Safaricom and Huawei have announced their trial of an innovative new solution for restaurants, dubbed Scan & Order. This solution was developed to help restaurants digitize their menu and ordering systems, enabling them to improve on customer service, optimize their menu and pricing strategies, and leverage the power of data.
The two companies have worked together over time to build widespread connectivity infrastructure and payments systems. With mobile financial services such as M-PESA being critical to digital services, facilitating transactions between people, businesses and government, and enabling an ecosystem of innovative services has been made much easier. The next step is to develop new digital services that build on these to change lives.
The new solution will also enable restaurants to develop loyalty schemes and build long-term relationships between users and sellers, by enabling bonus point management. By using this new service to order food, merchants and consumers can benefit from this digital ecosystem. This will bring continuous service improvement and improve the digitization level of the Kenyan catering industry.
Speaking at the launch of the trial at Pete’s Cafe in Kilimani, Managing Director of M-PESA Africa and Acting Chief Financial Services Officer, Sitoyo Lopokoiyit said, “I want to thank Huawei their R&D team and everybody behind Huawei for bringing this solution to life. Thank you Pete’s for being the 1st restaurant to have Scan & Order.”
CEO Pete’s Cafe, Pete Owiti commented, “We are happy to embrace technology and again to be the first restaurant in Kenya to launch the Scan & Order service together with Huawei and M-PESA. Pete is 100% owned by locals for locals with a global touch. Together we are chasing a digital world.”
Pete’s café established its first premise in 2006 with a counter at Rosslyn Academy and Hillcrest International School as a family run business and has now become a fully structured corporate run business. The franchise has since expanded to 4 branches and has recently started works on building a new store at Shell Thika in a new partnership with Vivo Energy. The plan is to roll out at least 3 stores every year.
Also commenting on the trial solution, Huawei CEO Meng Wei stated, “Building on this cooperation, Huawei will continue to work with Safaricom to continuously invest in innovation and support Pete’s Cafe’s digital business development. We will create more innovative services and a richer digital life for all Kenyans. Further bringing the digital world to every person, home and organization in Kenya.”