As part of QikServe’s 10th anniversary celebrations, we take a closer look at some of the people that have made the company what it is today.
David Woodison joined QikServe in 2014 and is Director of Consulting.
What’s your background?
I worked in a number of different sectors before joining QikServe in restaurant technology –sport, retail, tech, banking & charity. Each of my roles have typically had new technology and people at the heart of them. Looking back, having experience across as many different industries with such a variety of technology, operating models and people, I had served something of an apprenticeship for the years that have followed creating new technology for restaurants! Restaurants are some of the most demanding and varied operational environments there are.
What do you do at QikServe?
A variety of things – that comes with the territory of being an early part of a growing team! Mainly I support our teams designing and delivering strategic product. I spend a lot of time with our key customers and technology partners, as our teams innovate and solve problems together.
What do you love about working at QikServe?
The opportunity to create, learn, break & solve with a brilliant group of people. Our teams create technology every hour of the day and ship the latest tech to production multiple times a week. We enable new customer experiences every day. We’re influencing and shaping how customers engage with some of the world’s most recognisable brands, right through to their local fish & chip shop. Literally – no day is the same, no customer is the same and no restaurant is the same. Yet we’ve built products the solve problems and are used by hundreds of thousands of people every week! Our team are fantastic at what they do but more impactfully, they care about what we do.
What did you want to be when you were ten years old?
A footballer – and I achieved it.
Where were you ten years ago?
I was working for Hibernian Football Club as a Scouting Coordinator. A rather vague job title! The role was a variety of player identification, supporting the management team, bringing in new technologies for player identification and development, developing agent and club relationships, negotiating player transfers both in and out. I shared an office with three managers. It was fascinating… every single day! So much of football is about people management – this was an amazing insight into different approaches, of experienced leaders, trying to get the best out of their teams and create a high-performance environment.
Why did you start/join QikServe?
I believed in the problem QikServe was trying to solve. I had experienced the challenge of leaving a group of friends to order drinks and was already thinking about how it could be solved with mobile phones. I then saw a vacancy at QikServe, really liked the role description and the product on the website. Rather than just applying with a CV, I decided to call first and our founder, Dan, answered the office phone. We had a short chat and then I met Dan and the team that week to learn more about each other – I think we both knew straight away the opportunity was a great fit for me.
What have you been most proud of doing/project of being involved in the last ten years?
I am beyond proud that our team has been invited into a room with the largest coffee company in the world and that we get to impart our knowledge, skills, and experience to them. Being asked to deliver a platform for a company perceived to be the best at what it does justifies everything that we do.
Getting to this position has taken years of work. QikServe is not a PoS company, and we are not a pure digital ordering vendor. We are more than that; we have years of experience in the self-service market, and we really understand the challenges and responsibilities of our customers.
Where will you and QikServe be in ten years’ time?
Digital ordering will be the DeFacto approach to dining and eating out, and restaurants will have finally caught up with where retail is currently.
Technology will make hyper-personalisation a reality and we will see a merging of loyalty and digital ordering into powerful combined solutions. Over the years we will see more entrants to the market, but QikServe will continue to grow and serve and be trusted by the world’s leading brands.
Tell us something that we don’t know about you?
I once played professional football for a living! The peak of my career was a single appearance in the reserves for the team I’ve always supported, Kilmarnock. On my journey to that point, I played with a number of people who went on to have high profile & distinguished career.