Shaping the future of hospitality
An interview with Chris Ludy, SVP Digital, Food Services
Compass Digital has been growing and evolving within the Compass Group organization for nearly a decade while driving growth and digital innovation.
We spoke to Chris Ludy, SVP of Digital, Food Services, a long time chef, and former Compass operator about how Compass Digital is transforming the hospitality industry:
Compass Digital: Hi Chris. First, let’s set some context for our readers. Tell us why Compass Digital was created in the first place.
Chris: Sure. Compass Digital was created to transform corporate hospitality from within. Historically, Compass Group worked with some great partners and vendors to implement technology. But the further we got on this transformational journey, the more apparent it became that a true integration between the development, deployment, support, and optimization of new technology had to come from a deep understanding of business operations. Compass Digital was created with a focus on innovating from within Compass Group to define and grow the digital future of hospitality.
Compass Digital defines its approach as Build, Deliver, Grow. What does that mean?
It’s a straightforward way of breaking down the process of digital transformation into three stages. The “build” part comes down to ensuring that we’re creating the right products for our industry, our verticals, our clients, and guests.
The next stage, “delivery”, is about ensuring that the new solution doesn’t just work from a technical perspective but that it works in the environment where it’s deployed and achieves the goals we set for it.
From there, we move on to “grow”, which means optimizing the adoption of new technologies while continuing to iterate and improve on the experience we just delivered. It’s a never-ending process.
Hospitality is a very established industry with lots of history. Is it receptive to innovation?
Yes, but it’s a unique space where a meal can remind you of a recipe that your grandmother used to make and bring back that feeling of nostalgia. We’re always aware of that, and we approach digital implementation very carefully so as not to lose that unique core.
Some people feel that “digital hospitality” is an oxymoron — that the more you digitize the business, the less hospitality you achieve, but we’re actually solving problems and finding efficiencies. This allows our operators to focus more on elevating the guest experience.
Although much of a chef’s work is analog and at least as much art as science, our chefs embrace technology. They love how E-Commerce solutions can project what they’re doing to audiences they previously couldn’t reach. And their work is incredibly hectic, so anything that can simplify their life in the kitchen is welcomed.
The pandemic also helped to accelerate the adoption of new tech. Look at how quickly food trucks embraced E-Commerce; that happened within a few weeks of the first lockdowns. That change was welcomed by both the supply and demand sides; the market’s acceptance of E-Commerce and ordering through mobile was accelerated significantly.
E-commerce seems to be a big focus…
Absolutely — E-Commerce helps save on hardware deployments and gives us more flexibility than conventional point-of-sale platforms. But even more important, it allows us to break away from traditional operations and create a more frictionless experience for both customers and operators, where people can walk in, shop, and simply walk out of markets.
Compass Digital is one of the rare tech employers where an innovator can see their ideas reach full commercial scale within a single organization. What does this mean for those joining the team?
Compass Group may be the largest company you’ve never heard of. We’re one of the largest employers in the world, and that gives us the scale to define the future of technology across a range of business verticals.
Look, technology is not new to the hospitality space, but there’s a reason it’s not universally scaled to the fullest potential. And it’s because the right products, UX, development, and data have not been created to support broad adoption. That’s our mission.
So, if you have a technical background and a passion for developing and innovating, we have amazing operators eager to transform their business. Being part of Compass Digital means venturing into uncharted territory and doing things that no one’s ever done before, at a scale that most people have yet to understand. And that’s exciting.
