With pandemic-driven appetites bursting at the seams, regional F&B businesses can now tap multiple digital platforms for scalability, productivity and CX.
The global pandemic has boosted the food delivery industry in South-east Asia, where the number of customers is expected to reach 117.3 million users by 2024.
Food & Beverage (F&B) businesses pivoting to or adding delivery services will need an operational boost to keep up with consumer demand in this pandemic, delivery-driven era. One firm that has been providing digitalized point-of-sales system and end-to-end F&B consultancy services, iCHEF, has seen up to 600 F&B owners in Singapore and Malaysia employing its technology offerings, including household names like Old Chang Kee and Ben & Jerry’s.
Across the region, iCHEF has collaborated with tech giants among the likes of UberEats, Facebook, Google and Line. The firm’s digital platform offers up to a tenfold increase in time efficiency for businesses when managing orders, freeing up time and energy to focus on producing quality meals and service.
Tech upgrade partnership
To scale up to match increasing demand, the iCHEF platform has now been integrated with major F&B technological platforms like GrabFood and Xero.
The expanded omni-platform solution now allows F&B operators to benefit from a seamless and streamlined end-to-end process from order to delivery, all from a singular iPad screen.
The integration of GrabFood into iCHEF’s POS system enables all customers to connect their GrabFood merchant account with iCHEF, with real-time updates of menu changes and item availability synced on one singular screen.
With only one menu to manage, customers can send GrabFood orders directly to restaurant kitchens. Down from 1 to 2 minutes per order, it now takes only five seconds for each delivery order to reach the kitchen. This not only saves precious time for staff, but minimizes human error, allowing restaurants to focus on providing better food and service levels.
In terms of back office automation, the iCHEF app has been added to Xero’s App Marketplace. The automatic integration of financial data from the iCHEF point-of-sales system into Xero enables a faster bank reconciliation experience, including easier management of labor costs associated with using different third-party delivery services and consumer payment methods.
Commented Jay Teo, International Director, iCHEF Singapore: “Integrating with platforms like GrabFood and Xero expands iCHEF’s ecosystem and shows our commitment to create the best restaurant management experience for F&B businesses across the region. iCHEF’s goal is to give every restaurant an additional secret sauce; technology that scales their food business.”
According to one satisfied F&B business owner, Jamie Koh of The Beast – Southern Kitchen + Bourbon Bar: “With the Omni-platform integration, we can just go onto the POS system to see any changes reflected immediately, eliminating a lot of the back-and-forth between my team and Grab. Now that everything is on one device, we don’t have to refer to multiple devices, making life easier and saving us a lot of time overall.”
