Buy the e-way!

The old adage is true – change is the only constant!

Every industry today rides on the wings of technology. Be it banking, e-com, travel or automobile. You name it and you have the app on your mobile, waiting to be tapped by your fingers.

When all these industries are taking advantage of all these advancements, F&B industry cannot be far behind. With customers becoming more and more adroit with technology,  expecting better service and quality but without wanting to spend more, the pressure is on for chefs to try and meet these rising demands.

Amidst all this, the greatest challenge they face is sourcing the wider range of ingredients and products they need quickly, reliably and without drilling their pocket.

Even with the advent of technology, indubitably, nothing much has changed in this area. The process continues to be time-consuming and burdening the chefs.

Modern technology can be used here to ease the chefs off this affliction.

Technology to order your raw materials: When customers can use apps like Zomato and Swiggy to order food, why not use technology to order raw materials? Certain F&Bs still rely on phone or e-mail to place orders. There are procurement softwares that even have catalogue styles and pre-approved price. Just pick, put it in the basket and order complete. With the predefined approval, ur order is ready to be processed.

Attributes such as real-time availability of stock levels and designated fast-moving lines mean chefs won’t need to worry about running out of essential items, and every supplier can be added to the catalogue, even the occasional ones, ensuring all spend goes through the system.

Better Menu Planning: Eid is around the corner and you are planning to have a kebab and biryani food festival. This calls for keeping your stock of the required ingredients in place. But that can be done only if you plan to work out how to deliver the planned menu within budget. Your procurement software can help calculating ingredient quantities for chosen dishes and to pull through the items into the purchasing system’s shopping basket, generating instant costings, saving time and effort all around. This even helps your restaurant chef to master the dishes and you get to re-design your menu in a pattern most liked by your customers.

Using technology in procurement can help you tap into a supplier network, giving you access to a range of suppliers in all sorts of food and beverage categories, giving you potential new partners who could provide what you currently need at a lower cost.

All in all, the shift from a “place and chase” purchase order mentality to a “buy and bye” online approach has refocused the purchase process. With technology at your side, you can easily now buy your way to a profitable business. And as news travels fast, your restaurant would become one of the most preferred ones with satisfied customers leaving footprints of positive reviews.