FOODICS: Changing The Way Restaurants Connect With Customers
Foodics CEO Ahmad Al-Zaini watched as the group of business people finished placing their order for coffees at the Starbucks store in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The group input their orders on Foodics’ point-of-sale (POS) system on the Starbucks counter, which displayed the various drinks and food in a variety of languages. This feature was particularly helpful as it helped the almost dozen individuals from France, Lebanon, Brazil, and the United States complete their order. AlZaini smiled with satisfaction as the group moved to the other end of the serving counter to await their drinks and snacks.
It had been almost seven years since Al-Zaini started Foodics, and he marveled at how the company had grown from one that initially provided a service for digital menus to a firm that now delivered an all-in-one workflow solution to food and beverage establishments. With customers in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Jordan, and throughout the MENA region, Foodics in 2020 was rapidly growing and expanding. As Al-Zaini thought about the next steps for his company, his mind drifted back to the company’s earliest days.1
To read more, please download the full case study.
1 Data on this case was provided in an interview with Ahmad Al-Zaini on January 18, 2021. All quotations and company facts are from the author's interviews unless otherwise noted.
The author thanks Jada Fund of Funds Company in Saudi Arabia for their assistance in preparing the case SM-346: Foodics: Changing the Way Restaurants Connect with Customers.
Lecturer Robert Siegel prepared this case solely as the basis for class discussion. Stanford GSB cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Funding for this case was provided by the Stanford Graduate School of Business. This case was reviewed and approved before publication by a company designate.
Copyright © 2021 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All Rights Reserved. Please contact our distributors, Harvard Business Publishing (hbsp.harvard.edu) and The Case Centre (thecasecentre.org) to order copies or request permission to reproduce materials. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means––electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise––without the permission of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Contact us at: [email protected] or Case Writing Office, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Knight Management Center, 655 Knight Way, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5015.
