food tech industry technology delivery growth online

Innovation and Technology – Pillars for Growth of Food Tech IndustryFood Tech: Moving towards profitability Food tech segment has seen a rapid growth; online platforms and boom ine-commerce made everything, information readily available anywhere andanytime. The trend of online shopping that we earlier saw for books, fashion,furniture and electronics has now caught up with food delivery and aggregationbusiness. The online food tech segment has seen a boom in last few years withmany online players coming up with different and fresh business ideas andtechnologies in food listing, food aggregation as well as food deliverysegment. While the industry has questioned the future of food tech in Indiaand called it a bubble that is about to burst, I personally feel otherwise. According to a Bloomberg report, more than 400 food delivery apps cropped upin India in the past three years, raising approximately 120 billion USD. Manycompanies simultaneously mushroomed and introduced innovative services andprocesses to bring restaurant discovery and delivery online. The industry hasseen it all; from small and big players competing and eating into each other’sshare of pie, launching new innovative services for consumers to funds dryingout, devaluation and companies scaling and shutting down operations. Shake ups vs Consolidation – Part of the Inevitable Process It is evident that recent past has been quite challenging for the food techsegment. Going by the statistics of the past 3-4 years and comparing it withthe international markets, India definitely is a competitive market for foodtech startups and offers a huge opportunity in scaling the businesses. Everynew age industry/ segment is riddled with a lot of unique operational and goesthrough four initial phases. Torch bearing is the first stage where a companyleads and paves the path in a certain segment. Going forward, every industryexperiences the mushrooming of many players – small and big, come up withunique strategies and ideas. This is an experimenting stage where few aresuccessful and few wind up, and it is after which, there is a shakeout phase;something that we are witnessing now in the food tech industry. Downsizing,devaluations and closures tend to happen during this phase, while it is anecessary phase to restructure and organize the industry. Consolidation ofbusinesses is inevitable and the industry will stabilize in the near future.The industry should soon stabilize and the one, who sustain the ups and downs,will witness spectacular growth and progress. Mantra to Succeed and Sustain: Innovation, Technology and Automation To be able to sustain through all these phases, it is important to pre-emptthe situation and decide on the course of action accordingly. The mantra is tobe in the race & examine/stabilize operations as well as processes whilepicking up the right opportunities to grow and achieve profitability. However,while focusing in innovation and new technologies, what is much needed iskeeping customer experience as core. The last mile is the key component ofkeeping the customers satisfied and happy. We need to bring in new conceptsand engagement options to ensure stickiness among the customer base. Technology – Developing end to end Solutions in Processes and Management forReliability and Seamless Operations Technological innovation is going to play a key role in the growth of the foodsector, therefore multiple tech solutions are introduced for better managementof food discovery, order processing and for making the delivery experiencebetter and seamless. Technology provides significant cost and efficiencyimprovements for restaurant partners. To be able to bring in profitability, itis important to focus on building scalable revenues and capabilities with along-term goal and evolve extremely quickly on the technology side to leverageefficiencies internally. Thus, it is important to focus on devising multipletech solutions for better management of food discovery, order processing andtimely and seamless food delivery. Automation – Removing Errors and Bringing Efficiencies To achieve profitability at order level, it is important to switch toautomated processes to make it seamless, errorless and a fast process. Theimplementation of robotics and automation in the food sector offers greatpotential for improved safety, quality and profitability by optimizing processmonitoring and control. Restaurant management application allows orderautomation, synchronization of opening hours as well as menu itemconfiguration. But with challenge comes opportunities, and thus we must willlook for solutions that will keep the customer experience at the core andcontinue to innovate further on the technological front to ensure we offer asmooth and seamless ordering experience to customers. The future of thisindustry is absolutely promising. It is now a wait and watch for all; to seehow, and how well the industry shapes up.