6 Key Highlights if you are Running an Omni-Channel Restaurant Venture

Bengaluru as a city has given many firsts to the Indian dining and delivery scenes. From being the first city to accept the global flavours to becoming the largest nightlife and brewery hub, it was also the first cosmopolitan city to accept the delivery and cloud-kitchen model in the country. From brands like Empire that is running the business from last six decades starting the delivery model to Freshmenu becoming one of the first brand to experiment with cloud kitchen model, we have seen and witnessed many firsts in the city. Now, that we see brands and restaurants are looking at giving an omni-channel experience to their customers by being available on both the platforms and models, we can surely say that going forward ‘phygitisation’ will surely be the keyword in restaurant and dining space. 

Recently, Restaurant India hosted its Bengaluru Edition of the Restaurant India Conference Awards on 1st May at Sheraton Bengaluru, where it discussed and talked about being omni-channel. Here are key highlights from the session:

Focusing on Consistency: “Today, for any restaurant business, the biggest challenge is handling people, labour. And we see technology already replacing humans at countries like Korea, Singapore and others. Though in India, the labour cost is not as high as other countries but the consistency is a challenge as you expand. So, consistency has to be taken care of and that was the prime objective on how do we take care of this by using technology,” shared Mahesh Reddy, CEO, GOPIZZA India that invested a lot in the backend technology to focus on consistency, standardisation of the product. Today, the brand has 50 outlets and are looking at 100 outlets by this year end.

Automation is Important: “We are helping our partners For any biz, if you have acceptable product, price and profit and that’s when we say it’s a sustainable, profitable model. The most important thing we follow is the collaboration. We are not directly involved with customers but QSR partners and understanding what consumer is asking for,” pointed Sumit Nair, GM, IFFCO Group that is focusing a lot on automation by technology and embibing it in becoming a great product company. The brand has also minimised human intervention by using automation. 

Relying on Data: “Some of the things that we as a company do is to enhance the online ordering experience for the customers and data has allowed us to do way better in terms of managing consumer timelines, restaurant cancellations, menu availability, forecasting orders and what should you be prepared of because you have a pattern of orders and acceptations and I think the use of data in combination with learning over the years has helped us optimise the online customer experience,” mentioned Rashmi Daga, Founder, Freshmenu. 

Accessibility is the Key:  Empire is a brand that is there in the business for almost six decades now. “We always want to be recalled and we serve a very neutral rather a habitual cuisine. So, we have a certain key factors that Empire is always accessible to its customer,” shared CEO, Shakir Haq of NKP Empire Ventures as it was as early as in 2007 that they introduced the home delivery at that time, having their own bikes, riders.  “We went investing in right ways in technology, various systems, and processes. So, today omni-channel is the strategy for the older brands,” he added as they have now entered into the cloud kitchen segment with their brand Easybites by Empire. 

Collaborating for Growth: “Our aim is product innovation and innovation by application. We are collaborating with restaurant chefs to create unique recipes and consistency in the products. Our focus is always to work closely with restaurant partners to create standardisation and consistency in the product,” added Jaineet Kalra, Key Account Manager- South, Nestle Professional.

Innovation is Constant: “At Sheraton, innovation is constant for us. Health comes in picture first of all, giving the variety is the other important thing as we have eight FnB outlets and we also accept every customer and believe in creating experience,” concluded Mahesh Padala, Culinary Leader &  Director of Operations, Sheraton Grand Bangalore Hotel at Brigade Gateway.