Technology has been a great disruptor across the sector and in everyone’s daily life, be it from the early days of Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc on how they changed our lifestyle to new-age companies like Facebook, Uber, and restaurant brands like McDonald’s, Domino’s and KFC to name a few that have changed the way brands function or interact with their customers. Food has grown at each stage and the result is phenomenal.

According to a report by BCG, "Funding in the food tech space has grown by 35x in the last five years as we see that more and more brands are venturing into the online food delivery space looking at the opportunity that this segment hold."

Looking at this opportunity, McDonald’s that far-sighted this trend ventured into the online food space way before any other brand could think about digital transformations, contactless payments, and delivery and bringing a whole lot of tech-revolution.

How McDonald’s Has Grown on Tech-Led Innovations

We all know that eating at a restaurant is such an occasion for customers and there is no way that the restaurant industry could be left behind. “We have witnessed this at Westlife Development since last 4-5 years that in the QSR category especially the delivery business is exponentially going to grow which is why we started laying the foundation through our app, partnerships with aggregators and also fulfillment capabilities and we have truly seen technology accelerate the business through the pandemic,” shared Akshay Jatia, Chief Strategy Officer at McDonald’s India. 

The consumer is the king

There is also interesting data that says, “Consumers spend up to 72 minutes per month to explore and order food online in 2019 and going forward it has even grown.”

Under Jatia's guidance, McDonald’s has achieved a 55 percent jump YoY with McDelivery reporting its highest ever revenue so far. “The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation; it changed how consumers interact with the restaurant industry or even eat their food. E.g. who would have thought that people would be so comfortable ordering food at the comfort of their home almost daily. Today, convenience delivery is becoming as important as our dine-in formats,” he added by pointing out that the landscape has evolved in the last 4-5 years and we believe that the future is there. 

Additionally, the brand also started embedding data in decision-making across all functions, the backend that allowed them to understand the customer better and grow. “We started data-based decision making for cost efficiencies and governance in our restaurant in a very organized manner. So, for eg; we implemented an energy management system in our restaurants that allowed us to track all our expenses, utility consumption in a much more efficient manner, bringing them under our control,” added Jatia.

The Road Ahead for Growth

The personal touch continues to set apart the ‘restaurant experience’. As per a report, a significant number of consumers still prefer waiters taking orders at the table (48 percent) and serving food at the table (58 percent). While as expected, millennials expressed the highest willingness (49 percent) to place their order via apps and QR codes, interestingly, respondents aged 40 and above are proving very adaptive with nearly a third open to both traditional and ordering via an app. For brands like McDonald’s, menu innovation, omnichannel presence, and network expansion continued to be the key levers of strategy. The company’s omnichannel strategy helped it complement its strong menu relevance by making the brand ubiquitous – accessible, however, whenever and wherever they like.

“Technology is not only a growth driver but also a huge enabler ensuring survival and revival of the restaurant business,” added Jatia by pointing out that the next phase of growth will be building loyalty and recognizing our most loyal customer wherein we call them ‘super user’. 

Hence, we can say that the next form of growth is omnichannel growth; realize it, build it and succeed. 

How Marrying Customer Experience with Technology has Made Domino's Lead the Food-Tech Revolution

From integrating technology in restaurants to how the pandemic has put restaurants in a direction when they use more technology in restaurants and different interfaces to engage with the customers. Domino’s India President and Chief Business Officer, Rajneet Kohli shared a few milestone steps that one of the largest QSR chain took to build a tech-first approach brand. From being the trendsetter in getting the pizza delivered in just 30-minutes to partnering with IRCTC and getting the pizza delivered on the train in 2018 to now delivering the pizza at your desired location while you are just sitting in your car.

“We have been forced to look out at technology choices and re-modeling our business. If we talk from Domino’s perspective technology and data is very natural to us,” shared Kohli by adding that they have always kept the customer in the center of everything and therefore all decisions they do is keeping that in mind.

Data is the King

The brand also focuses a lot on data and the kind of data that is coming through. As per Kohli, the pizza chain has a huge data lake wherein they are getting to know what the customer is eating? What they are looking at? And how much time he has spent on the app and then exit? E.g. 6.2 percent of their customer gives them 32 percent of the business, the next 9.9 percent of customers give them 22 percent of the business. So, 15 percent of these customers give them 55 percent of the business.

“So, how do I tailor my response to the customer and make it happen and how can I make the customer have pizza at any point of time was one of the concerns that I tried to handle,” shared Kohli who on one of his train journey thought of partnering with IRCTC and getting the pizza delivered in train. That’s how the brand integrated food in train and then worked with the IRCTC app by marrying technology to order in train.

Innovating the Delivery Model

During the pandemic when things were little eased and restaurants started to re-open for dine-in, the data came out that customers wanted to go out but they were worried about entering into a restaurant. And, that’s where the QSR chain thought of delivering it on the road.

“We don’t have drive-thrus like McDonald’s, Burger King, etc. So, we have drive-and-pick where you go on our app and say you want the pizza and got a spot where you need to click and get your pizza delivered there. So, going where the customers are all coming from the insight through the data,” asserted Kohli by adding that Domino’s 76 percent of a customer order through Android, 12 percent order through PWA, 10 percent through iOS and 2 percent through desktop and that’s when you have these data flowing in you need to see conversion is happening to the business.

Hence, we can say that when a brand and its owner or operator become paranoid about customers and are going to make sure that they marry customer experience with technology, will not only strive but will drive the change.