Question: MINICASE: Consulting For The Al Dente Restaurant Chain Al Dente Is A London-Based Small Chain Of Four Restaurants Focused On Fresh Pasta Dishes. The Concept Is Based On Quality Of Food And The Mystique Of Its Fresh Pasta Lab And Kitchen. While Housed In The Basement Of Each Restaurant, The Pasta Lab And Kitchen Are Open To Customers Who Want A Tour To

MINICASE: Consulting for the Al Dente Restaurant Chain Al Dente is a London-based small chain of four restaurants focused on fresh pasta dishes. The concept is based on quality of food and the mystique of its fresh pasta lab and kitchen. While housed in the basement of each restaurant, the pasta lab and kitchen are open to customers who want a tour to understand what makes fresh pasta so good. The concept has been very successful since its inception, seemingly hitting the target with a sophisticated clientele willing to pay a premium for authentic, fresh Italian pasta. Located in densely populated, affluent, residential London neighborhoods, each Al Dente restaurant offers dine-in options, with a very popular wine bar concept, but does a lot of takeout business. While it has yet to experiment with delivery, worried about the quality of the dishes when they get to destination, Al Dentes head chef was nonetheless experimenting with packaging to find the right solution, ensuring the preservation of Al Dentes food quality upon delivery. The restaurant chain is in need of upgrading its Kitchen Display System (KDS) from Oracle, which is at the end of its useful life. The KDS is the unsung hero of back-of-the-house restaurant operations. The system delivers critical functionalities, such as meal coursing, delayed routing, and cook times, which ensure accurate order management. As orders are received from the point of sale (POS), the KDS routes them and displays them to the kitchen staff so as to ensure that all items are prepped and cooked for simultaneous delivery and optimal quality. The Al Dente KDS is at the end of its five-year useful life. After five years, Oracle stops guaranteeing support for legacy applications and requires customers to upgrade hardware and software to the current version. While some restaurants take the risk of running obsolete, unsupported software to save money, Al Dente is a dynamic, growing chain focused on quality food and service and has already decided to upgrade to the Oracle MICROS Express Station 400 (Figure 7.1) and sign a new five-year agreement. The Al Dente setup for each restaurant is a dedicated Windows machine based on commodity hardware, with two overhead 24-inch antiglare displays with an integrated soundbar, sealed against humidity, grease, and other airborne contaminants. The hardware/software bundle costs Al Dente $1,000 per restaurant and requires signing the Enterprise License, totaling $200 a year per restaurant. WizTech, a California-based high-tech firm specializing in cloud solutions, has recently contacted Al Dentes general manager. This contact is very timely, given the imminent upgrade to Oracle MICROS Express Station 400. WizTech is beginning to commercialize a cloud-native KDS solution that delivers the exact same functionalities as the leading KDS. It also uses the same displays. However, being cloud native, it does not require any other hardware, including the dedicated Windows machine. Moreover, to ensure a degree of business continuity, WizTech offers, free of charge, a work offline service that enables temporary operations in case of unavailable Internet access; this service is secure and managed seamlessly by WizTech until the connection is back in operation. Thus the WizTech solution is a perfect substitute for the Oracle KDS. WizTechs premium solution has a subscription price of $500 per year for four restaurants. The hardware, setup, and installation for all four Al Dente restaurants costs WizTech $1,500 to produce and install. Discussion Questions

1. What should Al Dentes general manager do?

2. Does WizTech enjoy a competitive advantage (or disadvantage) in this market?

3. Can you quantify such an advantage (or disadvantage)?