The Challenge: Limited Options and a "Scavenger Hunt" Process
For a growing restaurant brand like Zippy's, launching new technology—whether a point-of-sale system or a loyalty program—requires strict alignment across the business. Operations, marketing, finance, and purchasing all need a seat at the table.
Historically, gathering those requirements was a fragmented, time-consuming process. Anthony Mejia, VP of Information Technology at Zippy's, found that managing the needs of multiple stakeholders often felt like piecing together a puzzle via endless emails and spreadsheets.
Because the internal process was so heavy, the actual market research suffered. Traditional procurement felt like "dating before the internet." IT leaders had to rely on word-of-mouth recommendations from peers, which limited their scope to the largest legacy players with the biggest marketing budgets.
This created a frustrating bottleneck: Zippy's was spending hours sitting through monotonous vendor slide decks, often finding that these well-known vendors skipped over the critical, nuanced capabilities Zippy's actually needed. The process was slow, the options were limited, and the risk of choosing the wrong partner was high.
The Solution: Expanding the Horizon with a Digital RFP
Knowing they needed a more efficient, transparent way to evaluate software, Zippy's turned to Olive. Olive provided a centralized digital RFP ecosystem that fundamentally flipped Zippy's procurement process—allowing them to see a much wider market without adding any extra work.
Instead of starting with one-on-one vendor meetings to "test the waters," Anthony brought his executives directly into Olive at the very beginning. Stakeholders logged into a centralized workspace, reviewed the options, and checked the boxes for their specific departmental needs.
With internal requirements clearly defined upfront, Olive acted as an intelligent matchmaker. Suddenly, Zippy's wasn't limited to the vendors they already knew.
“The digital RFP side of things that Olive offers is great. Before, it was so challenging to find products when you just knew you needed something different but didn't fully know what you wanted. Now you just get to look in the system and see that instead of the three or four major players you thought existed in a particular competency, there are actually 10 or 15.”
This expanded visibility leveled the playing field. When Zippy's was searching for a new loyalty partner, they entered the process assuming they would choose between two major legacy vendors. However, by running their requirements through Olive, they discovered that neither of the top players could meet their specific API needs or support a separate gift card component. Instead, Olive matched them with a smaller, highly capable vendor that checked every box—a solution they wouldn't have found through traditional word-of-mouth.
The platform also helped Zippy's uncover features and solve problems they hadn't initially prioritized.
The Results: Doing More in Half the Time
By moving away from manual spreadsheets and repetitive pitch meetings, Zippy's fundamentally transformed its technology procurement motion. They are now evaluating three to four times as many vendors, but because Olive's matching engine does the heavy lifting, the process is drastically shorter.
“In the early phases, from product selection to product review, we're cutting our time in half from where it used to be with the implementation of Olive. It's cutting out a lot of the mistakes we were making before and eliminating time-consuming emails and file transfers. The centralized review of the product has really ramped up our time to market.”
The impact of this streamlined process is felt across the organization:
- Expanded Discovery & Massive Time Savings: Zippy's broadened their market view from 3-4 legacy vendors to 10-15 options, yet still eliminated the need to sit through seven initial vendor introductions—instantly narrowing their focus to a couple of highly qualified partners.
- Accelerated Time to Market: Because the initial "soul-searching" and executive alignment happen upfront in a centralized workspace, new products ramp up and launch much faster.
By shifting from a manual, spreadsheet-driven process to a centralized digital RFP, Zippy's fundamentally transformed how they evaluate technology. Olive replaced the stress and guesswork of traditional procurement with a transparent, collaborative approach—allowing the IT team to uncover better vendors and make smarter, de-risked decisions in half the time.
