Operate

Beyond Compliance: My Takeaways from the Food Safety Summit 2026

If you’ve been to the Food Safety Summit before, you know the energy is always good. But this year was different. A much larger crowd than the last few years, packed session rooms, and a buzz on the floor that felt less like an industry conference and more like an inflection point. Something is shifting in food safety.

I came to Chicago representing Rizepoint by FranConnect, hosting a booth and presenting a session titled Beyond Compliance: Unlocking the Business Value Hidden in Your Food Safety Program. But honestly, some of the most valuable moments happened in the conversations between sessions — at the booth, in the hallways, and on the innovation floor.

What people were talking about

The usual suspects of themes were prevalent this year, Traceability, Pathogen Detection, Predictive Risk indicators, but so many of the conversations at our booth were consistent enough to feel like a signal. Budget pressure was everywhere — operators doing more with less, trying to justify spending to leadership that doesn’t always understand what a well-run food safety program protects. This wasn’t a fringe concern. It came up in nearly every conversation.

At the same time, AI and automation were on nearly every attendee’s mind — and not in a theoretical way. People were actively evaluating tools, asking hard questions of vendors, and in many cases already mid-transition off legacy systems. The tech stack rethink is well underway across the industry.

What struck me most was who was having these conversations. This wasn’t just food safety managers and QA coordinators. Senior leaders were on the floor, at the sessions, asking the same question in different ways: how do we make this program work harder for the business? That question — more than any single session or product demo — defined the mood of the summit.

What the innovation floor reflected

The technology on display reinforced exactly what we were hearing at the booth. AI-powered audit tools, predictive risk scoring, real-time monitoring feeding directly into corrective action workflows — the platforms have matured well beyond documentation. The best solutions on the floor were insight engines, built to surface business value already living inside your safety data.

What I recognized is that if your food safety platform is still primarily a record-keeping tool, the summit made one thing clear: the gap between where the industry is heading and where some programs still sit is widening. The operators who were asking the sharpest questions at our booth weren’t the ones falling behind in them, they were the ones who already knew it was time to move.

The bigger shift

What made this year’s summit feel different wasn’t any single announcement or keynote. It was the collective energy of an industry that is done treating food safety as a back-office function. The conversation has moved. Food safety leaders are showing up as risk managers, as business partners, as people who understand that a well-run program doesn’t just protect consumers — it protects brand equity, enables revenue, and reduces exposure in ways that belong in the boardroom, not just the compliance report.

That’s the conversation Rizepoint was built for. And if the summit was any indication, the rest of the industry is ready to have it too.

See you at the booth next year.

Want to see how FranConnect and RizePoint can benefit your brand? Schedule a demo now!

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The Visit Isn’t the Intervention. The Follow-Up Is.

Field visits generate data. But data without action is just documentation — and in franchise operations, undocumented problems don’t stay small.

Every open finding that doesn’t have an owner, a resolution date, and a scheduled follow-up is a liability. One that compounds quietly. Until it shows up somewhere much more painful: declining same-store sales, widening performance gaps, a brand that’s gradually lost the thread between standard and reality.

The franchisors who avoid that outcome aren’t doing more audits. They’re doing better follow-through.

That means building real accountability into the process:

No finding ages past 30 days without a documented status update.

Corrective action has an owner — not a department, a person.

The loop closes. Resolved means verified, not just marked done.

Pattern recognition happens at the portfolio level — which regions, which cohorts, which standards are showing recurring gaps?

Across 47,000+ field visits tracked in FranConnect’s 2025–2026 Franchise Sales Index, the system-wide compliance rate was 91.4%. That sounds healthy. But averages hide tails. The brands that stay healthy aren’t just hitting 91% — they’re actively managing the locations dragging below it, finding by finding, visit by visit.

The visit gets you the signal. The follow-up is where brand equity is actually protected.

We went deeper on what operational consistency really means — and what’s at stake when it slips — in our latest blog. Read it here.

QSR Operational Excellence Image for FranConnect Blog

From Reactive to Proactive: The New Standard for QSR Operational Excellence

Five years ago, a bad meal at one location was a local problem. Today, a DoorDash order with missing items generates a public review, a chargeback, and a customer who switches to the competitor two blocks away.

In the modern Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry, third-party delivery and mobile ordering have compressed the tolerance window. The food itself carries the entire brand experience. When that experience is inconsistent, there is no server smile or clean dining room to compensate.

So, how do franchise networks with 20 to 300+ units close the gap between corporate standards and what actually happens on the line during a Friday dinner rush?

The Problem with Lagging Indicators

Your P&L tells you that food costs rose 3% last quarter. Your CSAT report says guest satisfaction dipped in the Southeast region. Both are true, and both are useless for deciding what to do tomorrow morning.

By the time these numbers land on someone’s desk, the damage has cycled through thousands of transactions. The QSR operator reviewing a quarterly P&L is reading a history book, not an operations manual.

To truly manage operations, brands must shift to leading indicators—like food safety audit completion rates, training module completions, and corrective action resolution times. These numbers predict where your lagging indicators will land next quarter.

The Operations Maturity Model

Most QSR brands fall into one of four stages of operational maturity:

Foundational: Manual tracking, minimal risk assessment, and reactive responses to issues.
Responsive: Consistent audits and mixed paper/digital records, but limited network visibility.
Proactive: Digital QA/QC, integrated training, and analytics that surface recurring issues.
Optimized: A single platform with real-time decisions and AI-driven insights to predict and prevent problems.

The jump to Proactive is where the economics change. When a failed audit item automatically triggers a training assignment, and that training completion feeds into the next field visit checklist, the operator has a closed loop.

Turn Insights Into Action

The QSR brands that will grow profitably over the next five years share a common trait: they treat operational data as a decision-making input, not a compliance artifact. They connect audit findings to training, training completion to field coaching, and field coaching outcomes to guest-facing metrics.

Ready to see where your brand stands and how to level up your operations?

Download The Operational Excellence Playbook for Restaurant Franchise Brands today.

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Operational Excellence is The Catalyst Behind Multi-Location Success

Maintaining consistency across every location is one of the biggest challenges growing brands face and the foundation for long-term success. As brands expand, keeping every location aligned becomes both the hardest and most essential part of growth.

That’s where operational excellence comes in.

Operational excellence is the discipline of building a business that runs reliably, efficiently, and profitably no matter how many locations, employees, or moving parts you manage. It works by creating systems that keep standards high, teams aligned, and performance predictable, even as you scale.

It’s not a buzzword. Operational excellence is the framework that makes it possible.

It’s a repeatable and scalable strategy for delivering reliable performance, strengthened teams, and measurable growth no matter how large your footprint gets.

Operations Excellence Iceberg

What Is Operational Excellence in Franchise Growth?

Operational excellence is the continuous pursuit of improved efficiency, reliability, and effectiveness across all facets of the business.

For multi-location brands, it means going beyond compliance to create systems and behaviors that drive quality, efficiency, and growth at scale.

And when done right, the results are clear:

20–30% decrease in revenue lost to operational inefficiencies
25% improvement in compliance scores
18–20% increase in unit-level economics

At its core, operational excellence turns growth from a guessing game into a repeatable formula. When you create systems that blend visibility, accountability, and agility, every level of your organization becomes capable of improving performance and protecting profitability, no matter how fast you grow.

With the right structure and visibility, multi-location brands can scale with confidence, knowing that every location delivers the same quality, efficiency, and experience.

Why Operational Excellence Matters

To be brief, customer expectations have changed.

According to the survey, 73% of Americans are likely to abandon a brand after just one poor customer service experience. With nearly three-quarters of consumers now willing to abandon a brand when customer service is poor, patience for poor customer service by consumers is running perilously thin.

Inconsistent service, missed standards, or disjointed processes can quickly erode trust in your brand. Operational excellence gives you the structure and visibility to prevent these bad experiences so every location delivers an experience your customers can count on.

With the right systems in place, brands can:

Deliver consistent experiences at every location
Improve efficiency and reduce manual work
Empower frontline teams to take action
Scale faster without losing control

When every location runs on the same proven playbook, operational chaos turns into clarity. The right systems give leaders real-time insight, frontline teams the confidence to act, and customers the consistent experience that keeps them coming back.

Common Roadblocks on the Path to Excellence

Even the best brands can get stuck when their systems don’t evolve with their growth.

Disconnected Systems

Training, quality, and performance tools often live in different platforms, or worse, spreadsheets and emails. Without a unified system, it’s nearly impossible to get a real-time view of operations.

Limited Visibility Across Locations

If you’re relying on customer complaints or monthly P&Ls to spot issues, you’re already behind. Without real-time insights, leaders can’t coach or course-correct effectively.

Inconsistent Onboarding and Training

Without standardized onboarding and continuous learning, new hires get mixed messages, or no training at all, leading to uneven performance and higher turnover.

The Four Pillars of Operational Excellence

Operational excellence doesn’t come from a single process. It’s built on four interconnected pillars that drive consistency, accountability, and performance across every location.

Pillar #1: Standardize Core Operations

Consistency starts with structure.

Establish repeatable processes and clear expectations across every location using standardized checklists, SOPs, audits, and workflows.

When every team follows the same playbook, execution improves and so does the customer experience.

What it looks like:

Prebuilt digital audits and task lists
Centralized SOPs and operational documentation
Clear, repeatable processes for recurring activities

Pillar #2: Enable and Train Teams

Operational excellence depends on your people.

Give teams the knowledge, tools, and support they need to perform. Role-based onboarding, microlearning, and ongoing coaching ensure every team member is confident and consistent from day one.

What it looks like:

Digital onboarding tied to roles
Targeted microlearning modules
Field coaching and performance tracking

Pillar #3: Act on Data

Dashboards, location scorecards, and tools like Frannie AI help you identify what’s working and what’s not. Instead of waiting for issues to appear in reviews or revenue reports, operators can catch problems early and act in real time.

What it looks like:

Real-time performance dashboards
Automated alerts and follow-ups
Predictive insights to guide decision-making

Pillar #4: Close the Loop

Turn insights into action.

Operational excellence relies on identifying problems and creating processes to solve them. By connecting audits, training, and performance data, you create a continuous improvement loop that strengthens your culture and results.

What it looks like:

Evaluation results triggering targeted training
Trackable action plans and resolution workflows
A coaching-first culture, not a policing one

Together, these four pillars create the structure every growing brand needs to scale with confidence. When they work together, teams know what’s expected, leaders see what’s happening in real time, and every location delivers the same dependable results.

The Journey Toward Operational Excellence

Every brand is somewhere on the journey toward operational excellence, and that journey rarely follows a straight line. It begins with foundational processes, often manual and inconsistent, where visibility is limited and leaders are forced to react to issues rather than anticipate them.

As brands mature, they begin to introduce structure: digital checklists, standardized tools, and early efforts to unify operations. This responsive stage brings progress, but teams often still rely on lagging indicators and siloed systems that make it difficult to see the full picture.

Momentum builds in the proactive stage, where systems start to integrate, data becomes central to decision-making, and coaching replaces correction as the dominant management style. Here, leaders begin to spot issues before they affect customers and operations shift from reactive to strategic.

Ops Maturity Model

The final stage which we like to call, ‘optimized operations,’ is where operational excellence becomes a competitive advantage. Automation, AI, and predictive analytics work in the background to identify trends, streamline workflows, and continuously elevate performance. Quality, compliance, and growth move in lockstep, creating a self-sustaining culture of improvement.

Most brands today fall somewhere between the foundational and proactive stages, working to connect fragmented tools, introduce visibility, and create consistency across locations. The goal isn’t overnight transformation, but a continuous, data-driven progress built on systems that adapt as you scale.

What’s visible to customers are the results: consistent experiences, faster service, and stronger performance. But the real power lies beneath the surface in the invisible drivers that make those results possible. Automated workflows, connected training systems, and real-time insights turn operational data into measurable growth. These capabilities are what transform good brands into great ones and they’re the foundation of the FranConnect platform.

Ready to Build Your Own Path to Excellence?

As a Chief Operating Officer, you play a crucial role in shaping how your brand delivers, grows, and scales. On top of overseeing daily operations, our role includes driving efficiency, aligning processes with strategic goals, and ensuring the brand thrives in a constantly evolving industry.

To help, we’ve created a free resource ‘The Operational Excellence Playbook for COOs.’

Inside, you’ll learn how leading brands use operational excellence to:

Drive efficiency and accountability across every location
Empower frontline execution
Align daily operations with long-term strategy

Download this free playbook today to learn how to create systems that scale, empower teams to perform, and turn operational excellence into a lasting competitive advantage.

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Is Your Technology Stack Sabotaging Your Growth?

Two CEOs, both running successful multi-location businesses. Both planning aggressive expansion. Both confident in their growth strategies.

Six months later, one opens twelve new locations ahead of schedule. The other struggles to launch three, each delayed by operational chaos and frustrated teams.

The difference wasn’t market conditions, funding, or talent. It was their technology stack.

While the successful CEO’s teams work from unified dashboards with automated workflows, the struggling leader’s staff wrestles with disconnected systems and manual processes. Leadership meetings focus on data reconciliation instead of strategic decisions. Expansion plans stall because the operational foundation can’t support growth.

Ninety percent of IT leaders say legacy systems hinder their ability to adopt new solutions.

Yet most business leaders don’t recognise when their technology stack works against them. They see frustrated teams, delayed decisions, and missed opportunities. They attribute these problems to growing pains or market challenges, rarely tracing them back to the real culprit: mismatched technology.

The question every growth-focused leader should ask: Is your technology driving your strategy or sabotaging it?

The Silent Growth Killer

Mismatched technology doesn’t announce itself with dramatic failures. It operates like a slow leak, quietly draining productivity, morale, and opportunities until the damage becomes undeniable.

The warning signs appear everywhere.

Teams default to workarounds because the official process takes too long. Spreadsheets multiply because systems don’t connect. Decision-making slows because data lives in silos. New hires struggle because training materials are scattered across platforms.

Each inefficiency seems small in isolation. A few extra minutes here, a manual process there, another meeting to reconcile conflicting reports. But these friction points compound. What starts as a minor inconvenience evolves into a major competitive disadvantage.

The emotional toll hits hardest.

High performers get frustrated when tools slow them down. Managers burn out reconciling data instead of leading teams. Executives lose confidence in insights they can’t trust. The technology meant to empower your people becomes a source of daily frustration.

Here’s what makes this particularly dangerous: the multiplication effect. Every new location, every new hire, every new process amplifies the dysfunction. Growth doesn’t solve the problem. It exposes and accelerates it.

The cost isn’t just operational efficiency. While you’re wrestling with disconnected systems, competitors with streamlined technology capture market share, attract better talent, and execute faster.

Your technology stack isn’t neutral. It either drives growth or prevents it.

Most Leaders Don’t See It Coming

The breakdown doesn’t happen overnight. Technology problems disguise themselves as other issues, making them nearly invisible until they reach crisis level.

Consider these scenarios: Your team consistently misses deadlines, but you blame workload management. Customer complaints increase, but you focus on service training. New location openings take longer than projected, but you attribute delays to market conditions.

What if the real problem isn’t any of those surface issues? What if it’s the technology foundation that’s supposed to support your operations?

Smart leaders recognize certain patterns.

When your team defaults to workarounds instead of workflows, that’s a signal. When growth feels harder than it should be, that’s another. When you hear phrases like “the system won’t let us” or “we’ll have to do this manually,” red flags should appear.

But here’s the challenge: these signals often get rationalized away. “That’s just how business works.” “Every company deals with these issues.” “We’ll fix it when we have more time.”

Meanwhile, competitors with properly aligned technology stacks move faster, decide quicker, and scale smoother. They don’t struggle with these “normal” business problems because their foundation supports growth instead of fighting it.

The signs are there. Most leaders just don’t know what to look for or how to interpret what they’re seeing. The difference between thriving and surviving often comes down to recognizing these signals before they compound into crisis.

The Framework That Changes Everything

Leading organizations use a systematic approach that evaluates technology effectiveness across the areas that matter most to business performance. This framework cuts through vendor promises and feature lists to focus on real impact.

The assessment examines seven critical dimensions:

Data Flow & Decision Speed – Are insights reaching decision-makers when they need them?

Process Automation – Which manual bottlenecks are costing you time and accuracy?

Operational Integration – Do your tools work together or against each other?

Financial Visibility – Can you track, manage, and forecast performance effectively?

Team Development – How quickly can people ramp up and contribute?

Communication Quality – Are your tools helping or hindering collaboration?

Future Readiness – Is your foundation prepared for emerging opportunities?

Each dimension reveals specific insights about where your technology creates value and where it creates drag. The result isn’t just analysis – it’s a prioritised roadmap that connects technology improvements directly to business outcomes.

This approach works because it’s designed for business leaders, not IT specialists. You don’t need technical expertise to understand the results or act on the recommendations. The insights connect directly to growth objectives, operational efficiency, and competitive positioning.

Your Competitive Edge Starts Here

Every day you operate with misaligned technology, competitors gain ground. While you wrestle with disconnected systems and manual workarounds, they’re executing faster and scaling smoother.

The companies that will dominate tomorrow are making technology decisions today that support their growth ambitions. They use proven frameworks to assess their current state, identify the highest-impact improvements, and create roadmaps that align with their business strategy.

Building a foundation that accelerates growth requires systematic evaluation, not guesswork. When your technology stack works properly, teams move faster, decisions happen quicker, and growth becomes sustainable instead of chaotic.

The comprehensive assessment framework that leading organizations use to make these critical decisions provides clear insights about where your technology drives value and where it creates drag. You get a prioritised action plan for improvement, designed for business leaders who need results, not technical complexity.

Market forces will eventually force you to address your technology stack. You can do it proactively, on your timeline, or reactively, when competitors have already gained the advantage.

Download the complete Guide to Assessing Your Technology Stack to access the seven-dimension framework that reveals whether your technology drives growth or prevents it. Stop guessing whether your systems serve your strategy.

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Why Smart Software Decisions Separate Scaling Franchises from Struggling Ones

Only 16% of franchisors make it to 100 locations. The culprit? Poor technology decisions are behind this staggering failure rate.

Most franchise brands struggle not because they lack software, but because they’ve chosen the wrong software or the wrong partners. When quality control management software fails across multiple locations, or operations management software creates more problems than it solves, the consequences multiply exponentially across your entire network.

These aren’t simple procurement decisions. They’re strategic investments that determine whether your franchise operates smoothly across multiple locations or becomes bogged down in operational chaos.

The choices you make today about technology partnerships, integration strategies, and scalability will define whether your franchise thrives or joins the 84% that never reach their growth potential.

The Costly Myths Killing Franchise Technology ROI

Three dangerous myths are sabotaging franchise technology investments, creating expensive barriers to growth that compound across every location in your network.

Myth 1: “The cheapest option saves money.” This thinking transforms initial savings into expensive liabilities. When your franchise management system can’t handle multi-location complexity, you’ll spend exponentially more on workarounds, manual processes, and eventually, complete system replacements.

The cost of switching platforms mid-growth often far exceeds choosing the right solution upfront. You’ll face significant expenses in money, time, and franchisee disruption that compound across your entire network.

Myth 2: “All integrations work the same.” Integration quality varies wildly, and the consequences affect your entire franchise network. Poor integrations create data silos, manual processes, and operational blind spots that prevent you from maintaining consistency across locations.

When systems don’t communicate effectively, you lose the visibility needed to identify underperforming locations, ensure brand compliance, and make data-driven decisions.

Myth 3: “Software adoption happens naturally.” This assumption destroys more franchise implementations than any technical limitation.

Without proper change management, even excellent business operations management software fails because franchisees never fully adopt it. The result? 85% of franchisees don’t even know what they’re being held accountable to, creating a system-wide accountability crisis.

These myths compound exponentially across multiple locations and independent franchisees. What starts as a minor inefficiency at headquarters becomes an operational nightmare when multiplied across dozens or hundreds of locations.

“License Smarter: A Practical Guide to Software that Grows With You” explores the strategic considerations most franchise brands overlook when making technology decisions. These insights can mean the difference between scaling successfully and hitting growth barriers that prevent you from reaching 100 locations.

The Partner vs. Vendor Decision That Defines Your Franchise Future

When licensing software for your franchise, the distinction between choosing a vendor versus a partner can determine whether your technology investment accelerates growth or creates friction across your entire network.

Vendors deliver a product and disappear.

Partners bring industry expertise, structured implementation approaches, and ongoing strategic support specifically designed for franchise operations.

This distinction becomes critical when you’re managing complex multi-location rollouts, training franchisees with varying technical expertise, and maintaining consistency across diverse markets.

The unique challenges of franchise technology adoption require more than generic support. You need partners who understand the delicate balance between franchisor control and franchisee autonomy, who can guide implementations across independent business owners, and who provide ongoing optimization as your network grows.

True partners offer dedicated success teams familiar with franchise operations, proactive reviews tailored to multi-location challenges, and insights specific to your industry. Their role doesn’t end at go-live. It continues as franchisees join your system, ensuring your workflow management software scales effectively with network growth.

Many franchise brands underestimate the effort required to embed new tools across distributed operations. Poor adoption wastes your investment and creates inconsistencies that damage brand standards. The right technology partner counters this with franchise-specific change management strategies and shared accountability for successful outcomes.

Our complete guide provides practical insights into distinguishing true partners from mere vendors. It also discusses why that distinction can define your franchise investment trajectory.

The Integration Trap That Costs Franchises Millions

The hidden costs of poor integration decisions multiply dramatically across franchise networks, creating expensive operational nightmares that scale with your growth.

Custom integrations, ongoing maintenance, and system incompatibilities become exponentially more costly when you’re managing dozens or hundreds of locations. What seems like a manageable workaround for five locations becomes an operational crisis at fifty locations.

Data fragmentation prevents franchise brands from leveraging AI and advanced analytics capabilities that could optimize performance across their network. When your supply chain quality management software doesn’t communicate with your training systems, or your enterprise quality management software operates in isolation, you lose the unified view necessary for strategic decision-making.

Multi-location complexity amplifies integration challenges. Disconnected systems make it nearly impossible to maintain operational consistency, track performance trends, or identify best practices that could be scaled across your network. You end up with operational blind spots that prevent you from supporting struggling locations or replicating success.

The all-in-one versus best-of-breed debate becomes more critical for franchises because coordination across multiple locations requires seamless data flow. Unified platforms typically offer tighter compatibility, centralized support, and single sources of truth that franchise operations demand.

Integrated tech stacks introduce risks that compound across your network: inconsistent updates, overlapping functionality, and complex troubleshooting that affects multiple locations simultaneously.

License Smarter explores the key trade-offs between unified platforms and integrated tech stacks, helping you avoid the “house of cards” syndrome that derails franchise growth when one system change breaks everything else.

Buy for Tomorrow: Why Today’s Decisions Determine Franchise Scale

The systems that power your first ten locations rarely survive the journey to 100 locations without major overhauls or complete replacements.

Employee training and tracking software that works for a small network often breaks under the complexity of managing hundreds of franchisees, multi-unit operators, and regional management structures.

The scalability questions you ask today determine whether your technology foundation supports exponential growth or forces costly migrations when momentum builds.

Franchise-specific scalability requirements go beyond simple user capacity. Can your platform handle multi-unit operators managing dozens of locations? Does it support regional management structures with varying access levels? Will it adapt to different regulatory requirements across multiple markets?

Architecture decisions make the difference. Multi-tenant capabilities, flexible integrations, cloud-native design, and proven performance under load separate platforms that grow with your franchise from those that create barriers. The vendors with real-world examples of supporting franchise growth from 25 to 500+ locations provide the confidence that your investment will scale.

Replacement costs extend beyond licensing fees when you’re managing franchise relationships. Forcing established franchisees to learn new systems, migrate historical data, and adapt refined processes creates disruption that can damage crucial franchisor-franchisee relationships.

Transform Your Franchise Technology Strategy Today

The difference between franchises that scale successfully and those that stall often comes down to these strategic technology decisions. When your employee software training systems support consistent onboarding across locations, your quality management platforms maintain brand standards, and your operational tools provide the visibility needed for strategic decisions, growth becomes sustainable rather than chaotic.

Ready to make franchise technology decisions with confidence?

Download “License Smarter: A Practical Guide to Software that Grows With You,” a comprehensive guide on the critical decisions, trade-offs, and strategies that help franchise brands choose technology that accelerates rather than limits growth.

Inside, you’ll find practical insights on avoiding hidden costs, building scalable foundations, and partnering with vendors who understand the unique challenges of franchise operations.

Download License Smarter today and discover how strategic software choices separate scaling franchises from struggling ones.