Story & photo by Rizal Raoul Reyes
THE local operations of Shakey’s Pizza Co. plans to add the use of bitcoins in selling products in keeping abreast with the current technological trends and improve customer service.
Shakey’s Chief Information Officer Mauch Franco told reporters on the sidelines of a news briefing on March 25 they are currently testing the bitcoin with a provider.
“We see this happening in the next three months,” Franco said. “Pretty soon, we will test everything properly. It has been successful in the international markets and application of bitcoin is going viral, as well, in the local market.”
Franco added the move to accept bitcoin in purchase of real products “is not for the sake of rolling it [sales] up.”
We also want “to improve our service to our guests,” he said.
Bitcoin, also known as crypto-currency, does not have any support by any country’s central bank or government. However, a bitcoin can be exchanged for goods or services with vendors who accept the “cyber currency” as payment.
Shakey’s Philippines General Manager Jorge Concepcion told reporters half of the company’s business is online based. “At present, 50 percent of our business is delivery-based.”
Franco said they chose to migrate their system to run on Microsoft Corp.’s software and cloud infrastructure in a bid toward digital transformation. We believe migration to the cloud is correct because the cloud can provide robust and seamless capabilities to the company, he added.
Franco explained Shakey’s aims to achieve a seamless integration on every customer interaction from ordering to table management, from kitchen management to pizza deliveries.
“We have embarked on our digital-transformation strategy with a lot of serious intent and focus on execution,” he said. “We have begun by putting in a sound infrastructure in place, such as Microsoft’s Azure [cloud infrastructure]. As we move to executing our full digital vision in the next couple of years, we look forward to leveraging Microsoft’s analytics and data management to optimize our operations.”
Franco said they believe a seamless information-technology integration will allow the company to plan more efficiently out-of-home dining peaks, e.g., Mother’s Day. In the past, the huge spike on demand prompted online orders to crash as the previous servers cannot take on the demand, he added.
Image credits: Rizal Raoul Reyes