Expert Talks with Silvia Piccin: The Method Behind Product Innovation

Daniele: Good morning 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 have Silvia with us, Product Owner Innovation at Electrolux Professional. Hi Silvia, how are you?

Silvia: I'm well, good morning Daniele, it's a pleasure to be here with you.

From architecture to product innovation: Silvia Piccin's background

Daniele: It's really a pleasure for us to have you here too, because I think you can truly give a lot to our listeners and share a bit of your experience and the technical foundation of innovation you bring into your everyday work. I'd like to start by understanding better where Silvia comes from: what was your path and how did you get here?

Silvia: Basically, my background is in architecture. I started out studying architecture in Venice, with a focus mainly on sustainability. Back then there was a lot of talk about both sociology and forms of urban regeneration, we were doing Agenda 21, and at that time I had also worked at the city council on a few projects. There was also the whole world of technological development in photovoltaic panels, building systems, building envelopes, curtain walls, cladding. The technology being introduced at that time saw a boom in architecture – we're talking about the years before the famous construction bubble.

It was kind of natural to find a job in what was called the curtain wall sector. I worked for about 7 years at an engineering firm in the Conegliano area – Studio Skyline – where we did what's called engineering and also, if you will, reverse engineering of the architects' ideas. We worked on fairly large-scale projects in very different locations: we worked on part of the World Trade Center, in London on projects by Foster and Renzo Piano, lots of installations in Milan, some smaller things like the Fondazione Prada, and projects of different scales.

What's behind all this is that when you work on someone else's idea, you have to be able to develop that concept without distorting it. So there's a phase of understanding and adapting not only to the place, but also to the background of the people and workers who are going to build it. Just to give you an idea: the level of technology you use in London or New York and the level you can use in Ghana are completely different, they have different tolerance margins. That approach I carry with me comes from those years: it's a way of tackling things by thinking about the context and about who is going to build it.

The move to Electrolux Professional happened partly by chance and partly out of a desire to go from something that's very beautiful to look at from the outside to the inside, to the flows. I've always been a bit passionate about sociology and how interaction between people changes spaces. Working on projects with people and with consultants then gave me the opportunity to explore that side as well.

How to optimize operational flows and space in a professional kitchen

Daniele: Staying on this point, what does understanding the flow of a space mean to you? How is a space used?

Silvia: In a way, it's about understanding the actions people perform and their needs, breaking them down and working to optimize spaces and steps depending on what they need to achieve. But it's very different depending on the context in which you're developing the project.

Think about the logic of a regular restaurant or of hotels. A hotel in South America or in the United Arab Emirates has specific areas that are required because of the way they eat: for example, the area for washing rice or legumes and the way they cook them. They cook these products in trays, not with the creamy stirring technique we use. This means you need specific areas and dedicated equipment, but if you don't know their habits and you don't know the culture, it's hard to interpret that need.

Hospitals, or in general care homes and nursery schools, have other needs. There it's very important to pay attention to what's called the dirty-clean flow, so avoiding contamination both in meal production and in the areas where clothing is washed, because you may have people with very weakened immune systems, or small children who require a much higher degree of care. You have to pay attention to the temperature of the milk and so on.

Daniele: But does this only affect the design of the space, or also the design of the product itself?

Silvia: It also affects the choice of equipment and, as a consequence, the design of the product too, because very often – and today even more so – demand for products that adapt to the customer's different needs, and that can therefore be customized in how they're used, is a reality.

Why? Because in a chain, the people working there are very often the weekend student, or maybe an operator who did have some training but obviously hasn't been working in that industry for 10 years. So they need very simple equipment that guides their operations.

What a Product Owner Innovation does in a manufacturing company

Daniele: Going back to your role, can you help our listeners understand what a Product Owner Innovation is and what someone like you does inside a company?

Silvia: It's a sort of evolution of the product manager, made necessary by the technological evolution of recent years. The classic product manager is normally the person who defines the market strategy: which product to develop and which needs it should cover.

The product owner takes an extra cue that was typical of software, with the famous agile methodologies that have partly made their way into manufacturing as well. It's the idea of a direct dialogue with the customer and then being able to translate their needs into more technical language, defining exactly what actions need to be taken and, above all, the metrics to measure them. Because if you ask me for something, you have expectations: so I have to understand what your expectations of the product are and translate them more concretely for all the other departments we work with.

Generally speaking, the more complex or larger the company, the more stakeholders need to be coordinated: it's about coordinating the lab, software development and production.

The role of the dealer network in collecting customer feedback

Daniele: In terms of expectations, we know there are several layers between you and the end user. How do you make sure that information about the real need gets from the bottom all the way up to you, the people who have to design the product?

Silvia: There are different ways. In some cases, we're generally talking about key accounts: we very often have direct contact because there's an in-house design team at the company that also provides support in some specific cases, so we're able to have contact and discuss their needs directly.

When, on the other hand, which is most of the time, we're working with the restaurant, the bar, the more classic installation, there's normally a dealer network, meaning the local distributor providing support. Since we're an international organization, this dealer network very often also interfaces with the local branch of the organization.

This way we very often lose a bit of direct contact with the customer, but on the other hand the dealer network is extremely important because we have someone very close to the customer who can give them immediate support, advise them, and who knows – in some cases even better than we do – what the actual needs of that specific type of business are and the particularities of the area. In the same way, they're able to come back to us with very targeted feedback.

Then there are training sessions or presentations with the partner network too, where we're able to have this kind of exchange, gather information and feedback, and pick up on any specific needs.

How central kitchens and laundry centers are changing with market megatrends

Daniele: What's very important is being able to keep fairly constant communication. On the other hand, there are megatrends driving the entire industry. How do you identify them and how do you bring them into product design?

Silvia: There are different streams. Some requests come to us directly from the network: if the same request starts coming up several times, it's a sign that there's a need emerging in the market.

Other times, conversely, we're the ones trying to drive an internal innovation that the market might need tomorrow. You do it because, for example, you notice some changes in the fabric of the business, for example in foodservice.

A big change came during the Covid period, because unfortunately many small businesses found themselves struggling: some managed to change the way they worked, some had launched delivery solutions, some had managed to expand their outdoor space while cutting back a bit on cooking, many didn't survive. In general, the approach that changed became a somewhat more business-oriented approach.

In times like these, this approach continues: every customer has a problem with the cost of raw materials and utilities. So the way you manage the work and plan the menu pays much more attention to operational management than in the past.

This has also been very pronounced in other types of facilities. Take schools and hospitals, for example: many have outsourced some services that used to be handled in-house, such as meal production, dishwashing, and washing the bed sheets in hospitals. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but every now and then you see these carts arriving with the sheets individually bagged, because there's a management system whereby they're collected every day, sent out to the external provider that runs the service, and then brought back.

So this logic – all the ancillary costs, this attention to operations – has been passed on to whoever provides the service: the central kitchen and the external laundry center.

Daniele: How is this changing your business? I imagine it certainly changes things for the end user, but on your side too, does the approach to the market change with these central kitchens and laundry centers, and the interaction with this new type of customer?

Silvia: That's right. There are some different needs. These centers are generally high-productivity. What needs to be considered? Above all the logistics side, which is an integral part of the service: they need a suitable flow of spaces to receive large quantities from outside, sort them quickly and easily, process them and then get them ready to be distributed throughout the day. So they're subject to pretty intense peak times.

As we were saying earlier, they too – as a result of the different management model within the institutions – find themselves paying more attention to the total cost of the service they offer to the customer.

The value of localization and user experience (seamless integration)

Daniele: Earlier you brought up the topic of context, so the ability to do business in very different parts of the world. You mentioned Ghana, Europe, outside Europe. How much does context matter in designing and customizing a product for a target market? We know that creating new products can be easy in some ways, but at the same time very difficult: you can create products that look beautiful on paper but then don't solve real problems. What's your approach to this kind of design?

Silvia: It depends a bit on the type of product. Localization definitely has a strong impact, because needs change a lot depending on the context.

For example, if we look at the Asian market, the peculiarity is that people eat from lots of small bowls and with chopsticks, so they need something specific to wash that type of dishware. In Europe, on the other hand, we have a different way of doing things, so we need different machines and spaces, maybe products with a different lifespan. The whole flow has to be calibrated a bit to the customer.

In some cases there are habits that you need to accommodate in some way. What's the problem? Generally, when you propose something to customers there are limits within which you can propose something new, whether we're talking about processes, technology, features or innovation. It's not always easy to find exactly the right level.

Generally, the more – as they say – seamless the new way of using machines or products is, meaning it fits easily into your habits, the easier it will be for you to perceive that new integration as positive. Technology is fine, but it has to "fit into your habits."

Daniele: In the ideation process, do you start from hypotheses? What's the process that leads you to understand what the outline of a new product could be?

Silvia: It depends a bit on the type of request. Sometimes we get specific requests from customers: we generally do a briefing, work with them to better understand their expectations, what they expect from the product, and somehow manage to steer the request correctly.

You can already propose some ideas: a brainstorming session already produces some ideas, you can usually do a first round of screening and so you have a starting point. With the starting point you do the classic POC, you think about how to implement and validate it and, depending on the request, you go to the customer with a prototype.

Daniele: And how much intuition is there in this process?

Silvia: There can be a lot or a little, in the sense that it can be more data-driven or not. There's always a creative part and, at least from personal experience, you also need a certain sensitivity to be able to turn what the customer wants into something concrete.

The famous lateral thinking also matters a lot: very often solutions come from fields that aren't the relevant ones, that you don't expect. Very often, having the customer with you, giving you a few examples, can give you the spark, the breakthrough to understand in which field you could look for a similar solution to adapt to what the customer needs.

What an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is when applied to a physical product

Daniele: Earlier you talked about prototypes for going to the customer with a first version – which is the concept of an MVP. In software it's very clear to me: Minimum Viable Product, a product with the basic features needed to solve a specific problem. In the case of a physical product this approach can't be the same, because it's much more complicated to evolve a physical product than software. In your view, what's the concept of an MVP for a physical product?

Silvia: When we talk about it in software, the POC is generally the back end of the software infrastructure: I have a minimal feature that I can then implement, adapt and so on.

When it comes to a physical product, at least in our manufacturing field, it's much more complex, because for me the Minimum Viable Product is still the finished product that the customer can use. So to be able to test it in the final phase and get approval, I need to have the functionality, I need to have the usability – so an interaction with the customer that's faithful to the original – and I also need to have those characteristics that guarantee what we call the "touch and feel": all the touchpoints I have on the machine.

Daniele: How do you measure validation in this case?

Silvia: We do the final validation with what we call field tests: we give machines to sample customers chosen to be consistent with the product, because if I make a product for a hospital, I can't have the bar around the corner try it out. Then we collect feedback directly from the customer through questionnaires and open questions. This feedback is collected and processed.

Going back to the question about the Minimum Viable Product, for me it's at the very least a product that has all the core features built in: if I make a new dishwasher, the product must at the very least wash and deliver the performance I expect – the things you take for granted, and if they're not there you're disappointed.

Then there's that package of features you expect to find but don't take for granted. In a car, for example, it's the sport suspension, the automatic rather than manual transmission, the lowered ride. These features are important because they're the ones that make you choose one model over another and, from our point of view, they're also the ones you recognize as added value and that give me a different positioning in the market.

The last features are the "delight" ones: the ones you don't expect. If they're there, all the better. They give you the impression of a broader innovation in the product, which you might pay more for – think about what happens every time a new smartphone is launched – but if they're not there, on the other hand, they don't have much impact on your user experience.

Methodologies for classifying product features (Core, Trend and Delight)

Daniele: Do you have a framework for defining the features at each of the stages you just described?

Silvia: It's more of a methodology. What we call core features are the parts related to how the machine works, plus everything the service partner needs for installation: whatever makes it easier to use, and the installation, delivery and subsequent maintenance of the equipment.

The other set of features generally comes from requests or market trends. A few years ago there was particular attention to reusables: not the paper cup you take, use and throw away, but dishware you could reuse. Think of all the concerts and events held nowadays: they might have the plastic cup they collect and rewash, instead of ceramic dishware. But that kind of dishware needs to be washed in a certain way and maybe dried too, because it doesn't hold the temperature like the ceramic plate you have at home. So there are extra features you can integrate into the machine, or specific cycles.

The last part is very often more of a bet you make on the market because you've noticed that something is changing, and you realize there could be a latent demand that the user hasn't fully understood yet. Bringing it to light could give you a competitive advantage.

Daniele: How do you identify these latent needs and what metrics do you use to assess whether these bets have paid off or not?

Silvia: You can get some input from trade fairs, more or less in the industry. One example is Host Milano, one of the most famous, which usually showcases somewhat higher peaks of technology. A lot of ideas in terms of technology and innovation can come to us from the Asian market, which has been very advanced in recent years. Or simply by going around and looking at how people's habits are changing.

If you walk around London today and take a look at the food & beverage concepts you see, they're not the ones from the London of 5 years ago. For example: you find a lot of stores selling wine, when in the past that market was very limited. There are trends you see because something is actually changing in the offering itself.

Daniele: That's interesting, because at the global macro level they say alcohol consumption is actually decreasing over time, and yet you see the opposite on the business side. Is there a mismatch?

Silvia: The nature of consumption changes. There used to be definitely higher consumption in terms of volume; today the focus is actually more on product quality. There's also the issue of sustainability in the industry and of consumer choices, as consumers are more aware than they used to be. The direction is toward quality products, maybe in smaller quantities, but this is very often offset by the level of service.

The customer is looking for an experience. And when you develop a product, you have to be aware that the product is part of the customer's experience.

If you go to a wine concept and order a 10-12 euro glass, the glass has to be perfectly clear and enhance that kind of product. If you go to eat at a Michelin-starred restaurant – but by now even osterias and trattorias offer a certain quality in plating and product selection – obviously your plate can't carry the smell of what was on it before.

So there's an experiential and perceptual component that's becoming more and more important and that starts with the product itself, or in any case with the complete solution you offer the customer.

The impact of European regulations on energy consumption in B2B

Daniele: As for the regulatory side, how much does it affect your work, and when have regulations been a driver of innovation?

Silvia: They very often have a significant impact on me. In Europe there's increasing attention, especially to consumption. There's been a whole series of proposed guidelines, some of which have also become regulations, regarding energy labeling, for example.

The most classic example is refrigeration: it works for home appliances, but it also works for professional equipment. When you go to choose a piece of equipment, you have an energy label.

The problem with regulation, and how it usually creates value in our field, is when it's conveyed to the consumer in a certain way. Because normally a regulation requires product adjustments that involve costs for manufacturers, but for the customer the benefit is normally lower consumption and equipment that's easier to maintain over time.

What makes people understand the intrinsic added value of the product is clear, very simple and above all consistent communication across all manufacturers: something that isn't always there today.

Cultural differences in the kitchen: Northern European automation vs Mediterranean tradition

Daniele: When it comes to cultural differences among the customers who use your products, what differences have you found across the different regions of the world?

Silvia: It's a bit hard to generalize, in the sense that there are specific needs depending on the sector as well. Generally, when we talk about the Northern European market, one of the big problems is the lack of staff. So there's a stronger demand for automation, especially of the most demanding steps for the operator, and also greater acceptance of the level of innovation.

As for habits, the Mediterranean European market is still a bit more traditional. Here – as in South America – cooking over a flame is still perceived as a very strong emotional part of cooking. We like the gestures, it's part of our culture, we like to see the flame. Especially for chefs, the way they set down the pan, the way they measure out the movement, is part of how they express themselves.

So in that case technology has to adapt and not get in the way of creativity.

Daniele: That attention to emotion then has a big impact on product design.

Silvia: It has a big impact on design. Conversely, in the Asian market there's been a very strong push toward electrification, which has spread to every sector, including cooking. So the Asian market is much more inclined to use induction than a Mediterranean culture. Even when proposing new concepts, it's about adapting the offering accordingly.

Daniele: Are there cases, in your opinion, where innovation becomes excessive, and therefore counterproductive?

Silvia: If the innovation changes the user experience a lot – meaning it changes how I operate in the kitchen – the bigger the change, the higher the likelihood of some rejection, because it requires mental effort.

That's why, for example, home banking apps worked: they gave you something extra that improved the user experience, but it took a bit longer before we used them to fully manage our bank accounts. And – I don't know about you – on my last trips I booked practically everything, from flights to hotels to activities, through an app: I would never have done that 10 years ago, because it took some time before it culturally became part of my thought process and my habits.

How to measure a product's success in the B2B market

Daniele: How do you assess the success of these projects? Are there metrics or processes you use to assess success before, during and after the release?

Silvia: In the case of a preview, as can happen at a trade fair, we normally use what are called leads: how many inquiries I'm able to generate, how much interest there is in that product.

When the product goes to market there's obviously a fairly visible first baseline: if you sell the product, it's probably well accepted and customers like it. On the other hand, depending on the sector, you can collect feedback from dealers – in our case that's easier – and more rarely from the end customer. It also depends a bit on the product.

It's harder to get clean feedback from the end customer than in B2C, when the person using it isn't the same person who chooses it. If we think about large-scale projects, we normally propose the equipment, there may be consultations with whoever designed and developed the kitchen, and there may also be an investor. It's not always a given that the equipment is what the chef who's going to use it was expecting.

Daniele: How much does the relationship with your customer, with your partner, matter in designing a new product and in its success? And when does the service you offer become in itself a way to build loyalty and generate business?

Silvia: It always works well with what we call win-win mechanisms. If you come to me and need to redo your kitchen and I'm able to redo it while improving your workflow – if I suggest doing it in a different way, or give you multifunctional equipment that optimizes the space, maybe even making you spend a bit less – I'm giving you a different kind of value.

In our work it's not like going into a store, choosing a product and buying it: that's a one-shot sale. In our work what matters a lot is offering you a solution and you perceiving that this solution is actually the best one for you.

Why? Because one day – word of mouth – you'll have someone who needs that kind of service and you'll tell them you had a good experience with us. There's a somewhat different kind of loyalty. If you open another store, another location, you'll probably come back to us. It's very much a relationship business too.

IoT connectivity and Industry 5.0 in smart equipment

Daniele: How data-driven is your approach, and what does connectivity – so-called IoT, connected products – contribute to your design process? And what are the limits, the critical issues you're seeing, or the tensions with the market around the adoption of these technologies?

Silvia: Connected solutions or IoT, as the market stands today, normally stem from regulatory requirements. The simplest example is HACCP self-monitoring of refrigerated units. It's not mandatory, but obviously having a system that transmits data to the cloud – keeping a history of temperatures over time and letting you retrieve it – normally makes the work easier.

Another big driver for connectivity in Italy has been Industry 4.0 (now Industry 5.0), because all those incentive-based mechanisms attract greater attention.

What's the risk? That smaller businesses don't always use the connected products dashboard effectively, because you need a minimum of knowledge to interpret that data in a certain way. So the more immediate the information I can get – clearer, more visual – the easier it will be for that customer to make concrete use of the solutions we're giving them.

The last part is that of the so-called accounts: the more structured customer who asks you for connectivity because they have that managerial mindset, much more like a company. They ask for it because with connected machines they can monitor and, above all, understand what actions they could take across different locations.

The simplest example is consumption: these days everyone asks to see how much the equipment consumes, or maybe to be able to check the status of the machines. Meaning: I see there's a machine that's on 24/7, but I really only use it for 4 hours a day. Maybe I can turn it on an hour before and turn it off right after.

Another important aspect is that, depending on how the equipment is used, you might notice the need to provide specific training at a certain location. As we were saying, the problem today is that we live in a very dynamic world, people move around, there's much higher staff turnover and people need to be trained, but not everyone can be at the same level.

The role of AI in training and predictive maintenance

Daniele: What role can AI play in both training and customer support and in other areas of the connected product?

Silvia: I sometimes notice an approach to AI as a bit of a cure-all: "I'll solve anything with AI." That's not exactly how it is. Normally many on-site problems are solved much more simply, as we were saying earlier, by looking at and analyzing the flows and the way the locations are managed.

But there's a whole area related to operator training that can be made easier by AI: I'm the new guy, I don't know how to use a machine, I can access a video or a sort of step-by-step procedure. Because when you need the manual, nobody can ever find it – it doesn't even happen with the TV one. This kind of immediate support is essential: when I have a problem I need it solved now.

The same goes for maintenance. Let's split between what can be solved at the source – where I'm more effective with a basic level of automation that doesn't specifically involve AI, such as preventive maintenance and fleet management – and where instead AI helps me in managing critical situations.

Why? If your oven breaks at home while you're cooking, oh well: you'll eat at 10 p.m. instead of 8. But if a product breaks while you're serving 200 people, I need an immediate response and a plan to handle the critical situation. This can be done in different ways: at the design level, maybe by providing ready-made solutions to balance workloads, and preventive maintenance helps me always keep a continuous workflow, without interruptions.

And it works above all when I have a business of a certain size. It's different if your home oven breaks compared to a machine in a hospital. The more valuable the equipment, the more critical it is to not be able to work for maybe a day or two.

Daniele: So from this point of view AI could add value both by avoiding certain problems and scheduling maintenance during quieter periods, and by generating a crisis management plan to solve the problem faster – almost an integrated risk assessment activity.

That's an interesting idea: using AI not just as a tool for looking up information, but as something that becomes operational and almost a tool for reacting to problems. How mature do you think these technologies are (the predictive part, which is more established)? And how much can large language models help with reacting to problems? How mature are they for being integrated into products?

Silvia: Actually, I don't see the obstacle so much in the maturity of the technology as in what we were saying earlier. The level of technology has to be proportionate to the benefit I get – we're still in business, after all. When I sell it to an end customer it has to be proportionate to the concrete benefit. So it's normally much more mature on products of a certain size or tied to automation, where managing automation also requires forms of AI for monitoring and control.

Daniele: Do you see a trend in how the integration of connectivity, AI and automation in the kitchen is evolving?

Silvia: I see it much more as a future prospect, over the next few years. If we think about future development, the energy management trend will most likely continue: controlling machines as they switch on, warm-ups, usage cycles. I'm defrosting a product – that's something I already do now: I defrost at a certain time and it turns the oven on for me. Tomorrow it will turn the oven on and also pull the chicken out of the inventory system for me.

There will be more and more of this interaction, this coordination, and managing these automations requires back-end features that need to be managed in some way.

Daniele: At the product level we too are tackling exactly the possibility of creating flows and procedures that are automated through AI and that also make it possible to interact with external data sources, such as inventory, cash registers and so on.

Silvia: The other obstacle that will gradually be overcome is the cost of technology, which is steadily decreasing over the years: technology is becoming accessible, and therefore easier to integrate into products. On the other hand, there's also a part about educating people to use AI correctly.

Collaborative robotics and automation in safe foodservice settings

Daniele: As for robotics, how do you see it in the kitchen environment? Have you seen any experiences or experiments in this area? How do you imagine it?

Silvia: If we're talking about robotics and not pure automation, it already works in some particular cases. For example, we had a customer that collects the classic hospital bins with special waste. That waste would be dangerous if it were handled by an operator. So the whole initial part of sorting, collecting and checking the bins that contain needles and so on – and that are then sent to the incinerator – is done by robotic arms. The same robotic arms then load the dishwasher where they're washed and processed, and only at the end, where the process is safe, does the operator interact directly.

Daniele: What areas do you see where robotics and automation in general will be most widely adopted in the coming years?

Silvia: Areas where safety is important, and in general automation and robotics for all those steps that customers perceive as not creating value. These could be the steps of preparing the product that will then be cooked, the sorting steps in dishwashing: all those steps that can free staff from heavy work that also carries possible risks of workplace injuries.

This way that part of the operations can be shifted toward functions that add value. An example is introducing some automation in the pre-handling stage, maybe in bringing the trays back from the dining room to the kitchen in a professional canteen. Optimizing how things are processed can free up an operator, who can then be dedicated to service. Customers will have one more person dedicated to them, service will be faster and probably of better quality too. The customer will feel better and spend more: it's a virtuous circle.

Daniele: Do you think companies in your industry should invest in this – robotics and automation – in the coming years, or do you think it's more something to leave to some external player who will integrate with you?

Silvia: It depends a lot on scale. If I need to manage a very specialized flow that requires very particular automations, the most classic thing is to partner with someone outside, to pool knowledge, because the main problem is that these are areas that require a lot of knowledge and a lot of expertise.

Conversely, if it's about smaller automations – for example, automatically lifting the basket out of the fryer, because if you serve burnt fries the customer won't eat them – there's a level of service and quality to guarantee. The kid in their first job, even if they've had training and the procedure printed on a sheet of paper, doesn't always remember, and you help them in the process. That kind of automation is something you can already include as standard, because it has a limited cost and it's a solution that can work for most types of customers.

So it depends a lot on how far the level of customization goes and how far it will be possible to scale that customization.

I see AI much more focused in the future on helping with training and management. There are already systems now that recognize what you put into storage, check expiration dates and send alerts. You plan the menu, you turn on the machines. Tomorrow, through AI, you could plan the menu and it suggests the recipe, you tell it what your intolerances are, it helps you adapt the recipe and also checks that the ingredients are in stock. I see it as much more effective for personalization and support in operations.

If you're a chef, recipe standardization works for multi-store businesses because it gives you process control. But if you're a creative chef you'll never use it in the same way. Or you'll use it in a particular way: you know it's May and the same vegetable you buy today is a bit softer, so you want to cook it a little less because you want a different sensation. You do it because you have the knowledge and experience to do it, and that's the value you bring as a person to the process. The emotional component is essential even when we talk about AI and professional cooking.

Scouting startups and open innovation in manufacturing production cycles

Daniele: Going back to your work, we know that part of your role is scouting innovative partners. What's the process you use to find these companies? How do you evaluate them? What do you look for in them?

Silvia: Very often a first contact happens at trade fairs, because startups bring POCs or products that are already at a good level of development, and you can understand whether the feature might be of interest.

First of all, we look at whether that kind of company is a good match with the company's vision. We focus a lot on the concept of supporting and assisting the customer from the start – from design to installation, to the opening of the kitchen or laundry – and on the whole after-sales service side. There's always the sustainability angle: we look for someone who embraces this approach.

Then there are the information exchange phases, where you figure out where and whether that solution can be applied. You make a first cost-benefit estimate and figure out whether there could be a good fit for working together.

Daniele: How do you manage the integration of these companies and products into your product cycle?

Silvia: There's no single answer. It depends on the type of company, the type of feature or product being integrated.

There may be a company with a product that's complementary to what we offer the customer, and then we do more of an adaptation of their concept. Other times there are features that require very deep integration, and the only thing you can do – if you're already in a development phase – is add a parallel stream to do further proofs of concept and validate the feature.

Sometimes we keep what are called provisions, meaning we keep the machine able to communicate with and manage a feature for which we may not have found the partner yet or finalized the concept.

It can also be the other way around: if we have the idea for a new feature, before developing it in-house, we take a look at whether someone already has that kind of technology or knowledge.

Predictions and 5-year trends for professional foodservice

Daniele: If you had to imagine your products 5 years from now, how do you expect them to evolve? What features do you imagine they'll have?

Silvia: Generally, the whole market is shifting a bit toward electrification. There are steps that customers don't perceive as producing value, and so it makes sense to try to automate or remove them.

It's a bit hard to predict because the market is changing rapidly, consumer habits are changing rapidly, the new generations have a different approach both to technology and to consumption, and they'll certainly have an impact on future demands.

Everything related to health and product quality will continue to get a lot of attention: cooking methods that preserve the qualities of the product, support in the operational process, safety and management – unless there are major developments in global energy – will certainly be trends that continue into the future.

Then there are what we call periodic trends: right now it's the moment for cold drinks, there was a period when bubble tea was in fashion. Those concepts are developed ad hoc and have a more limited lifespan.

Daniele: Now I'll ask you a question we ask all our guests. We'd love to know: what would today's Silvia advise the Silvia of 10 years ago? What three main pieces of advice would she give the Silvia of 10 years ago?

Silvia: Looking back, I realize I've had a career path that was perhaps a bit unusual compared to what I would have expected, but I'd probably do most of what I've done all over again.

I'd advise myself to be even more curious and more open, because a lot of help and a lot of ideas come to us, as we were saying earlier, from fields other than the ones we're immersed in every day.

And then to keep going: so many times, when you have an idea and you think it's the right thing, don't let yourself be discouraged, because especially at the beginning it's not always easy, but you have to persevere.

Daniele: Great, Silvia, thank you for the time you've given us. It was a really interesting episode and I imagine our listeners will be delighted and full of the energy you've shared. To all our listeners, see you at the next Expert Talks. Thank you so much and have a great day.

Silvia: Thank you.