“Apple excelled at making their devices intuitive and keeping the end user top of mind. Today, it’s easy to get distracted by the amazing innovations in AI and other technologies, but those innovations could lead us down the wrong path if we don’t keep customer experience in mind as we develop solutions. Learning from Apple’s experience will help me find balance between innovating just because I can versus developing solutions that customers need.”
— Jonathan Gustafson President
Ace Mart Restaurant Supply
but they don’t even see as solvable,” he said. Take for instance the most common trio of operator challenges: labor, efficiency, and consistency. Restaurant owners may view those as distinct issues, each needing its own solution, but Pierce said a savvy distributor can introduce them to combi oven equipment that cuts down the number of people they need to work in the kitchen while also increasing cooking speed without compromising quality.
“Operators don’t realize it doesn’t need to be the way that it is,” Pierce continued. “As an equipment dealer, we can provide them those solutions. We can apply that same strategy Apple has done, where they say, ‘Hey, we have this device that can solve this problem and can make you more efficient and can untether you from your desk.’”
Rising Alongside Technological Disruption The mindset Pierce describes closely mirrors the Apple
Marketing Philosophy created by early investor and later CEO Mike Markkula. The one-page decree authored in January 1977 lists three concepts that have guided the company’s marketing approach ever since: empathy, focus, and impute. Of the first, Markkula simply said of customers: “We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.” It’s within that environment that Wozniak and the Apple team found ways to use rapidly advancing
14 FEDA News & Views
technologies to deliver a better user experience and more useful products for their buyers. With technology in the midst of another major leap, many businesses are looking back at Apple’s example as they figure out how to integrate headline-making advancements into their organizations. For distributors and manufacturers, that means evaluating investments in automation, enterprise resource planning systems, data platforms, supply chain visibility, and e-commerce.
Much like personal computing in the late 1970s, AI is still in the early stages of proving its practical business applications. Wozniak’s perspective on how transformative technologies evolve may offer valuable context for business leaders trying to distinguish between lasting change and empty hype. The hour-long session at the FEDA conference gives foodservice equipment professionals a chance to hear how an industry-changing company like Apple succeeded in its own transformation from one of the people who lived the experience. “Apple excelled at making their devices intuitive and keeping the end user top of mind,” Gustafson said. “Today, it’s easy to get distracted by the amazing innovations in AI and other technologies, but those innovations could lead us down the wrong path if we don’t keep customer experience in mind as we develop solutions. Learning from Apple’s experience will help me find balance between innovating just because I can versus developing solutions that customers need.”
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