yeah, but my role had become so big. I was like interacting with the president a lot. And it was like, we need you here. And it’s like, I’m not going to move my family for this. Um, and then that’s when the recruiter reached out.

Ashish Tulsian:

So you started, uh, in the restaurant space with Inspire Brands and the, you know, the challenge you said was replacing, like transitioning a POS system. Very, very close to my heart. Uh, you know, I started as a POS company back in the day, but, uh, you know, I’m going to keep that on, on the side for now, getting into the restaurant space on the darker side, you know, uh, how did your, you know, how did your understanding of restaurant space changed, you know, from an outside, outside, it looks very different, right. What was, what was your first couple of shocks or, you know, change.

Kevin Bentley:

So the first shock, just being a hundred percent transparent, I thought I worked hard as an athlete and then they had me work in a restaurant, right. Like to get the field operations, understand the process, mind blown. Like I was like, oh my God, my feet hurt. My hands hurt. My body hurts. And I still have four hours standing on my feet, serving folks by far the hardest job I’ve ever done.

Ashish Tulsian:

So also that adds to the third sport, which is a true team sport.

Kevin Bentley:

Yes. So it really put things into perspective and I’ve always kept that operator’s lens.

Kevin Bentley:

Experience and every place I’ve moved Brand-wise, I’ve worked in a restaurant I’ve spent time in a restaurant because they’re the ones who you’re in front line people day-to-day workers They understand if you can alleviate their pain points. You typically make improvement for the guests, but that was a shocker and then The second piece was not realizing how much thought and effort and energy goes into serving a burger or serving the fries right the temperature how long does it sit in a holder all these little nuances that I never thought about as a Patron is going to pay your money get your food scarf it down and good to go But I have so much respect for our operators and what they do on a day-to-day basis again by far the hardest job I’ve ever had

Ashish Tulsian:

That’s I I completely plus one to that right that the hardest business that I have seen like I tell people that you know If you want to see what 24-7 on your toes means Please go and work at a restaurant or open one and you know all the best. Yeah, it’s very challenging So, you know, I’d inspire you you said Arby’s, right?

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah. So at this time we were still just Arby’s I was actually part of the migration team that took us to inspire So that had its own set of challenges and obviously benefits are doing amazingly Well now have a lot of great friends still in the building my mentors in the building In Vans Nelson, so really stay connected to those guys But I’ve seen the small brand go to a large enterprise and not at Arby’s wasn’t because they at that time we had like 3300 locations between corporate and franchisee and so That was just an emerging amazing journey. And then as I stepped away and did some work for a couple of other brands Coming back to inspire and seeing what it had become and just being a part of an amazing team That was all about innovation and improving the space. I mean we stood up a ghost kitchen That we I was part of the team that did the restaurants of the future and their new prototypes And it was just amazing to learn the operations piece at a deeper level from a techie, right? I had been in tech the whole time and being able to actually be on the operations team and understand all the nuances again, informing some of the things that go into the restaurant space was amazing and then Had an opportunity to join an executive team. It was pretty much, you know, I had to take the opportunity From inspire.

Ashish Tulsian:

I mean inspire was you know, of course growing it as it is continuously growing into a much larger You know beast. What what is the what does it trigger for you to change?

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah, the trigger for change was the ability to go in to a brand and help revitalize it I was running I was the head of technology So I was running my own the entire team and those opportunities were gonna take me 10 to 12 years probably at inspire with the way things are the structure and so I have to target to my mentors and Thinking through the opportunity. It was the right opportunity for me because I was reporting directly to the the first year Reported to the CXO and then the CEO But I was having regular interaction with the board members and then the biggest skill set that I think I needed to go learn As my mentor put it how to play the game Right the power of influence understanding the pieces in the room and that you’re now playing chess not checkers How do you there’s a limited budget? How do you influence people to get in on board with your idea and move things forward knowing that you’re all fighting?

Ashish Tulsian:

For the same pool of dollars and so that was a skill that I think was Was there but I didn’t really understand to the level I do now We’ll actually I’m going to double-click on that but just before that, you know, you joined in restaurant tech were in 2019 Yeah Inspire project was 2019.

Kevin Bentley:

No, my first it would inspire was I think 2017 to 27 around there But but I think you know, maybe 2019 I’m getting older she’s yeah All right.

Ashish Tulsian:

I mean that that’s a question or that’s an answer.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah. No, I know I’m getting no that’s an answer So I can’t remember if it was actually 2017 or 2019.

Ashish Tulsian:

All right, we’ll take 2019 because it supports my question I think the world of restaurant tech was very different pre-covid and post-covid And 2019 was actually the inflection point right where you know If you ask me I can tell you that across the world. There was this wave of restaurant tech We’re just getting built up but large enterprises were still in denial very very comfortably and then covert heads and then boom everything flips right and 2020 21 and 22 have really been more transformational than than actually, you know You know large enterprises or rather restaurant companies have have just been I say Dealing with 2021 and 2022 they started looking at technology as not necessarily evil But really probably something that need to look at, you know as first as a technologist on the other side you know somebody on the other side of the table who was not only watching all this who was Expected to not only bring in change bring in change at the speed of the external world changing, right? What’s been the journey for you from a restaurant?

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah, so I will say You know getting my feet wet at inspire brands was really positive because the CEO is a big supporter of tech So even prior to kovat it was on the radar My first project was rolling out a new POS system to 1200 restaurants in six months That’s the speed in which we did it. We’re doing 40 to 60 restaurants a week and So they understood the need for technology, I don’t think we understood How bad we needed it right and what Kovat did is is accelerated Everything because you can’t have interaction with people like all these different challenges Came about because of Kovat and people started to have to accelerate technology now with that Acceleration came some decisions in the in the heat of battle that we’re now backtracking on and trying to improve right curve Side was part of it drive to became very critical because you couldn’t go in restaurants Most of the restaurants were closed So it really accelerated our industry and I’ll be honest to it I’m sensitive to those, you know who have had Kovat lost and Kovat but Kovat in the pandemic Probably saved our industry to a certain extent because of that acceleration and understanding How we needed to now engage with customers and retail was already there, right? The hotel industry was there we were starting to take little bits and pieces, but not enough to move the needle. Yeah The model was flipped upside down when Kovat hit right and so now people understand the technology and all the Positives of it, but there’s some negatives to it as well If you don’t have the right infrastructure stack and tech stack and things like that that people are now just figuring out No, absolutely.

Ashish Tulsian:

I think I think retail was way ahead of restaurants. Oh, you know in technology I think and I and I feel that that was because The cost of operating retail business was always high margins within And retail was kind of forced to be tech first right and restaurants were always high margin High perceived margin as well low cost of capital, you know cash business They had so many things going for them The technology always remained like a second thing or maybe even the third thing, you know on the list I think Kovat not only accelerated but Kovat only accelerated some of the trends I think all of those were present till 2019 2020 as well, right? They were just being ignored including including marketplaces including how you deal with, you know DoorDash or Postmates or you know Uber Eats for that matter.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah and again post COVID or pre-COVID Technology in our industry was moving like the Titanic, right? It was very slow methodical and then it’s like all right COVID hits you have to blow that up and accelerate. How do we do that? And I think A couple of things that come into play for me one when I think about technology I know people say it’s going to replace people and labor and all that as a technologist myself I don’t look at it that way. We’re actually here to Enhance what people do we’re still in a service industry That will never go away right and we’re creating experiences whether it’s an anniversary whether it’s a birthday celebration A sporting event we’re creating experiences and we’re part of the people’s memories and their lively journey forever So we’re always going to be in a service industry the the lens I take is how does technology? Enhance that person’s experience and journey not replace the person or the server or things of that nature because I’m pretty sure we’ve all been to restaurants where They know your name. They know your order when you walk in and it makes you feel amazing Absolutely, you know as much as technology helps a robot may not be able to do that in the near future AI may not be able to do that that human piece is always going to be there The other piece I think that people didn’t really plan for is resource and capital Both are very intensive when when you talk about technology and A lot of people didn’t set money aside for technology. Yeah, right. It was a Not it was a nice to have covid made it made it a must to have but but that’s it That’s a you know, that’s that’s a great point.

Ashish Tulsian:

And I think I think the struggle with budgets and technology is Real. Yeah, I mean i’ve seen very very well informed. I mean I see this all day Extremely well informed operators.

Otherwise smart people great brands good companies And when they talk about their own technology budgets, it’s it’s almost like peanuts and you know And I have actually found myself asking them that leave the decision to buy something or not I have a question who built this who made this budget because because I you know, I actually wonder that Given that technology is becoming first the percentage in the budget You know needs to be improved, right? Two questions in that one How are you dealing with that? What is it that you are evangelizing given that you’re also serving on you know, a lot of industry bodies You know in different capacities. You’re basically becoming the voice of you know restaurant tech You know in the industry and on the other side You know when you said that it’s not going to necessarily replace people Are cfo’s agreeing with you, you know, what’s the what’s the ask? You know What’s the ask from you? Isn’t that ask? straightforward that we need to use ai or we need to use technology to replace people or our operators not only you know The ones the company that you’re working with but outside as well are people agreeing with you when you say hey It may not replace people.

Kevin Bentley:

It just may enhance the experience or increase the efficiency Yeah, so I think there’s a mixed bag right and a mixed perception there. Um You have some old school cfo’s that are cost center focused right technology is a cost center I look for companies and opportunities to partner with What I call the new age CFO which is a strategic partner That has some not working knowledge of technology and how it enhances the business and it might not come in a form Of a monetary ROI initially right like networking. We talked about earlier the cable system It’s not the sexiest thing. You don’t really see an roi on that Like a immediate here’s I put in this it made x amount of money But where you do see it is down the road when my guest says hey, I had a great experience with Your kiosk or I had a great experience with your curbside service or your app because your your wi-fi your connectivity was amazing that is the challenge I think cfo’s or folk have because Obviously, they’re there to make money and the easier or faster they shift from Thinking cost center focus to strategic strategic partnership, and i’m focused on the end users I think we’ll be better off as an industry. There are some brands that are doing that really well There are some brands that are in flux and then there’s some brands that have leadership That hasn’t changed right going back to that whole concept of leadership I use the sports analogy to talk about it and i’m going to give you two leaders coach k and bobby knight Both very successful in their own right bobby knight never changed his leadership style as the times and the player changed He’s no longer in the sport coach k However changed his leadership style and adapted to what the environment needed and he was very successful until he decided to retire We are in it. We’re at an inflection point with our leadership and the business model as a whole that needs to be dissected and turned on its head because The old school thinking is no longer right. Look what it did to our hybrid model and like working from home before covet We would that would never been a thought. Yeah, you have to be productive. You’re in the office and you’re productive And the studies are showing that the majority of people now are very Much more productive than they ever were in the building because you work longer. You probably work harder Because of the freedom you’re given I can now go and take my kids or pick my kids up from school And then jump back on the computer at eight nine o’clock more importantly as these kids are growing up Their working style and environment is very different.

They’re working out and I have a my um email It says my working hours are different than your working hours. Do not feel the need to respond Because I work a lot at 2 3 in the morning because i’m up testing things like that and as my brain’s firing i’m shooting off emails, but I don’t want my team to have the The perception that they need to respond to work on my hours because that’s not the case As long as you’re getting the job done and you’re productive. Yeah, that’s all that matters So we have to start at the top in our industry and and start to Either train or as the new leadership comes into play.

Ashish Tulsian:

I think technology will have a bigger place at the table I’ve I can tell you that in last Two and a half years alone. I’ve seen like a like a change and you know The conversations with operators the conversation about technology, you know What they’re seeking what they’re asking the questions have changed. I would rather say The questions have evolved they have changed right and and the questions look much smarter much much more informed but at the same time Uh the dichotomy that at the same time, you know, they they want technology to immediately save the cost tomorrow morning Uh, they they actually want technology to come at a cheaper cost Uh the cheaper price, uh at times, uh is is is is difficult To fathom because because you want to also Listen to them understand the ROI the intangibles that you talked about right that it may not be the direct ROI But there’s also a surge of restaurant tech in the market, you know Like the number of companies that are three years old Uh in the market, uh for all types and kinds It’s it’s amazing Is there a fatigue? Already setting in How do you look at when you’re as a technology buyer when you’re bombarded with you know, all kinds and types, you know from small Small plugins to you know, large platforms How are you looking at the restaurant tech world as of today? What’s your view?

Kevin Bentley:

So I I do think there’s a bit of tech fatigue going on because there’s so so many new players And because the space is still relatively new for our industry We don’t know what we don’t know and so a lot of these tech companies are you know creating Ideas or concepts that will help the industry, but every day there’s a different call and There there isn’t a big differentiation between company x and y it’s like I just talked to someone yesterday That does the same exact thing you do. They’re like, oh, well, we’re different Okay, help me understand how you’re different and then you explain the very thing I heard yesterday and so there is a bit of tech fatigue and I think that’s probably going to be here for you know The next three or four years and the reason I say that is because we’re not at a mature state technology wise, right? We’re still on Our industry is still an emerging industry as it relates regarding technology And so you have to deal with some of the fatigue. But what I will say that has been a benefit of that is The different perspectives on the same problem set right rather some marketing the pos or things of that nature Everyone has their own twist or spin to it And then that’s what creates the ideas that leads to the big boom platform, right? Like oh, that’s how you’re using it That’s how you’re using it. Well, I didn’t think to put those two together that intersectionality of the two it’s like oh now that’s even that’s now that’s innovative now, we’re able to solve challenges in real time, but The other challenge I find is The speed in which technology is moving, you know, we talked about all these new companies coming in daily that’s where we’re at because We’re not a mature state. We’re at a mature state yet. And so you have to take some of that good with the bad And I don’t look at the fatigue as bad. I look at it as opportunities to connect in the industry learn how Technology is enhancing our industry and then I talk to my colleagues in industry. Hey, here’s a problem set How you guys solving it? And so I think it’s really forced us to be more collaborative in nature Well, that’s amazing.

Ashish Tulsian:

You said that because you know, I I personally believe that it’s restaurant tech is in its infancy right now Yeah, I think it’s it’s just an infant which is you know, and and and You know I think the industry as a whole is dealing with so many blind spots You don’t know what you don’t know and Force I mean, I I still see even in 2023 september that people are Trying to force fit all the new age requirements into a legacy system and kind of the band-aid approach Yeah, and in a world where you know, technically I mean everybody knows that the system is obsolete Yeah, but you’re still trying to force fit your requirements and that tells me that okay It’s all nascent right now. It’s you know, we’re not there yet, right?

Kevin Bentley:

No, I agree i’ve dealt with some things just as recently in the last two years where you’re trying to integrate new technology emerging technology with new api codes and things like that with Someone who hasn’t upgraded their code in 30 years yet. We have to make it work and then we wonder We’re shocked when it doesn’t work as intended the guest has all these challenges they’re like hey My rewards didn’t work or this didn’t work. It’s like well Yeah, you tried to put a ferrari engine in a pinto and it just did not work, right?

Ashish Tulsian:

And you wanted to fly.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah, by the way, I wanted to fly and hover. Yeah, exactly like And that’s why I think the you know going back to your question about the cfo That’s where that shift has to take place Right because they’re they’re the gatekeeper of the money and they have to understand how these systems connect And the integration points and the challenges that come when you don’t do it properly, right? We all see it yet. We continue to make the same mistake over and over again It’s it’s like the definition of insanity You know, it’s there, you know, it’s not going to work yet. You continue to do it instead of just saying We’re going to invest

Ashish Tulsian:

And and bring everything up to modern code, but what’s your what’s your you know in a world that is More aligned to that cfo Or or the financial, you know, uh other people who are holding the money I see tech companies you’re going in making a cheaper proposition Which is like stupid because these tech companies are also going to fold up in the next couple months or a couple of quarters Just because they’re so cheap and a lot of consolidation is going on right now to your point And bringing one point from your previous, you know our previous conversation learning to Play the game the chess. Yeah What are your winning points? You know, how are you evangelizing this investment? In technology For your management for operators for finance for for ceo What what are those winning points so a couple of things there one is influence Right.

Kevin Bentley:

I talked about getting a seat at the table to be able to influence and then the second question is how do you influence? I need to know your pain points Why is it as a cfo or whoever is making the decision? Why are you not on board? What part do you not understand? Let me educate you because we are still in that That process of educating on the technology as well as here’s the roi it provides um, and so I spend a lot of time influencing at that level at my level and Educating on why this is the right move and how it’ll help us not maybe two day But and you’re looking at your two three year strategy. This is how it influences that strategy. The other piece is if you recall Pre-technology for our industry or technology in general. You’re like in a silo. It was the business And there was technology and they didn’t intersect right the business was making a decision They tell technology what to do. We get it done whether it’s a crazy deadline or whatever again the definition of insanity What i’ve done with my teams is we’re integrated to every aspect of the business You need to understand the business strategies what they’re trying to achieve why they’re trying to achieve it and how we Inform that strategy or help to reach the company objectives That piece has been critical because the integration of technology and the business really Helps both sides understand how to work well together right and why you need each other. Um, And that’s why I was brought back to inspire in the in the operations role I was really the conduit because i’d been on the business side and I really knew technology So I could communicate the gaps to the business and translate the technology Talk to the business and it was like wow This is a marriage made in heaven because we got a lot accomplished because we could understand Both parties and so i’ve spent a lot of time early on in my exec roles Integrating my technology teams to the business in the meetings So you understand what they’re thinking why they’re thinking and then it’s allowed us to come up with better solutions

Ashish Tulsian:

But is it is it you know, if I talk about you know, getting a seat on the table. Is it really about? Being a listener on the table and you know trying to Understand why does business need the piece of technology that they’re looking for or are you talking about? Proactively also You know changing the way Uh, you know business thinks about a certain implementation and hence driving technology, which one is reactive the product I think it’s a combination of both right covid caused us to be what very reactive Our guests couldn’t come in.

Kevin Bentley:

So now we stand up curbside. We stand up these apps and all these things Now as you go back and revisit what you did post covid to meet those needs. How are we proactive about it? Right. How are we looking at business challenges today? But also three years from now with a vision of where technology’s headed But also again with a vision of where the company’s trying to head in that three to five year roadmap So bringing those two together has been critical to Inform and be proactive and then there’s some things in technology. We’re always going to be reactive, right? At the core of technology, you will always have the break-fix component but how do we take that in the innovation and be More proactive with helping the business move their uh, their goals forward and achieve those goals I think that is where we are as an industry, but there’s not a lot of people that fully understand The technology especially at the leadership position You know, you look at leaders who are As an example a 50 to 55 year old leader probably doesn’t understand technology probably doesn’t even want a smartphone They probably still want the one that to text is three three tabs to get to see Right as long as it turns on and works, they’re fine But that’s the educational piece and why you have to be able to educate as well as influence.

Ashish Tulsian:

What is it that you? Want to tell operators, you know who are right now either hiring or re-evaluating their tech strategy, right? I mean the problem also is Not the fact that uh, you know that a old enough operator does not know tech or is not educated enough on tech I think the problem also is with the technology leaders or people who are in the power Making the decisions on technology and then they keep on making you know The same poor decisions where like force putting a ferrari engine, you know, so who does that? You know people in technology are taking those decisions, right? What do you want to tell? operators to look for You know in their technology leaders in their tech organizations if you if you just You know wanted to give them a piece of your mind So a couple of things I would say one is share your pain points openly and transparently Right.

Kevin Bentley:

Obviously you have to have the culture within your company to do that because some people will not speak up But if you don’t speak up, we cannot help right and so I created an operational tech force team people that understand technology but really understand the restaurant industry and they can come to me every month and tell me their pain points and Most of them have ideas of how the technology can help solve it. So that’s a great plus the uh the second piece is As you think about operators, they’re they’re really the ones interacting with the guests And so they understand the guest experience even more so than the marketers We can look at the data and all that but they’re living it day to day Interact with your guests and understand how we can help them be better due to use of technology Those two things are critical but at the core for an operator. I know we’re putting a lot on them Every day we’re training on some new technology piece and it’s okay to push back Right, but what are the questions that you know, the management teams today need to ask Their technology leaders.

Ashish Tulsian:

What are the questions they need to ask their cio or the or the cto or the it head?

Kevin Bentley:

So Going back to my speak chat last year What is our foundation? What is our pos stack what benefits pros and cons does it offer our back office solution the network, right? um Your data platform those four are always going to be in my opinion your foundational platform What do we look like from a foundational point? Yes, all these bells and whistles are great, but Our foundation is crumbling right in my last two roles. The biggest pain point of the operators Was the network connectivity? Wow, and we did not.

Kevin Bentley:

best in that piece. We put all, kept layering stuff on top.

Ashish Tulsian:

You mean the connectivity at the store level?

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We kept putting all this stuff on top and didn’t wonder why it was failing. You have to understand those four components and make sure they’re really strong before you add anything else to the mix. I’m a firm believer in that right now. Right. And we look at innovation as like these gaudy things. Sometimes innovation is just becoming more simplistic in nature and understanding the foundation allows you to build. Would you build a mansion on sticks or are you going to make sure that foundation is right? Because we’re not building just for now. Technology isn’t going anywhere, whether we like it or not. And we have to build the right foundation. So the future is even brighter.

Ashish Tulsian:

Kevin, you’ve just stepped into a brand that is more global. I mean, Arby’s was global anyway, but then, you know, you’re talking about Jollibee now and Jollibee is a brand which is still outside of the US. They are in the US, you know, from outside. So they’re more global in nature. As a restaurant technologist, how do you look at the global, you know, side of the restaurant tech? Because, and I’ll qualify my question. I think most of the technology in the world was global just by virtue of being horizontal. I think I call restaurant industry or restaurants, geographically challenged entities. You know, you’re in a bubble of your own and all your problems and all your solutions and everything comes from like a five mile radius or a three mile radius for that matter, right? And that’s what makes restaurant operators think hyperlocal just by design. And hence, even technology kind of suffered in that way. Restaurant tech is now becoming more global, or I think it needs to become more global. You know, there needs to be a one POS or one platform that kind of runs across, you know, countries and continents. With Jollibee, while you are looking, going to look at North America as the tech, what do you think as a tech leader, is that something that you would want to look forward to eventually?

Kevin Bentley:

I am, one of the things that attracted me to this role is the global footprint. I’m super excited to learn from the global partners because I actually believe most countries are so much further ahead with their tech stack than we are in the U.S. I’ll give you a perfect example. When I was at Owens Corning and I remember my first visit to Canada to an offsite in the summer of 2017. And we’re at this restaurant, I think it’s like one of the famous ones that’s high up. And it was time to pay. They brought out a machine and me being an American, I just handed my card in the server immediately. I can’t take your card. I was like, well, then how am I supposed to pay for this meal? They brought the payment device to the table and everything happened right there. And I was like, and I think that was like when the chip and EMV first came out. I was like, holy smokes, why don’t we have this in the U.S.? This literally saved us 20 to 30 minutes, right? Yet it’s still not widely adopted here. We’re still struggling to get the chip and all those things accepted in 2023. I saw this technology almost seven years ago and who knows how long it existed before I even crossed it. In some places, we’re still trying to fight for kiosk. Kiosks are prevalent in other countries. So I’m excited to see how much further they are ahead and why it’s solving business pain points. And then bringing some of that knowledge back to the U.S. and helping us accelerate technology and evolve as a brand. I’m really excited to learn from those folks and just see the footprint and how things are working in other countries. I’ve always been fascinated with business outside of the U.S. anyway. And so I’m really excited about the technology. I’ll tell you a funny story. When I was at Owens Corning and we were rolling out CRM, it went smoothly in the U.S. Well, you go over to Asia Pacific, they had a lot of internet laws. So we couldn’t extract the data and we had to get really creative about it because they had their internet protocols and all those things. And it was like, I would have never thought about that because it’s so easy to do in the U.S. But that was a business pain point that we had to figure out. And it was like, man, it’s such a large world of technology and how it’s used or not used and how do we actually bring it together? You made a comment about a unified POS system. I’ve been saying that forever. I’m going to go a step higher. It’s not a unified POS system. It is a unified API code, a universal code that allows us to use technology more freely. Oh, absolutely. Because right now, when you look at any integration, it’s three to six months.

Ashish Tulsian:

And that’s, yeah, absolutely. And I think, personally, I’m also on the other side. I’m the one who’s supposed to really deliver what I’m saying. But I think one thing that stays true for our existence in 2012 when I started this company, my first PPT about what is it that we’re trying to do said that. It actually said that the world does not have a unified system to talk to the restaurants and restaurants globally are geographically challenged and they are thriving because they are hyperlocal. So the problems are also hyperlocal. They’re kind of fine. But if we want to see global restaurants truly behave global, there has to be a single cloud that supports them. Since 2012 to 2023, that is exactly what we are trying to do.

Kevin Bentley:

But if you create that universal code, think about how much more in depth and in features, functionalities and things like that, that you can actually focus on and invest versus because it because it compounds.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah. Right. And, you know, and to your point, you know, Asia, especially, and because we were born in India, you know, so for us, the first market was India.

The amount of stuff that we ended up doing, right, for example, for us, you know, our product today runs in like some, you know, 17 languages. We are we have fiscal integrations with different government entities across the world and 52 countries and all of that. So one day, you know, I was talking with somebody in the UK and they were looking at our platform and were like, you know what, this is quite surprising. This is really versatile. Like how do you guys do so much? I’ve never seen somebody, you know, encompassing so many complexities in a single system. So I said, you know, what Batman said. I said, while you are barely trying to get accustomed to the dark, we were born in it. You know, I said, you come to India and when each state behaves like a different country and you need to, you know, talk to restauranteurs who have their own way and their own system and their own workflow and, you know, no two restauranteurs want to comply with like a single set of rules and you want a product that, you know, kind of serves literally entering into the and across each state want to serve every government, then you walk out of India and then you walk into any other country and everything looks like a cakewalk because you were born in the dark, right? They’re just barely getting accustomed to that.

Kevin Bentley:

No, I love that analogy because that’s exactly where we are. We spend most of our time trying to figure out how to integrate the platforms, which takes away from what the real essence of technology is, right? Like enhancement of features, functionality, things that allow people to be more productive, yet we’re spending most of our time and resources trying to figure out the integration piece. And then that comes with its own set of challenges, even after it’s quote unquote working, right? So I think that would really change the industry. The other piece I think is right now, unfortunately, my belief is that the integration codes are being used as a differentiator, right? Like, oh, we’re different because we use Java or this language. No, it’s not different. You’re just making it more complex when this part needs to be simplistic, right? When you think about marketing, it’s all about loyalty and bringing guests in. Well, the old days of loyalty are gone, where like someone would eat at the same restaurant every day. We’re very fickle in nature now. And so our guests have a myriad of needs, right? They don’t want to be on kiosks, don’t want to be on their phones, don’t want to be in restaurants.

Ashish Tulsian:

And they want the same experience across form factors. They want the same.

Kevin Bentley:

Exactly.

Ashish Tulsian:

They don’t want it to behave differently just because the device was different or the form factor was different.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah, they want that straight, amazing, seamless experience regardless of the platform. Technology is in the same place, right? And as an industry, as soon as we can understand that that customer isn’t going to eat Chick-fil-A or Jollibee or whatever every day, same with the technology. Let’s make that part seamless so we can actually create a seamless experience for our guests.

Ashish Tulsian:

That is so amazing that you said that, right? Because, you know, I mean, for example, the integration piece, right? And I generally get really pissed because I feel that integration is not the mode. It cannot be. Industry has to support integrations from the platforms to the products. Everybody has to support integrations. It’s like saying that, oh, my switches, they are easy. No, they were supposed to be easy. Integratability is the mode. The seamlessness is the mode. Integration is not the mode, right? The product that is getting integrated, that product has to win the business on its own merit. It cannot win just because it was the only thing that was integratable. That is so lousy. And, you know, and most of the times tech stacks get built, you know, this way that, oh, why did you choose that product? Oh, that was the only option that could integrate. I’m like, okay, that’s not a bar that’s high enough.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah. And the other piece I love is, oh, we’re an open source code. Open source, you can integrate with anyone. Not the case, right? And then you go down that path and all of a sudden you realize it’s not as simple as an open API source or API code. That piece needs to be removed from our industry.

Ashish Tulsian:

And this excites me so much because, you know, there’s so much that’s going to happen in restaurant tech in next, you know, half a decade to a decade.

Kevin Bentley:

Yeah.

Ashish Tulsian:

I think I can’t even, honestly, I can’t pretend to actually, you know, imagine a decade. I can only think about next five years and there’s so much that I can already see is going to happen just evolutionally.

Kevin Bentley:

No, yeah. And so going back to my point about like, we’re still in the people industry and it’s a service hospitality industry. I was talking to a colleague just earlier about a restaurant that I visit. I won’t use the name just for make sure I don’t get in trouble. But we were talking about as a kid, my dad was a truck driver and we’d go have breakfast at this one location and the server knew our name, all these things, right? We walked in, it was how you guys been, knew all about the sports, all this. And one of the comments made was, yeah, we’ve added robots to help the server bring the food out because she’s older now and she can’t necessarily carry the plates and the restaurant’s enhancing that by helping her, but she still has that amazing one-to-one personalization with her client base. That is a case where the technology enhanced and helped the operator versus what we’re trying to do today, which is remove them. So your comment made me think of that story because we are headed there and we have to find these creative ways to allow the technology to enhance and improve.

Ashish Tulsian:

That is so beautiful. And that’s a great example. Yeah. Kevin, this was an absolutely brilliant conversation. I think at so many points, the resonances, it’s so amazing. I’m really glad that we had this conversation. Your journey is phenomenal. I can definitely tell you that. I also see that you’re, can I make an assumption in a comment? This is my, sure. Yeah. So I see that, that you’re looking for dope, you know, all the time. You’re, you’re, you’re, you know, all the, I now know why these degrees, I now know, you know, why you are zipping through, you know, from marketing to tech to, you know, in the best possible way. I think, I think the faster you hone some something, the faster you want to move away from that. So I, I wish that you don’t, you know, hone restaurant technology enough ever, and you stay in it to make a big difference over the next half a decade to a decade.

 

Kevin Bentley:

Well, that is the goal. I would love to run a restaurant company one day and really impact change from the leadership down and allow that to permeate through the culture and as, and including our operators and then how we ultimately serve our guests. Right. That, that is who I am at the core and I’m in it for people. I’m not doing the degrees and all these things to say, look what I’ve done. It’s actually to help enhance everyone else’s life, whether it’s work, serving a guest, the quality of food, et cetera. I tell my team all the time, it’s my job to push you up or out. I know there’s only one seat where I, where I sit and it’s my job to get you in that seat, whether it kicks me out of the building or not, because that is how we change the culture by creating and developing talent and people so that we can be, it’s better because you’re there.

Ashish Tulsian:

I absolutely see that. It was a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for, you know, allowing us to do that.

Kevin Bentley:

Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.