Article contributed by Mike Berman, COO, Day & Nite/All Service
While expert opinions range from Dr Leong Hoe Nam’s “Omicron will dominate and overwhelm the whole world in three to six months” to NIH Director Dr Francis Collins more optimistic “No data to suggest the Omicron variant causes more severe symptoms”, what we do know is the latest Covid strain is now officially in the United States.
Supply chain prognosis also swings wildly from major retail executives reporting clear signs of improvement to forecasts disruption will last until 2024. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has even changed his own long-term outlook on inflation from a temporary phenomenon to uncertain duration. In some quarters these contradictions are reason to reject experts, the more logical opposing view is these truly unprecedented times call for even greater reliance on experts.
Too often popular culture and business biographies have portrayed highly successful people as seers possessing supernatural powers to accurately predict the future, instantly and permanently turning everything they touch to gold—of course the reality is anything but. As a result, experts are then held to unreasonable standards of projection perfection, setting up a weird mix of confirmation bias and pure cynicism. This misguided thought process creates many overreactions to particular incidents or stories, with knee-jerk extremism such as Dollar Tree Stores raising their minimum price to $1.25 an item a broader standard setting sign.
Clearly, inflation is as real an economic threat as omicron is a public health threat, combining with other devious forces to create greater volatility. Challenging circumstances to say the least, arguably even more unstable than the early 2020 days of Covid lockdown. Volatile operating conditions will rapidly shift to downright terrifying for any business planning to successfully manage through it without informed experts.
Regardless of how knowledgeable any of us might be on any subject, the old a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client adage is universally applicable advice for assembling the most diverse expert insights and ideas, particularly for hospitality in this pivotal operating environment. Of all the highly important business matters requiring expertise, equipment performance must rank high atop foodservice’s list. After all, without fully functioning equipment production, revenue and customer satisfaction all deteriorate—more rapidly in the already volatile global climate.
Of all the equipment subject matter experts, none are more capable of providing critical performance analysis inclusive of operating history across multiple sectors, circumstances, and type than highly regarded professional organizations installing and servicing vital pieces. Typically manufacturer agnostic to begin with, service professionals have the most intimate knowledge of how different pieces act in always high stress commercial kitchens. In consideration of rising costs for both new equipment and essential replacement parts, with present-day reality limited product availability compounded by back-orders stretching many months is cause for continued industrywide supply chain pessimism; anything short of comprehensive expert equipment analysis invites greater degrees of business risk in this most sensitive point in Covid trilogy time.
While your current installation and/or service provider may qualify as an expert, going outside your immediate (vendor) network brings a range of information needed to guide your business most wisely. Remember, emerging data led a foremost expert like Jerome Powell to modify his take on inflation; both Dr Leong and Dr Collins are celebrated infectious disease experts seeing the same things different ways, diversity of experience and viewpoint is invaluable.
Comprised of Day & Nite Refrigeration, Day & Nite HVAC, All Service Kitchen, Performance Air Mechanical and Popular Plumbing, self-performing installation, maintenance and repair along the Atlantic seaboard, across an unrivaled range of Corporate America, chain and independent restaurants, hotels, stadiums, healthcare, education, airlines—literally covering every inch of hospitality’s massive ground—the Day & Nite family of companies is uniquely qualified to offer independent, expert, comprehensive equipment performance evaluation to ensure operating stability in an otherwise combustible business theatre. The company’s proprietary data mining capabilities allow for more planning and budgeting certainty; advanced use of technology further removes doubts and risk common to oftentimes temperamental equipment, more perilous in the late 2021/early 2022 era of heightened uncertainty in virtually every aspect of our lives.
To schedule a free, no obligation equipment risk assessment with a diverse team of experts email jbf@wearetheone.com
