Big Pizza: How Shakey’s And BDO Play Top Game In Fast-Food

It’s a pizza lover’s truism: the secret to yumminess is in the sauce. But the whole truth is not so simplistic. The secret sauce to the delicious success of Shakey’s Pizza, one of the Philippines’ most beloved brands, has quite a few special ingredients. Read on and find out.

Finding and keeping the right partners

The Shakey’s Pizza brand has been around for 46 years, starting out as a pizza parlor in 1975. It’s journey, while challenging, was always marked with successes with the support of its employees, loyal customers, and reliable partners.

Shakey’s reinvented itself several times through the years, from a restaurant that offered live performances in the 80s and 90s to a kid-friendly restaurant. It kept its menu always exciting, its restaurants enticing, and service customer-centric. Today, it remains a favorite even through the pandemic. Even when periodic lockdowns stopped people from dining out, Filipinos still depend on Shakey’s as a fast-food provider for everyone.

Shakey’s remains relevant because of its resilience during crisis and opportunities. It is quick to adopt to the demands of the times, even to new technology in terms of managing its cash. This move proved to be most crucial during a pandemic.

Fortunately for Shakey’s, it already had a reliable partner for cash management in both traditional and new digital platforms. According to Vicente Gregorio, President of Shakey’s Pizza Asia Ventures, Inc. (SPAVI), Shakey’s continues to effectively handle the challenges of the pandemic with the help of BDO’s cash management services.

“We have been using cash management services from BDO for several years. In 2016, we entered a deeper and more active partnership with the bank and this played a big role in our decision to go public. BDO even helped manage our IPOs,” Gregorio said.

Combining old and new

With the help of BDO, Shakey’s uses a mix of traditional and digital cash management tools in its operations. For the daily collections from sales in various Shakey’s outlets, BDO sends armored vans to physically pick up the cash and bring these to BDO bank branches. At the same time, Shakey’s uses BDO’s digital payroll processing and digital check processing. According to SPAVI Corporate Treasurer Elena Menor, using digital cash management tools saves the company time, effort, and cost.

All their checks, whether payroll vouchers or checks for suppliers and utilities, are made by entering data in a computer, uploading the data, and then printing out the checks. “Writing checks is a big part of my work at the corporate treasury. BDO’s check writing service saves us so much time and effort. If I were to grade BDO’s service for check writing, I would give it 100%,” said Menor.

Versatile branding, more income streams

Shakey’s is available through several types of outlets: dine-in restaurants, mall kiosks, and even at gas stations. And of course, they deliver food via a phone hotline and online orders at their website. All of these represent various income streams for the company.

“With the pandemic, things have changed. Gone are the days where we would always prefer a bigger store or a bigger space since dine-in is not allowed. We now have to be practical, prudent and flexible when it comes to making decisions, given the very unusual and fluid circumstances that is due to this pandemic. The good thing for us is that the Shakey’s business model can succeed whether you’re in the mall, outside, in gas stations, or even ghost kitchens. Having numerous and proven store business models give us the agility needed to navigate this crisis.” said Gregorio.

Excellent service that puts people first

One veteran Filipino journalist once wrote in a Facebook post that when it comes to customer service, the gold standard of excellence is achieved by Shakey’s. According to the post, this is achieved by Shakey’s because it knows exactly what its customers expect and it meets such expectations consistently. This is especially true for its pizza delivery service.

The “people first” philosophy of Shakey’s extends not only to its customers but its employees as well. When the pandemic struck, SPAVI sought to protect its employees first. The company did everything it could to quickly ensure that their employees and customers stayed safe by following health protocols and by making sure the payroll arrived as usual.

“Despite this tough pandemic, we still feel grateful and count our blessings. We managed to stay afloat, we were able to keep our store count in 2020 and, we will be adding at least 30 new stores to the network by year end. We did get hit and lost some people but the scale has been relatively smaller. We believe there will be opportunities after the pandemic and we want to be in a position of strength and take full advantage of these opportunities,” said Gregorio.

Shakey’s was able to survive and thrive during the pandemic. They were able to do this not just because they are a beloved brand with a delicious product. More than that, they were able to protect their employees, keep old and new customers happy, and leverage traditional and digital cash management services to their advantage with partner bank BDO.

For more information about BDO’s cash management services, go to www.bdo.com.ph/business/cash-management-services. For pizza, you know where to order that.