Digital India is shining on Restaurants

Digitalisation today is prevalent in every phase of our lives. This process of digitalisation was started somewhere around five decades back with the arrival of computing technologies and digital electronics. Hence, Indian restaurants also adopted the new age of transformation for themselves i.e. digitalisation.

“Digitisation in F&B started with point of sale system/billing systems, over time it grew to accounting systems. Digitisation on customer engagement started with social platforms like Facebook and e-mail and SMS marketing. Most of the Digitisation is primarily due to consumer behaviour. Today we see smart phones and online shopping as the new consumer trends, this is going to drive the next age of digitisation of customer engagement for F$B businesses” shared Samir Khadepaun, Founder & CEO of Mobikon.

Digitise or Die

Digitalisation tools helped the restaurants to transform the way of transaction, interaction and conduct business. This digital age is possible because of innovations in e-communications, e-commerce and ever increasing deployment of the internet to create economies based on high technology, massive communication, knowledge creation and innovation.

Recent coming up of food tech companies has actually created a great deal of awareness with the increased adoption of digital customer engagement. This includes online food ordering, social media and website presence, digital feedback platforms and reservation platforms. Mobile payments/wallets allow restaurants to take customer engagement to a new level. For instance “Most of our target user base uses mobile wallets. And most of these mobile wallets keep running offers from time to time. So, it’s important that we are able to extend this benefit to our customers”, pointed Shreyans Vijay, Co-Founder at Stuffed.

Digital trends like social media, technology has helped a lot to both customers and restaurants. “Social media has helped provide awareness about our offerings. Like the young crowd between 15-40 years of age; they are the people who are most glued to social media platforms. One cannot afford to miss a platform where these people spend most of their leisure time. Most of the offline modes of marketing are expensive with very low yields”, said Vijay.

“I have seen the art of technology has taken a lot of work and make it easier for us. Like the Zomota and many others has bought in concepts like voucher. The kind of orders we are getting online from tabs etc, all because of availability of technology. It has reduced hassle for us and customer” said Shweta Singh, Owner at London Cafe.

Joining Modi’s League

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also launched the 'Digital India' programme on 1st July. In this, the government is taking a big step forward to transform the country into a digitally empowered knowledge economy. This includes various schemes worth over Rs 1 lakh crore like Digital Locker, e-education, e-health, e-sign and national scholarship portal.

Even BharatNet in 11 states and Next Generation Network (NGN), are also a part of Digital India campaign. The plan includes projects that aim to ensure that government services are available to citizens electronically and people get benefit of the latest information and communication technology.

In India F&B industry is growing at $48B. Overall market size including S.E. Asia and UAE is $130B, of which four per cent is spent on marketing. “We are seeing a great adoption across metros and also in tier 2 cities. Chennai, Bangalore and Delhi are faster in adoption in metro cities where as Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune are catching up in tier 2 cities” added Khadepaun.