At a time when business is not operating as usual, Nation’s Restaurant News will present two influential keynote speakers who will offer insights into how to think innovatively during the 50th annual Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators, or MUFSO, conference.
William Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company magazine and author of The New York Times’ bestseller “Mavericks at Work,” and Frances Frei, a renowned Harvard Business School professor and consultant, will share strategies on how to stand out in a crowded marketplace and capture dollar share in a tough economic environment.
This year’s MUFSO event will be held at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas Oct. 4-6.
Taylor will focus on ways to take more risks and ensure adequate return on service investment, while Frei will discuss creating a culture of improvement and managing and training customers’ behavior.
“When it comes to thriving in a hypercompetitive marketplace, playing it safe is no longer playing it smart,” said Taylor, who will open the conference Oct. 5. “In an economy marked by overcapacity, oversupply and utter sensory overload, the only way to stand out is to embrace a truly distinctive set of ideas.
“Hard times can be a great time to separate yourself from the pack and build advantages for years to come—if you can summon the leadership nerve to take risks,” he said.
In recent years Taylor has had in-depth access to many leading organizations known for implementing change and innovations, especially during difficult times.
By working with diverse business entities that range from healthcare to financial services to the automobile industry, Taylor will demonstrate to attendees how they can transform their own companies. Some of his core themes include:
What you see shapes how you change. The most successful companies don’t just “outcompete” their rivals, he said. They redefine the terms of competition by embracing unique ideas. Where you look shapes what you see. The most creative chief executives aspire to learn from innovators outside their industries as a way to leapfrog over their rivals. The best way to change your business is to make change a normal part of doing business. The most direct way to increase urgency is to redefine how the organization monitors results and measures success.
Frei, who specializes in the customer service aspect of business, will deliver the closing keynote speech Oct. 6, which will focus on how to sustain service excellence.
A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of business, Frei received her Ph.D. in operations and information management, and joined the Harvard Business School in 2002 as an assistant professor. As the school’s resident expert on service management, she offers ideas that have helped to shape the strategies of many of the world’s most competitive companies. Her course on Managing Service Operations is among the most popular in the business school’s recent history. It focuses on the tools and frameworks that drive performance for service firms and service aspects of product firms.
Frei’s findings have been published in such journals as “Management Science” and the “Harvard Business Review.” She also has published dozens of case studies on companies in the financial services, government, retail, software, telecommunications, and travel and leisure sectors. In addition, she teaches and consults at firms around the world.
“Firms that try to achieve service excellence by relying on great performers or inspiring their employees to care more about customers rarely succeed,” she said. “In fact, these well-intentioned efforts often undermine a company’s ability to drive consistent, superior performance over time. Truly sustainable service excellence must be systematically designed.”
Tom Larranaga, publisher of Nation’s Restaurant News, said Taylor and Frei would offer operators the tools to improve business performance going forward.
“In today’s business climate, to win big you have to change the game,” he said. “Both Taylor and Frei’s keynote presentations will reveal eye-opening insights that challenge conventional thinking and identify the strategies and tools needed to develop a new game plan for success.”
For complete details about the 50th anniversary MUFSO program, visit
