Bringing concepts to life with turnkey hospitality solutions

Any successful business idea starts with a passion and a drive to succeed. For David Lescarret and the team at Infini Concepts, their shared passion for food, beverage, and entertainment continues to inspire every aspect of this pioneering consulting practice.

 

As a homegrown, UAE-based hospitality concept development company with a distinctive focus on uniqueness, creativity, and an impeccable attention to detail, the Infini Concepts team’s collective passion for empowering brands and bringing concepts to life has resulted in 15 years of successfully operating, managing, and creating within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s food & beverage industry.

 

With the hospitality industry becoming increasingly more attractive globally and also more competitive, Infini Concepts plays a valuable role in enhancing experiences, assisting successful brands in their global expansion strategies, managing day-to-day operations of venues in need of expert guidance, and creating and developing new concepts tailor-made to locations and markets. From strategic floor plan review and restaurant design to financial audits, menu creation, and marketing campaigns, Infini is driven by the desire to go beyond the ordinary to deliver success.

 

After a successful career in global hospitality in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, French Polynesia, the Caribbean, and Seychelles, David founded Infini Concepts in 2015 after 8 years of managing restaurants and hospitality businesses in Dubai. Driven by attaining success, creating investment opportunities, and generating profitability in operations, David always aspired to work with world-renowned brands to reach new heights in hospitality. He is also the visionary behind exciting new concepts in the market, each with their own personality and fusion of sensory and culinary flavours.

 

Aleix Garcia with whom David worked with for 2 years at Pragma Group in 2012, joined Infini Concepts in 2017. Aleix is a passionate restaurateur specialising in operations management and has created distinctive guest experiences for brands across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, including Toro-Toro and Cirque le Soir.

Aleix is now Managing Partner of Infini Concepts.

 

Infini Concepts’ General Manager Aneshree Guruparsad, who has worked with David for more than a decade, always finds ways to use her creativity to drive business growth, build outstanding teams, and innovate systems and processes within their venues.

 

Infini Concepts’ Head of Branding & Marketing, Martin Quinn, is a trusted marketing expert, art director and strategist. His passion for visual storytelling and creating meaningful customer experiences helps brands create better customer relationships, and gain a competitive edge through digital media, experiential marketing and public relations.

 

As Infini Concepts’ business requests for culinary consulting increased over the years, Roberto Segura joined Infini as Head of Culinary in 2020. An accomplished food & beverage specialist, chef and entrepreneur, Roberto has more than 17 years of experience in consultancy, creation, development and management of food & beverage concepts and was twice awarded ‘Chef of the Year’ at the Hospitality Excellence Awards.

 

Since its inception, Infini Concepts has built an impressive portfolio consulting for renowned brands such as Cé La Vi, Billionaire, Amazónico, La Serre, At.Mosphere, Fumé, Qbara, Cavalli Club Restaurant & Lounge, Cirque Le Soir, to name a few. Infini’s own concepts include Miss Tess, Tipsy Lion, The Unlucky Cat, The Health Co, and King of The Mambo in Sri Lanka.

 

The team at Infini Concepts are proud to have emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic united and reinvigorated to continue doing what they are passionate about. Despite the devastating effect on the hospitality industry worldwide, David and the executive team had the prudence and capability to keep the 300-person strong Infini team together throughout the difficult times.

 

The Infini team adapted quickly to the remote working environment and forged ahead with a robust strategy for a powerful comeback. As a result, the company has now five more food & beverage projects in its portfolio projected to open within the next 12 months, and all its existing venues are fully operational. In addition, Infini Concepts is currently working on exciting new restaurant concepts in Dubai, Ras Al Khaimah, Riyadh, and Athens.

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Someone has to pay for it

What tastes better, an AED 35 burger or an AED 70 burger at a 50% discount? You’d be forgiven for thinking the latter because it’s likely to be of better quality but think again.

 

Food & beverage business managers tend to set the prices of their products and services based on the maximum profit they can make. So the rationale here is to figure out the maximum amount that customers are willing to pay (with all the costs involved) and the strategy behind it so that you can estimate the volume of sales necessary to meet the estimated profit.

 

This explanation may be oversimplifying a more complicated marketing strategy, yes, but this takes us to the next point of consideration. When offering discounts, we expect this will drive additional footfall and subsequently improve sales to customers that may not be likely to buy the product or service otherwise. But, if everyone is offering discounts in a limited market, does this actually offset losses due to reduced profit margins? Is today’s excessive discount culture a killer of innovation? Or does it trigger it? And, if all discounts disappeared, would that regulate prices and competitiveness?

 

Some restaurant operators have taken a solid stance to avoid discounts altogether, while others have become so dependent on deals that they can no longer step away from them. These aggregators base their business models on offering new deep discounts, constantly hooking customers into this system. These brands certainly stand out…but do they stand out for the right reasons?

 

Undoubtedly, offering a discount is a fantastic marketing tool to introduce your brand to an unknown market. Still, it also creates dependency, especially when your most loyal customers become so accustomed to the bargains that these platforms offer. And we know all too well that there’s always a new place, with a bigger discount, which only pressures you into matching or bettering what they are offering. This is the vicious cycle that becomes a trap because of the so-called ‘sunk cost fallacy’.

 

Several factors influence the consumer’s behaviour and perception of value including, initial value, consumer’s attitude towards the product, the expertise and knowledge of the consumer, and previous experiences.

 

Here, it is important to mention the Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), where individuals make decisions based on their perceived gains instead of perceived losses1. For example, a customer that sees a product at 35 AED and what appears to be the same product of a different brand at an equal value of 35 AED after a 50% discount will value the latter more. This is because the second is perceived to be of higher value due to the anchoring effect2. During decision making, anchoring occurs when individuals use an initial piece of information to make subsequent judgments.

 

In theory, this makes sense. However, what happens when the first business manager needs to resort to lowering the price even more? The vicious cycle is set in motion, and the sunk cost fallacy sets in. And then there’s a deeper underlying problem: Who really ends up paying for these discounts?

 

If you price your products knowing that your regular price will only be paid two days a week, how do you manage your expenses? Will your landlord give you a better deal because the market is highly competitive? Will your suppliers lower their prices despite already having low margins? Unfortunately, not. You barely have any negotiating power there. So, who ends up being squeezed the most? You guessed it: The Staff.

 

So, the next time these deep discounts entice you, ask yourself if you want to be a part of this vicious circle because, in the end, someone has to pay for it.

 

PS: Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his Prospect Theory, which he talks about in his bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow.

 

1  https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prospecttheory.asp

2 https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/negotiation-skills-daily/the-drawbacks-of-goals/#:~:text=The%20anchoring%20effect%20is%20a,first%20piece%20of%20information%20offered&text=During%20decision%20making%2C%20anchoring%20occurs,information%20to%20make%20subsequent%20judgments

 

Article by Aleix Garcia – Managing Partner at Infini Concepts

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