Expert Talks with Paolo Mauri: servitization and AI against the technician shortage

Paolo Mauri's journey: from organizational sociology to customer care

Daniele: Hello everyone, my name is Daniele Delle Case and this is Expert Talks, the Things5 podcast about technology and smart products with industry experts.

Today we're joined by Paolo Mauri, Global Customer Care Manager at Angelo Po.

Paolo: Hello everyone. It's a pleasure to be here.

Daniele: Today Paolo will share his vision of technological evolution in the HoReCa sector. Paolo, I've seen that you've built up a great deal of experience over the years and I'd like to start right there. Can you tell us a bit about who you are, what you've done and what your journey has been?

Paolo: Well, let me say up front: I'm a sociologist. I live and understand engineering and technology, but I always keep a firm eye on the more human side and on the relationships within a company. In fact, I'm an organizational sociologist. That shapes what I've done and what I'm doing at Angelo Po as well.

My career is fairly long by now; I'm not exactly a spring chicken. I started on the production line at a company that assembled and sold boilers and heating systems. Then I moved to after-sales service; I had a transition period in the research, development and innovation lab, where I had to “chew on” some engineering, and then I went back to service, which became the main part of my career.

I was also a product manager for a while and helped set up one of the quality departments at the company where I worked before landing at Angelo Po.

In the meantime I try to stay connected to the academic world when it comes to servitization and, a bit less recently, sociology. I've also tried teaching servitization in the past and now I'm learning servitization again, because I'm taking part in a master's program organized by the University of Eastern Piedmont and the University of Bergamo.

From the lab to the market: technology as a means to co-create value

Daniele: Okay, I picked up on a lot of interesting things in your story. First of all, I'd like to understand how your view of technology changed in relation to the roles you've held in the past. And then I'd like to understand the same thing regarding how your approach to technology evolved along your path through different companies: from multinationals to more Italian SMEs.

Paolo: Well, my approach to technology in the broad sense has changed a lot over my career. When you work in a lab and maybe you're a bit isolated from the real world, the approach is very top-down: we make things that people will have to accept regardless, because “we know better than they do” what's needed. There's also, good-naturedly, a bit of arrogance: we think we know more than everyone else.

When instead you start coming into contact with the market, with customers and with intermediaries, you have to change your approach and figure out how to start co-creating solutions with them. You have to actually talk to people.

Technology is no longer an end, but a means to start this kind of conversation and to understand where the value lies for everyone: how I create value, how I distribute it and, since I work for a company, how I capture it, how I extract it from what we do.

Daniele: Let's say this is also closer to your academic background: it's natural to think sociology is very much aligned with this vision.

Paolo: I'd say so. You have to learn to bring in the human, the customer and, in our case, all the intermediate players too. In my last two jobs, there's a sales network intermediated by agents and dealers, and a service network that's also intermediated.

Today at Angelo Po I don't have direct technicians: I have a second-level support team, but the field technicians, the ones who talk to customers every day and meet four to eight customers a day, aren't company technicians. So, in any evolution path I set in motion, I also have to consider their needs, because in the end they're the promoters and the first adopters of what we propose and build.

Daniele: So your approach is to satisfy both the end customer and the partners who have to work with you.

Paolo: And then there was the question of SMEs versus large companies. My experience in SMEs is a bit dated now, so maybe things have changed today – and I hope so. Back then there was a very “waterfall” mindset. In a multinational, partly because of the needs of cross-functional teams and matrix organizations, you have to get used to being more agile in your approaches and less sequential. This fits well with putting the customer back at the center, because in the end that's exactly one of the things the servitization process is for.

The technician shortage in HoReCa and the transfer of know-how

Daniele: And today, in your daily work, what are the main challenges you're facing, beyond the ones you've already described?

Paolo: Apart from managing a network you don't own – so you're dealing with independent businesses that aren't yours, and the degree of control you have isn't total – an important part is persuasion: “selling” what you're doing to your partners becomes essential.

Then there's a very big challenge, in the HoReCa sector but not only there: the lack of technicians. Many expert technicians are leaving the workforce: people who have been doing this job for 30-40 years. So it becomes crucial to find solutions so that the knowledge they carry in their heads – which is often not formalized – gets transferred, or at least made available in an easily accessible way to the new generations of technicians, who are harder to find and also have different life needs compared to our generation.

Daniele: Yes, that's true. Tell me, what strategy are you putting in place to make up for this lack of technicians and to manage the transfer of know-how between “veteran” technicians and up-and-coming ones?

Paolo: Here technology can play a truly fundamental role. The first point is being able to track all the conversations that happen on every channel: WhatsApp, phone, email and so on. The challenge is extracting the value in these completely disorganized conversations, which often don't have an explicit “end point”: you have to infer it. That's where technology becomes essential.

Once you've organized this mountain of knowledge, you have to figure out how to make it accessible easily, smartly and at the moment it's needed. The super in-depth “on-site training” once a year with everyone together probably no longer exists. The real situation is more likely to be: “Oh my God, I've never seen this machine before, how do I fix it?”.

Of course, the basic skills still have to be ensured: working safely with electricity, water and, in our case, gas too – often all three together – is essential. But then there are the specifics of each machine. And by now it's less and less likely that a service center is single-brand. This is where “coopetition” comes in: we and the other brands in the industry will, sooner or later, have to collaborate. I imagine a world where, at least on some issues, we'll join forces to face these challenges, because they're not just mine: I know it's exactly the same for my peers.

Coopetition: why there's no training path for HoReCa technicians

Daniele: Let's say that, from what you've described, two main themes emerge. The first is on-demand content: at the moment of need I have to find what I need, and that content has to solve a problem with a user experience designed specifically for that problem.

The second theme is starting to consider strategies at the “industry” level rather than the single-company level, creating synergies even with companies that are competitors today, but that on some aspects of business life can become allies.

Paolo: What's missing, in my opinion, is precisely someone who takes the first step and the initiative. Vocational training institutes could play an important role. If I think of my specific sector, HoReCa, I see schools that train front-of-house and kitchen staff very well. But I don't see programs dedicated to the “HoReCa technician”. There's no structured path for those who'll have to work on the equipment. There are courses in mechatronics, programs related to refrigeration, which is one part of the HoReCa sector, but nothing that provides a 360° view:

• working safely with electrical and electronic systems, water, gas

• some mechanical work

• customer management

• inventory management (because the van with the spare parts is, in fact, a warehouse to be managed).

Here too technology will be able to help us, looking for example at service reports, which aren't necessarily always electronic: there are still European countries – even unexpected ones, like Germany – where paper is still an “ally”. Something that extracts information from there too and lends a hand would certainly be welcome.

Service reports: from paper to voice dictation

Daniele: Yes, the paper issue is much debated, but in my opinion it's always a matter of user experience: as long as paper requires less effort than digital tools, paper will obviously win. When digital tools become so simple that paper is the more tiring option, then we can really think about digitizing any information that comes into the company and can bring value.

Paolo: Also because both paper and online forms bring with them something many technicians don't like: writing. You sometimes see service reports that just say: “Problem solved. Period.”

From there you have to reconstruct what that person did, who may be the best technician in the world, but is a bit too terse when reporting information.

Daniele: Can we say that today the ability to pass on information within the company has become a key skill for a technician too, because sharing information also means improving products?

Paolo: Exactly. But technicians have to understand that this is valuable. And we're not always good at conveying that to them, and they don't always have the sensitivity to appreciate it.

A world where they can dictate what they did by voice, instead of having to write it, could already be a big step forward.

Daniele: Yes, we strongly believe in dictation: we've already introduced it in some of our solutions and we think it's a tool that helps bridge this gap. Dictation that may be supported by an AI review, but in any case faster and more natural.

Paolo: It's much more immediate: you can do it while you're driving, or in a complex environment – like kitchens – where it's not always easy to stop, pull out a tablet and start writing.

Who should take the first step? A neutral aggregator for training

Daniele: You talked about the role of training institutes in this transition toward “coopetition”. In your view, does it necessarily have to be a training institute that takes the first step, or could it also be a company?

Paolo: It could definitely be a company; it doesn't have to be a training institute. The issue is that, if we're talking about manufacturers, there's always a bit of fear of investing in training and then seeing the technician “poached” by someone else.

An external company positioning itself as a system integrator for this need would fit well: a neutral aggregator. It could be a good way to go.

IoT in customer care: why machines often don't get connected

Daniele: In your role as global head of customer care, what role does IoT play? We believe IoT should become more and more fundamental in solving problems in the field. How does IoT fit into your work, and what challenges have you faced in integrating IoT into your machines?

Paolo: I'll start with the challenges. We're realizing that, for technological and cost reasons, machines often don't get connected.

The first challenge is making it as easy and inexpensive as possible to connect machines and bring the data to the cloud. Approaches like: “We'll do it independently of your network, I'll put a data SIM in, but you have to pay for the traffic” probably aren't winning ones.

The second challenge is having the largest possible connected installed base: only then can IoT truly generate value. Today we have an IoT platform - which you know – that's very simple and intuitive to use, and this is a value people recognize in us.

The next challenge is the one we talked about at the beginning: it mustn't be a technical or technological exercise for its own sake, but an exercise in value for the customer. Only then will it be adopted. As long as we do things because “we think we know better”, we'll probably only get so far.

In our case we're working to evolve the IoT platform and bring value both to the end customer and to the intermediaries: they'll be the ones who have to connect the machines, convince the customer to share the data (or rather, make it available) and be the first to present the benefits of these services.

Connectivity as a commodity: the value lies in data-driven services

Daniele: We're very aligned with this vision too. We're convinced that investment in IoT – in pure connectivity – should be seen almost as a commodity, an enabler for generating data that then has to be put to use and consumed by applications that solve concrete problems for the end user. IoT by itself doesn't solve problems unless you have features that use the data to actually solve them.

Seeing the investment in connectivity alone as an investment with a direct return is difficult. If instead you place it within a broader strategy, where connectivity is tied to services I can sell, then the investment takes on a completely different meaning. We often see that many companies still struggle to grasp what can be generated from data, and that's why they often ask us to help them find solutions to get value out of the data.

Paolo: Exactly. This is a key point for the companies that position themselves as integrators: they bring the experience that keeps you from reinventing the wheel for the millionth time.

These are long and expensive processes, even simply in financial terms: you have to interview customers, understand what the average is, whether they're representative of your installed base, organize focus groups, develop, redo, iterate endlessly. The “loop & relaunch” will be there and has to be there, but as an evolution of a solid base you've already put forward and know works. This also lets you be faster.

And then there's cross-pollination between industries: maybe you discover that a use case built for woodworking machines is also perfect for a rack conveyor dishwasher in a kitchen. The role of these companies will become more and more important.

How to measure the return on a connectivity project

Daniele: Yes, the concept of cross-pollination should be part of the toolkit of any company that brings technology into other companies. History is full of success stories born that way.

If you had to evaluate a pure connectivity project in terms of return on investment, what KPIs do you think companies should monitor to assess its return? If there are any.

Paolo: That's a really interesting question, and one we're still working on.

The “obvious” KPIs are the ones we all arrive at: number of connected machines, number of customers who've signed a contract, number of logins, usage of a certain feature you think is brilliant (and maybe then it isn't). Then you need to go deeper into what customers say about you: that's where you really understand the value. As a sociologist I'm very happy we've gotten here, but it's also the hardest part: you have to get inside the customer's psychology. When they give you feedback, you have to interpret what they're really telling you:

• are they complaining about a feature because it doesn't do what they want?

• or because they actually want a different feature?

This is hard to capture with synthetic KPIs.

Daniele: Probably, with systems that analyze language semantics, it'll be possible to quantify these aspects too.

Paolo: Yes, and then, of course, there are the monetary aspects: how much can you bring in? In my industry I believe that, looking at connectivity alone in purely monetary terms, we'll always be “in the red”. I don't think we'll ever manage to fully cover the investment with connectivity alone.

User behavior on physical products: the 20% of features that really matter

Daniele: I wanted to ask you something specifically about connectivity as a foundation for generating value. I'm a strong advocate of user behavior tracking on physical products: in the web world it's common practice, on physical/digital products much less so. So: tracking how users behave with products. In my opinion, IoT should be what closes this gap with the traditional digital world. What's your view on this, and how can this data affect product improvement?

Paolo: Enormously. Probing how the end user uses the machine becomes extremely important, also to avoid providing things that are too complex or rarely used. In my industry, the person who buys the equipment is almost never the person who uses it. And the person looking at the data on a PC isn't necessarily the person standing in front of the machine trying to start a program or use it. So you have to understand the interaction with the machine based on who you're dealing with. Just knowing whether it's the chef, the sous-chef or the prep operator changes a lot. Based on that you have to give each person what they need, as simply as possible: that's a huge competitive advantage.

Daniele: It also helps you understand which features make sense for the customer. In research and development labs people make lots of assumptions, but then what's actually needed is maybe 20-30% of the features.

Paolo: In our experience it's about 20%, but it's never the same 20% for everyone. So you have to open up the range of possibilities, let people choose and test, and then ideally each customer keeps the 20% they need.

Daniele: That's very similar to what happens on the web.

Paolo: And also in the latest-generation cars: you have a panel that does everything, but in the end you always use four functions. You want them to work well, be at your fingertips and almost suggest themselves, without you having to activate them manually.

Daniele: Here's where proactivity comes in: something pretty much everyone is working on.

Paolo: And then there's the interaction with a body of knowledge acquired from other customers and made available by the company. Maybe I change my menu and my operator doesn't know exactly how to do a certain thing: it would be great if they could ask the machine directly – or through a simple interface – how to do it.

What servitization is according to Paolo Mauri: Tim Baines's model

Daniele: This is a topic very close to our hearts: we're working on it, launching projects in this direction to help users find what they need more easily, also using generative AI and proactive systems. It's very much in line with our company vision.

Earlier you brought up servitization. We know it's something that will also add a lot of value to IoT: data is the foundation for selling any service.

First of all, what is servitization in your view? And what are the reasons a company should servitize, and what path should a company follow to do it?

Paolo: Three very broad questions! Let's start with what servitization is.

I interpret it as a transformation process for manufacturing companies: you start from a company that, on a continuum, only offers the product – “I sell you the product, goodbye, we won't see each other again” – and get to a company where the product is the “underlying asset”: it's still there, but in reality I'm offering you a complete package of solutions to your problems and your needs. In between there are various intermediate steps that, in my opinion, need to be tackled in order.

If we think of Tim Baines's model, with the various steps of servitization, I believe they should be climbed – maybe even quickly – but in that order. If you skip steps, you risk building a pyramid balanced on its tip. Building a solid base, and then moving on to the next step, is also essential for learning. One of the challenges of servitization is that some paths may turn out to be dead ends and you have to turn back. That's where you need strong support from management: it has to give you the freedom to experiment on paths that may seem risky at first, but also the peace of mind to be able to turn back without deciding to “de-servitize” after the first or second negative experience.

The big risk is exactly that: a few experiences don't go as planned and people conclude that “it doesn't work”, so they abandon the journey. In reality, servitization is very advanced in various industries – especially process industries. In our industry we haven't yet fully made the shift that recognizes certain machines as “process” machines, even though they are: so it should be easier. But you need to raise awareness among those who have to buy those services, who often aren't yet used to seeing the value over time of a process like this.

Daniele: I imagine, for example, in the HoReCa sector, a restaurant manager who, instead of buying an oven “one shot”, acquires it “as-a-service”, paying a monthly fee. In my opinion, this would greatly simplify the financial management of a location: you move from the concept of investment to the concept of usage. It allows greater scalability and lets manufacturers have higher margins over the long term. It's a virtuous path for all the players in the ecosystem. I think all companies, in the medium to long term, should approach this model.

Paolo: Absolutely. There's a small “but”, though: for the company that no longer sold you the oven “one shot” – with immediately measurable revenue – a change of mindset is needed. You have to get used to thinking about smaller but recurring revenue over time, and about managing the asset that remains yours or a financial partner's. This is certainly a crucial issue when talking about the transformation toward servitization.

I'm seeing more creative financial models start to appear, based precisely on the physical asset. These are interesting developments: for example, we might see mini-bonds based on servitized assets. It's a very interesting topic that would deserve a separate deep dive.

How to servitize a product: from intermediate services to selling the outcome

Daniele: Earlier you talked about the “right steps” and a base to build on. You can't improvise your way toward servitization. What, in your view, are the right steps to servitize a product?

Paolo: In theory it's all very simple. In practice, a bit less so. You start from the product:

• you get good at supplying spare parts

• you set up a service network

• you become a bit more proactive over time

• you start selling scheduled maintenance contracts

• you offer extended warranties

Up to here, you're still talking about an asset with services “attached”. Tim Baines calls them “intermediate services”. The quantum leap comes when you no longer sell the asset itself, but sell the outcome: the result. You're talking about a process completed successfully, and you get paid based on how well you carried out that process. They no longer pay you for the oven, but for the result achieved with the oven. But you can't get there without having gone through some intermediate experiences. It's also important for understanding how the organization reacts and how you need to change internally to talk about these things in the right way.

It's often said – to simplify – that a product salesperson isn't a service salesperson. It's not always true, but the KPIs we use to measure salespeople will certainly have to change: it will no longer simply be “how much did you invoice”, but “how successful have you been over time”.

Daniele: And then there's the issue of the sales structure and partners: distributors, dealers, service centers. They need to be involved in a different way.

Paolo: Finding the way to involve the supply chain is complex. And once you've involved the chain toward the market, you also have to involve the one toward suppliers: some are already prepared to tackle these issues, others not yet – and not on all the critical components of the machine.

Paolo Mauri's three tips for those who want to start servitizing

Daniele: If you had to give three key pieces of advice to a company that hasn't done anything yet in servitization but wants to start, what would they be?

Paolo: I'd say these three:

• Get started. Take the plunge and begin, maybe small. It's a learning opportunity to understand whether, as a company, you're ready or what you need to do to get ready.

• Make sure management is on board. Without sponsorship from the top, the journey won't hold up.

• Keep believing in it. Something will go wrong, sooner or later. There'll be that contract that brings a loss instead of a profit, but it doesn't matter: you work on the total and on the long term. Deciding and getting started is the first step. The most important one.

Generative AI in HoReCa: an emergency mode to keep service running

Daniele: Now I'd like to introduce another topic that's very dear to me and that over the last 2-3 years has been changing the world quite a bit: generative AI. We know generative AI is bringing changes to every sector. In some areas it has already become the foundation for creating value and increasing people's productivity. In your view, what is, or what will be, the impact of generative AI in your field?

Paolo: Broadly speaking, the impact will be very high. If we think of the global HoReCa sector, the ability to support those who use a service – for example a restaurant customer – through AI is already an important step forward. Then there's the whole side of managing equipment and companies' processes:

• the company that installed the equipment

• the service centers that keep the machines running

• those who supply the related products and services.

At each of these points there are multiple interactions that AI can manage intelligently. Each of these players can benefit: to simplify, to provide more immediacy, to work on machine uptime (on the technical side). An interesting use case: I have a fault on a certain piece of equipment, a part of the machine no longer works. How can I still get a similar, if not identical, result by using what's still working? It's a sort of “emergency mode” that lets you keep delivering the service, even if not at full capacity, instead of stopping completely.

Daniele: That's a very interesting use case. Do any others come to mind, both in the HoReCa sector and in management for your customers – so restaurant owners, chefs, etc.?

Paolo: Absolutely. One is the one we mentioned earlier: n machines all working on something that can give the operator suggestions like “do it this way” or “try this other mode”. Maybe the person doesn't know exactly how to make a preparation and wants to find the best way to do it: that's where AI can step in with contextual suggestions.

Then there's the self-help side: the problem gets solved as quickly as possible by the first person who saw it, without always having to escalate. That's a huge help too.

The biggest problem, when I think of a restaurant owner on the coast in peak season who can't run service, is precisely the interruption of operations: let's give them a hand so they can keep serving customers and keep making money. Then the technician will go and fix the machine 100%, but in the meantime we've avoided a disaster. I think back to the '90s, when technicians drove around with half a cubic meter of paper in their van. Today they have to know how to work on anyone's machines, with catalogs that are very broad horizontally (lots of models) and also going back in time (many years of history).

The young technician fresh out of school, however willing, how can they know everything? They never will. We realize that ourselves. So the question is: how can I help them? How can they ask me something – maybe by voice – and immediately get directions to get the machine back up and running? Maybe it won't be perfect, but it'll work. Then you come back with the parts and do the permanent fix.

Daniele: Here we're back to the initial concept: sharing experiences and content. You need to create a company knowledge base that brings together previous interactions, manuals and service conversations with users and operators. This knowledge base has to become an asset on which to build tools that provide on-demand support, as we were saying.

Supporting customers without IoT and brand perception with generative AI

Paolo: Another use case we see often concerns service calls on machines that aren't connected. The technician asks: “How were you using the machine?” and the customer replies: “It was on”. Result: zero information.

Daniele: That's an IoT and user behavior issue.

Paolo: If there's IoT, fine, but if there isn't, how do I help my customer?

Daniele: From my point of view, the machine already generates logs and data. In cases where there's no permanent IoT, what you were saying makes a lot of sense: on-demand connectivity, an application that connects to the machine via Bluetooth or similar and lets you retrieve the latest data – not the whole history, but enough to run diagnostics. It's a middle ground between traditional IoT, with the machine always connected, and an “entry-level” IoT that, in many cases, can solve this kind of problem. The key point, in any case, is knowing what happened inside the machine and understanding how the user acted to cause that problem. This data, in my opinion, is essential for the machines of the future and also for guaranteeing the proactivity we were talking about.

Staying in the area of customer support, you've already introduced some generative AI use cases in HoReCa. What additional value, beyond what you've already described, can generative AI bring to customer support? And how can it impact end users' perception of the brand?

Paolo: It's a very interesting topic, and one we're starting to move on. From a brand standpoint, the effect is this: the machine becomes transparent to the user. I make sure the user can focus on their real job. The user's job isn't “using my machine”, but serving a meal to someone. The simpler the machine, the less problematic it is, the more “invisible” it is in its technical complexity, the better. All the support the equipment can give the customer to help them complete the process is where one brand will differentiate itself from another.

Daniele: As for talking to a “machine” rather than a human being: today there's still the preconception that it's an alienating interaction. Does it improve brand perception or does it depersonalize the brand?

Paolo: It definitely improves it. There's the preconception that it's an alienating interaction, but if approached intelligently it will become essential. Some experiences with poorly designed phone answering systems and bots don't help. If it's used intelligently by the user and the companies working on it care about the interaction, then it becomes essential. The brand that manages to be the most friendly will win.

It's also a generational thing: digital natives will accept these interactions more easily and will know how to use them better. The positive thing is that the intelligent tool adapts and tries to make the interaction easier.

Daniele: Speaking precisely of making the interaction easier: do you imagine generative AI being integrated not just to provide “external” support, but built directly into the machine, turning the machine into a digital assistant?

Paolo: Probably yes, there will be something like that. I don't know whether it will be a feature physically built into the machine or something external that integrates all the machines. Think of a kitchen: it would be great if every kitchen in the world had only Angelo Po products, but the odds aren't very high. It's more likely that the center of the kitchen – today often the oven – becomes the main interface and maybe your digital assistant for the machines it knows directly. An external system can also know other machines, unless those coopetition processes kick in whereby the Angelo Po oven recognizes another manufacturer's fryer or a third party's blast chiller.

Kitchens aren't always redone from scratch: often pieces are replaced, one at a time. It becomes hard to have a single brand in the kitchen. I see as more likely an external experience that talks to the machines' electronics, with some specific interactions that it does make sense to keep directly in front of the machine.

The future of the professional kitchen: automation, robotics and data

Daniele: That's a very interesting point of view. If we talk about the future instead, for Angelo Po and more generally for your industry: what key trends do you see in the technological evolution of the product? And what role should the manufacturer play within these trends?

Paolo: One key trend is process automation and the desire to bring all the equipment together under a single point of control, to understand it and make it work well together. Beyond automation, this is important for energy savings and for better use and preservation of ingredients. These trends intersect with the themes of sustainability, “despecialization” and, in some cases, the deprofessionalization of kitchen staff.

From the manufacturer's point of view, the goal is to help you have a process that's as error-free as possible and as independent as possible from whichever operator you have at that moment.

This applies to a broad range of customers. Then there will always be the Michelin-starred chef, an artist of the kitchen, with different needs. Understanding how many Michelin-starred chefs there will be compared to quick service restaurants is essential for steering product development. The winning solution is probably to develop systems that can work for everyone, but are smart enough to automatically adapt to whoever is in front of them.

Daniele: The manufacturer's role in all this is one of actively listening to the market and constantly adapting.

Paolo: Training will also become more and more important. We're already seeing players coming not from the restaurant world but from IT, opening restaurant chains. I've come across a couple in the United States and I suppose they'll soon arrive in Europe too. Maybe they'll be the ones teaching us how to use data.

Daniele: Once again the concept of cross-pollination comes back: IT and HoReCa merging.

Paolo: “Robotics” and HoReCa, with robotic arms performing functions that humans perform today. In some parts of HoReCa, a super repeatable and consistent result is precisely the value proposition of that kind of foodservice: there the machine can be perfect.

Daniele: I imagine the type of product will also change to make it work with a robotic arm: a traditional oven probably isn't optimized for that kind of use.

Paolo: It isn't optimized, but even today a robotic arm can do interesting things.

Daniele: Let's not give away too much.

Paolo: Let's keep a few secrets for the next episode.

Daniele: Speaking of the next episode, I wanted to thank you for your time: it was a very pleasant conversation and we explored several topics in depth. See you soon, then.

Paolo: Absolutely, see you soon. Thank you, Paolo – I mean, thank you all. Bye, see you soon.