The restaurant industry is facing a unique challenge. With the rise in popularity of food and beverage as a major reason why people travel, restaurants are poised to capture more data on their guests than ever before as they dine at properties across the world. But how do today's operators capture this F&B data and use it to deliver on experiences that far exceed guest expectations, all while driving revenue for their F&B outlets globally? Find out how you can leverage data on your global guests to unlock the full revenue potential of data at your properties.

Join Victor Gielisse, CMC, DBA, Partner in the CIA Consulting Group, as he explores with you Menu Engineering best practices and key opportunities in the tightly competitive food service and hospitality market. He will also delve into the ongoing challenges for operators of creating and implementing something new - a new product, process, service or perhaps a new business model. Explore the opportunities that operators face and the need to understand when a current practice adds value and at what stage to initiate another point of differentiation to stay ahead of the competition by delivering new value creation for their business. Take-aways from this session include:

• Understanding and improving upon your business innovation dimensions
• The value of using cross-functional teams and co-development process strategies
• Explore effective Innovation Management practices

Don’t make the same mistakes the others made! “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That phrase has been attributed to a number of people and the concept continues to hold true. Over the years, many franchisors and franchisees have committed the same errors as they begin their international expansion or as they refocus their efforts on those initiatives. The title of this Forum is “Common Errors” – they’re common because so many franchisors have committed them. This Innovation Forum is intended to provide a warning to those who are just beginning to expand outside their home countries and to provide a reminder to those who have already established an international presence. Attendees will have an opportunity see a list of the most significant errors and exchange experiences and examples with other restaurant colleagues in the room. Our guest panelists have many years of experience in multiple countries with various restaurant concepts. They’ve seen many of these errors first hand and heard about many others – and sometimes even committed some of them themselves! 

As personalisation becomes a key differentiator in the fight for customer loyalty, find out how you can use your own data to fuel AI and take customer, and employee, interactions to a new level and make your restaurant stand out from the crowd.

Menu trends are emerging at a rapid pace and have never been more mobile across the globe. While it’s imperative that operators keep their offerings in line with current food and drink trends, it can be a challenge keeping up with the many food fads and crazes, as well as determining which trends are more lasting and how to adapt them to a specific market and segment. This session will focus on the key strategies that operators employ when adopting and adapting fast-moving menu trends for their local market. 

The Global Restaurant Leadership Distinction Awards are awarded to those restaurant brands that excel in the global marketplace through Innovation, Industry Service, Partnership and Expansion. The Innovation category recognizes international success by crossing boundaries, staying ahead of consumer demands and enhancing operations, and GRLC is pleased to recognize Dodo Pizza (Russia). The Service award honors the brands that give back to their communities, the industry and even the planet itself; the 2019 award goes to The Minor Food Group (Thailand). The Partnership designation highlights an operator who successfully developed a brand that originated in another country or its own, adapted it to the marketplace and made it a success; this Partnership award honors SPC Group (Korea). Expansion recognizes growth - increase in sales, unit count and average unit volume over the prior year and tracking into the current year. This year’s winner is Restaurant Brands International (Canada). Join us as we celebrate these international stars!

Grocerants, convenience stores, supermarkets, on-line meal subscriptions, dark kitchens and food delivery players are emerging. Driven by the trends and empowered by technology they are stirring up the traditional foodservice landscape. The boundaries that used to define the foodservice industry are blurring and new types of businesses are entering. Are they disruptors or enablers for sustainable chains business development? UFS together with CEOs from new- and existing chain businesses will be discussing how to be a forerunner and innovator in the fast-changing landscape of foodservice.

Nando's is a culinary and consumer masterpiece. The restaurants, conceptualized in South Africa and started in 1987, now number some 1,250 units in 23 countries, including South Africa, Asia, , U.K. and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, Malaysia and Dubai, with Washington, D.C. and Chicago as the first U.S.-based sites. This global concept speaks to healthy food, purpose-related values , and hey…it's the people that make the Flame Grilled Portuguese Style Peri-Peri Chicken! From a unique website and intriguing brand story to strong internal cultural strategy and purposeful localization initiatives, Nando's exemplifies an evolved food brand!

While honesty forms the core foundation of any working space, it is also true that sometimes the human vices take the better of us. One such case is that of theft and pilferage which has managed to plague almost every Restaurant at one point or another. We would not only be addressing this less-talked-about menace but also how Technology can play a role in curbing this through machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Various studies have clearly mapped an approximate shift from minus 3% loss to plus 7% profit in the restaurant revenue. We would be discussing with much deeper insights and guidance on mitigation of the same.

Join Mark Reader from Rentokil, the world’s largest commercial pest control company, for a unique session that will explore pest management in a time of digital evolution and how this is transforming food safety through enabling businesses to stay one step ahead of pests.

In a world of increasing consumer expectations and ever growing pest threats, food safety has never been so critical. Mark will be exploring the valuable capabilities of digitally enhanced pest management and how they can support restaurants, including real world examples of how these are already being leveraged to help global food businesses reduce risk, increase transparency and transform their approach to food safety with new levels of efficiency and control.

The session will also share insights into how restaurants can effectively embrace digital pest management and fully harness all of the benefits it has to offer in protecting their staff, diners and reputation all around the world.

Learn about restaurant development from regional experts who have been where you want to go. As hosts for this information packed Forum, WFA has brought together senior industry leaders based in and operating across the Southeast Asian Region. This is a high-powered Panel Session to provide delegates with invaluable insights to plan your expansion or to maximise your growth in the region.

While AI is making inroads into every industry from Healthcare to Finance, the Restaurant industry is relatively untouched by the developments in AI, mainly due to the absence of rich, clean, big data. In this session, we will look at how the latest AI technologies can be leveraged to create the next generation personalized guest experience in an "in-store" setting.

The boom of delivery, growing demand for off-premise food and drink, increased pressure from nontraditional competitors and hurried lifestyles have forced many operators to rethink how and where they set up and locate their restaurants. Today’s restaurant chains are tasked with doing more with less—servicing more dayparts, offering delivery and providing seamless ordering solutions—often with smaller kitchens and a tight labor market. This session will examine how leading operators are revamping their operations to address the modern industry landscape. 

Travel and tourism is driving food like never before. Skyrocketing numbers of people are travelling to and within Asia creating more demand than ever for Asian culinary experiences back home. Increasing travel and more frequent visits to favoured countries has resulted in deeper culinary knowledge, expanded taste buds and a desire for an authentic food experience. This forum will discuss how to take Asian cuisine such as Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian and even Chinese to the world in new formats with the genuine tastes that consumers seek: from revamped airport food offerings to deep-dive dishes that are loved by the 61% of world travellers that from Asia Pacific.

Technology plays an intrinsic role in our lives today and consumer expectations are continually advancing. But globally, there are huge variations in technological capacity and capability as well as local attitudes and expectations. So how do multi-national restaurant chains handle the myriad technological needs and speeds in the different countries in which they operate? How do they manage a global platform at the same time as ensuring local relevance as well as building for the future?

Dr. William Tan has dared more in his lifetime than most of us would dream to attempt. He's an accomplished scholar, scientist, and athlete but realized, "winning medals, trophies or prize money should not be an end to itself. It should be a means to further goodness and to help people." Since then, he has devoted himself to championing great causes worldwide. He has helped raised more than $18 million on a voluntary basis for charities locally and internationally over the last 22 years.  Ultimately, his battles and fighting spirit have have transformed him into a more compassionate physician and invigorated him to dedicate his new lease of life to doing more for humanity. His journey of resilience and reinventing oneself to scale greater heights in the face of adversity continues to inspire many individuals and corporate leaders.