Have you ever wondered how restaurants manage their processes? Traditionally they had been doing this on their own, but now there are firms that take care of this. One of such startups, SupplyNote is Cloud-based web and mobile-enabled suite connecting outlets, service providers and suppliers. With SupplyNote, you can manage inventory, place orders, and uncover sales performance insights to strengthen the health of your business.
In this interview with Mr. Kushang, the CEO of the firm, we find out about their journey and ideas to fulfill this gap in the food service industry.
It’s been around 3 years since you launched SupplyNote. Please take us through your initial journey and what propelled you to start this platform
The co-founders of supply note are, Mr. Kushang, the CEO, Mr. Harshit Mittal- CTO, Mr. Abhishek Verma – COO and Mr. Nitin Prakash- CPO.
We initially launched a different model that would explore options for trackable BTL marketing activities for F&B startups. When we got the opportunity to work closely with restaurants we could see a lot of scope for inventory management and automation solutions. We identified how restaurants have been operating in a very traditional manner for years and how digitization can revolutionise a lot for the entire sector for good. That is when all of us started working towards a SaaS-based solution to address inventory management and procurement for F&B outlets. This is how SupplyNote was launched.
One of the key challenges faced by Quick service restaurants is food pilferage. How does SupplyNote help its clients tackle this issue?
SupplyNote helps the QSRs track their inventory by tracking sold orders, predicting consumption based on recipes and cross-checking it with the actual consumptions. This helps track pilferage and prevent it.
Restaurants operating at multiple locations grapple with multiple supply chain issues both on back end and front end- from procurement to management of warehouses, inventory control to delivery of items among others. Please tell us how SupplyNote helps food outlets streamline their operations.
SupplyNote provides cloud-based web and mobile-enabled suite connecting food outlets, service providers and suppliers. This facilitates a faster and more transparent procedure mitigating the scope of loss or misinformed expenditures. It offers three segments of services: Cloud-based software for managing inventory, enabling utilisation, stock analysis and requirements for the F&B outlets, warehouse and logistics solutions to help F&B outlets to access affordable storage, an E-commerce platform for the food outlets that allows easy procurements for the best cost.
Covid-19 has potentially disrupted the food chain that altered the connection of food with the masses. Please tell us about the challenges and opportunities that came along the pandemic. Please share the role of technology in making supply chain systems become more responsive and efficient during covid.
A lot of sectors were facing heavy losses and were struggling to survive when the pandemic hit. This included the F & B sector as well. This happens to be an industry which manages huge fixed costs and due to the pandemic, the sales were at zero, which led to a lot of outlets shutting down. This is when they required interference of technology to enable precise operations that would fast-track recovery mitigating the losses. SupplyNote helped facilitate the same with utmost accuracy reducing running costs by 8-10 %.
Post-pandemic there is a heightened awareness of one’s health and sustainability. However, for small, and medium-sized enterprises sustainability seems to be a far cry because it might not be feasible for them. Can technology play a role in enhancing sustainable food practices?
The technology was witnessing adoption in the sector but post the pandemic majority of medium-sized outlets have completely switched to touchless conduct with the help of innovative devices. Some have even opted for automation in their facility. Basic conduct that involved customer interaction has been replaced by technology to a greater extent.
Please tell us about your team, your presence in the country and your future roadmap for growth.
We are a team of 80+ employees now, and we continue to expand. We are hiring 70+ employees across various departments, which means we are almost doubling our workforce. We are present in Pan India, associated with 1500+ food outlets so far. In addition to this, we are planning to expand abroad also.
