Quantaco Connect Conference 2025: Acceleration Through Innovation 

This month we hosted Quantaco Connect Conference 2025 – our annual day of conversation, collaboration and connection for Australia’s hospitality community. Across twelve speakers, a single theme rang loud and clear: acceleration through innovation. 

From macroeconomics to culture, AI, and automation, our speakers shared practical ways for venues to digitise, derisk, and design for people. 

TL;DR 

With interest rates staying higher for longer, the operators who thrive will digitise costs, automate routine tasks, and reinvest in productivity. The multiplier is culture: psychological safety, positive energy, and curiosity driven performance. 

Winning models are human-led, AI-scaled — codify routines, keep experts in the loop, and iterate through 90-day, customer-first experiments. Done right, automation cuts waste, lifts quality, and frees people to focus on what matters most. 

The takeaway is discipline: lead with focus, build trust, and repeat what worked well. 

Our perspective: the theme of the day 

For us, the day crystallised a simple idea: when disciplined culture meets decision-grade data and human-led, AI-scaled workflows, efficiency and profitability follow. The conversations moved past hype and into practical levers, controlling labour and COGS, reducing waste, improving margin quality, and making faster, insights-led decisions. 

We heard, again and again, that momentum comes from small, low risk experiments that get codified and shared so teams repeat what works. That’s the operating model we champion at Quantaco: technology and advisory working as one to turn insight into everyday practice. Do the basics brilliantly, measure, iterate – and let innovation accelerate what people do best.  

What we learned from our speakers 

Brand, Story & Standards (Stuart Gregor, Four Pillars Founder & Liquid Ideas) 

Stuart Gregor closed with a masterclass in brand and execution: lead, focus, trust and repeat.  

Tell a compelling story, back good people, keep standards high and maintain a Groundhog Day mindset of relentless iteration — get back up and do better. 

Redefining Scalable Farming (Sam Canavan, Stacked Farm) 

Sam Canavan showcased Stacked Farm’s fully automated, seed to pack vertical operation: twenty-five proprietary robots harvesting six days a week to produce around sixty tonnes with wash free, traceable produce and an 18-day shelf life. 

 The broader lesson for hospitality is to instrument processes, standardise routine tasks and let data and automation reduce waste while improving consistency. 

Economic Shifts & Opportunities (Alex Pikoulas, Munjara Capita) 

Alex Pikoulas’s economic update noted that while growth is cooling and funding costs remain elevated, opportunities are widening. Disinflation rather than deflation and likely higher-for-longer policy rates set the backdrop. A productivity reboot driven by AI and automation is shifting capex toward software, data and energy efficiency, while supply chains are being redesigned for resilience and the energy transition is reshaping cost curves. 

For operators, the takeaway is practical: double down on labour control, waste reduction, energy management and analytics that support fast decisions. 

High-performance Culture (Karl Treacher GAICD, Culture Institute of Australia) 

Karl Treacher reframed culture as the conscious and unconscious expectations that shape how people think and act. High performance rests on two non-negotiable, psychological safety and positive energy, with curiosity as the single trait that reduces errors, fuels innovation and predicts engagement.  

He also cautioned that AI readiness is cultural: most failed AI projects stem from resistance, so leaders should use structured scorecards such as RAIDARâ„¢ to assess and lift readiness. 

Human led, AI-scaled leadership (You + Your Assistant) 

Our ‘You + Your Assistant’ session cut through the hype: pair leaders and teams with an assistant to move from reactive to proactive. Keep experts in the loop to clean data, set rules and close feedback loops, and start with quick wins by codifying SOPs, opening checklists, cash ups and compliance — so answers are fast and consistent. 

The rule of thumb was simple: the biggest risk is waiting, start small now and keep improving. 

Innovation → Impact (Fiona Wilhelm) 

Fiona Wilhelm argued for customer first innovation. Map the journey and target the highest friction moments, then run crisp 90-day experiments with clear success metrics so you can scale what works and sunset what doesn’t. 

Prioritise decision grade data over noisy dashboards, tell outcomes rather than features, and organise cross functional squads with clear ownership so teams ship what matters, and measure impact, not activity. 

Thank you 

Huge thanks to our speakers Sturat Gregor, Fiona Wilhelm, Karl Treacher GAICD, Sam Canavan, and to everyone who joined us in making Quantaco Connect 2025 a day of genuine connection and practical insight.