The catering industry is undergoing a new round of changes.
If the past "consumption upgrade" allows customers to witness the rise of salads, cereals, and light-fasting juices, "group purchases" and "takeaways" have helped restaurant owners bring visible passenger flow and orders, but now, they have been silent. The IT systems behind the restaurant operations are accelerating the dramatic changes that the industry is brewing.
The giant took the lead to start exerting strength. Alibaba's “Word of Mouth†was launched in November 2015, but it was only open to the technical interface of payment, marketing, credit, etc. In December last year, the US group-popular review of the successive adjustments was announced. The “Food and Beverage Ecology Business Department†was established to sell catering software that meets the “food and beverage open platform†standard, with a team size of 2,000.
"The US Mission's review is to build the 'IBM PC Standard' for the catering industry, with the aim of solving the standardization problem of online catering software portal. The US Food and Beverage Ecology Business Unit is not just the catering software sales team of the US Mission Review, but To build a sales team for the entire catering software industry." Meituan Company said in a written reply to the reporter's question about the "open platform."
Also, the WeChat "small program" released in January this year has also begun to expand to offline stores, trying to use the lightweight product model to connect the basic functions such as restaurant order, payment, and CRM.
Is catering and the Internet together, is it a conceptual gimmick, or can it bring commercial benefits to catering people?
On March 22nd, the country's first “small program†flagship store in the catering industry was launched in Guangzhou. Customers only need to scan the QR code on the table to enter the small program to order food and pay for it at WeChat.
SMEs did not dare to fall behind, and the founder of Xie Xinfa, who started the lineup, proposed the “router†strategy in 2015. One end docked the traditional catering software vendor, and one end docked the Internet platform, trying to extend the connection. For the service of the restaurant; in March of this year, another catering SaaS supplier “Keru Yun†announced the establishment of “KonNECT Open Platform†to provide B-side merchants with management resources for people, finance, materials and customers.
The revolution called “open†for restaurant owners seems to be prosperous. Behind “opennessâ€, it actually reflects the sense of crisis of the catering industry practitioners. This is related to the “second half†of the Internet – in this beauty In the concept put forward by the founder of the regiment, Wang Xing, with the disappearance of the Internet demographic dividend, the “open source†business of group buying and take-out around traffic has touched the ceiling, and the informationization of the B-end and the entire industrial chain has been throttled. ", is the right way to grow now.
Unlike traditional catering service providers, which cut into the market through hardware devices such as cash registers and Pos machines, Internet catering SaaS companies often find an entry point for restaurant operations, using the cloud architecture and SaaS product service model, which would be like an island. "The restaurant system is connected to the Internet environment. They originally expected such an informational upgrade to transform the entire industry like e-commerce and O2O.
The gap between ideal and reality has been particularly widened in the catering industry. The reporter once discussed the issue of standardization of information in the catering industry in the previous article. The founder of Xie Xing, who had worked in ZTE, did not describe the catering industry. Environment: “The communication industry has long been the standard rules of 3G and 4G, but there are nearly 1000 hardware and software vendors in the catering industry, but there is no unified standard for data access.â€
This means that even if the restaurant is connected to Internet tools, the operating data is still isolated from different SaaS platforms such as queuing, paying, and ordering, without opening the API. They are not interoperable with each other, and sometimes even the merchants themselves. You can't see the most complete data, and once you have less data, all the analytical capabilities and operations that the Internet has are empty talk.
1000 manufacturers, like a thousand boats squeezed in the dark ocean, everyone struggled to the end, but few people mastered the correct course.
Misunderstood "unmanned restaurant"
If the catering SaaS/ERP system used to be “the feng shuiâ€, Liu Zheng, the founder of “Everyone Xiangâ€, was the first person to wait for the “windâ€. He transformed his Hunan rice noodle shop established in 2014 into “ "Three no" stores - no waiters, no cashiers, no chefs, customers enter the store and pay with the WeChat order on the LED screen, the kitchen receives the order production, after completion, a portion of the rice flour along with the conveyor belt The front hall is delivered, and after the meal, the customer returns the plate to the conveyor belt.
The interior scene of “Nobody Restaurantâ€, which is dominated by “Everyone Xiangâ€, has a LED platform for ordering, paying, and a conveyor belt for conveying utensils.
At the time when Liu Zhenghe and "Everyone Xiang" were the most beautiful, Sheng Xitai and Yu Minhong used it as the first capital injection project of the newly established "Hongtai Fund"; Olympic champion Qin Kai attended the "Everyone Xiang" Jieyun Road store The opening ceremony; four months before the business, the turnover of “Everyone Xiang†was 12,000 yuan, and the turnover rate could reach 7 times per day, with an average of 270 bowls of rice flour sold per day.
Compared with the business data, “Everyone Xiang†has an additional contribution to the catering industry in user education. Liu Zheng once made statistics. The ordering system of “Everyone Xiang†was only 57% of the usage rate in the first week of the beginning (the staff in the store who used the system to guide the system can also assume the role of the waiter), half a year later. The proportion of customers who place orders on WeChat is increased to 99%.
The cash register and ordering list is the artificial role that Liu Zheng hopes to be replaced by the Internet first. He told reporters, "I do not want the POS machine and the checkout counter in the unmanned restaurant, because once I have the cash register POS, it means that I have to stand behind. Waiter."
Although the concept of “unmanned restaurant†was still controversial at the time, in the case of “everyone Xiangâ€, people first intuitively felt the changes brought about by technology in saving labor costs and improving restaurant efficiency.
Before and after the establishment of “Everyone Xiangâ€, a number of brands with similar colors, such as “Huang Taiji, Funiutang, West Young Masterâ€, emerged. The virtual fire of O2O at the time made these entrepreneurs believe that Internet thinking can make the old restaurant industry renewed. Vitality.
Is catering and the Internet together, is it a conceptual gimmick, or can it bring commercial benefits to catering people?
Mu Yang is also one of the tryters after “Everyone Xiangâ€. He founded the take-out O2O platform “Mr. Reasonsâ€, “Home Delivery†in the front-end order, payment and other links with Liu Zheng’s “unmanned restaurant†The concept is similar, Mu Yang also admitted that the earlier establishment of "everyone Xiang" has influenced him, but he also pointed out that "unmanned restaurant" is actually a form of "over-internetization" of restaurants, which is conceptually The gimmick is far better than the help of the essence of business.
In Mu Yang's view, an excellent catering system should not only stay on the level of sci-fi. After satisfying the rich customer experience such as queuing, ordering, and payment, the catering software still needs to help the restaurant owner to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and pursue profits. This requires catering SaaS developers not only to take into account the interaction of the front end of the restaurant, but also to turn their attention to the kitchen, to coordinate inventory, procurement, price, finance, staff scheduling and other issues.
Difficult to meet the catering industry
In order to improve the operational efficiency of the restaurant's back-end, Mu Yang has tried outsourcing and self-organizing technical teams since 2015. In the end, it took half a year to develop a background system that simulates the “kitchen moving lineâ€.
“Traditional restaurants in the kitchen are obedient to the head chef, an order comes over, the head chef sipping a scorpion, and other employees follow the instructions to work.†Mu Yang said. In the "Mine-reasoned" kitchen system that he showed for reporters, when the customer orders "fat-boiled rice" through WeChat, the kitchen does not directly display the order, but according to the staff, the kitchen, the cooking stove, and the packaging. Wait for different roles and display the corresponding commands.
For example, the employee in charge of helping the kitchen will see the “preparation information†in the display screen in front of him; the employee responsible for the cooking stove will see the “production informationâ€; the staff responsible for packaging will see the “tangible food or takeaway informationâ€. After the employees are familiar with the operating system, the restaurant with more than 100 square meters only needs four people in the kitchen to meet the needs of all-day dining. The labor cost is about 40% lower than that of similar restaurants.
In the “mean reasoned†kitchen, the system panel that the staff responsible for cutting, frying, and packing will see different contents. This system is also the most difficult part of the catering SaaS.
In addition, Mu Yang also associates the consumables of the kitchen with the supply chain in real time. When each “fat-boiled rice†is sold, the system will dynamically display how many beef and spices are consumed. You can see the corresponding financial statistics in the background with one button, and it also prevents the fraud and corruption that may exist in the kitchen.
According to Mu Yang, the development cost of this whole set of kitchen system is about 300,000 yuan. When the reporter asked why Mu Yang did not adopt the software outsourcing strategy used in the industry, Mu Yang replied: "The development of the kitchen system is The hardest part of the catering software, it is difficult for most catering SaaS bosses do not understand the nature of the catering industry, while traditional restaurant owners understand the essence, but do not understand how to transform into a system of ability."
For example, Mu Yang’s “Meter Reasons†and “Household Food Delivery†are Chinese fast food brands, pursuing low labor and high turning; the catering industry can also be subdivided into meals, group meals, and takeaways. ......There are categories of Chinese food, Japanese food, Western food, hot pot, barbecue... The back-end systems used in each industry are different, and the SKUs for each type of food are less than ten kinds, and many Behind hundreds of such ever-changing combinations is the innumerable demand for the catering industry that has not yet been met.
That is to say, the informationization market of the catering industry is still in a huge imbalance between supply and demand. This imbalance is not because the supply side (SaaS software vendors) is not enough, but because of the existing SaaS software. More solutions are the need for standardization, as if the Office software provided by Microsoft is powerful, no company can manage the entire company with Word and Excel.
The low threshold of the catering industry has inspired some entrepreneurs, and when they try to change the industry with a tool, they are trapped by the troubles that come with it.
What does “opening†mean?
“The chain is long, the links are numerous, and the demand is mixed.†Almost everyone who has tried the catering SaaS venture knows where the “pit†of the industry is.
However, "knowing the pit" does not mean that it will "fill the pit". The market of three trillion yuan in the catering industry cannot be eaten by one family. The problems in this market cannot be solved by one company.
This is why more and more companies are shouting the slogan of “opennessâ€. They find that single-handedness does not make the industry better, or even worse. Therefore, they have transformed platforms and used technology and resources to attract peers. Alliance, to complement the company's own business shortcomings, to seize market share as soon as possible.
“Openness†is an opportunity for transformation for some food and beverage hardware manufacturers. In March of this year, “Wang Posâ€, which started with a smart Pos, announced that the company will expand from hardware business to smart terminals, and integrates business-oriented logistics, ERP management, financial insurance and other services in the form of open cooperation. Li Yan, the founder of "Wang Pos", repeatedly stressed in an interview: "There is no market for pure Pos, and the future Pos will die like a digital camera."
"Wang Pos", which started with the Pos machine, was transformed into a smart terminal enterprise this year. Founder Li Yan proposed that "the future Pos opportunity will die like a digital camera."
“Openness†allows SaaS companies to no longer be confined to the “tools†category. Peng Rui, the founder of Keruyun, divided the company's products into three layers: the basic layer is the “efficiency improvement tool†(smart POS machine), which mainly helps small and medium-sized merchants such as “deep noodle noodle restaurant†to collect and process takeaways. The middle layer is the “open platformâ€, which provides financial and supply chain services for growing stores by connecting third-party partner companies; the top of the pyramid is “big data value-added servicesâ€, based on the first two layers of data. In the supply chain management, member marketing and other aspects to achieve efficiency optimization for large chain restaurants.
“Openness†has also brought more favors to the capital level for enterprises. “In the three trillion market of the catering industry, if the supply chain platform is open, SaaS manufacturers can extend from selling tools to selling ingredients, which will cut the market into one trillion, and the valuation of enterprises will become even bigger.†Mu Yang told reporters.
In this way, the technology, products, and capital are all ready, and the users of the catering software market are ready, are they ready?
The “critical period†of the catering industry
Liu Zheng’s view of “openness†is not so optimistic. In August last year, he split the company's software development business, and his identity changed from "owner Xiang" boss to "Beijing Xiang Orange Interactive Network Technology Co., Ltd." CEO. Liu Zheng said: "Emerging Internet SaaS service providers often need the help of traditional catering practitioners, but the traditional party will worry that if they are replaced, they will intentionally isolate the former."
Liu Zheng said that “traditional catering people†include two forces. One is traditional catering hardware manufacturers represented by Tiancai Shanglong, Ishikawa, and Chensen Century. They use checkout counters, scanners, and Pos machines. As the main business, it has been in this market for a long time. At the same time, it has the coveted offline sales ability of Internet companies. Take Tiancai Shanglong as an example. This Tianjin company established in 1998 has 400 channel partnerships across the country. There are 100,000 cooperative merchants, and the number of “good to eat†partners mentioned in the previous article is 60,000, and “Keru Yun†is 20,000.
Traditional software vendors such as Tiancai Shanglong, Ishikawa, and Chensen have shortcomings in product intelligence, but have strong push and sales resources online.
The strength of traditional software in terms of scale and channel has made the catering SaaS enterprises a bit of a headache. These entrepreneurs from the Internet must persuade the restaurant owner to change the system, or invest a large number of technicians to modify the existing hardware of the restaurant to increase the interface. Otherwise, Even the source of the data is not available, and "opening" is even more difficult to talk about.
Another hindrance comes from managers inside the restaurant. As we all know, the most efficient way to promote a product or technology in the industry is to turn the head enterprise into a customer, and then from top to bottom to achieve visibility to sales, the catering industry is no exception, like Xibei, the seabed Chain brands such as fishing, grandma's family and Wangxiangyuan are the targets of SaaS companies.
However, the operators of these restaurants have additional concerns. They worry that after “openingâ€, corporate information (including running water, purchases, customer portraits) will be used by third-party service companies – even though all service providers will guarantee The security of the data, but "Sibei" still tends to transfer the core data related to payment, kitchen, consumer and other internal data to the internal technical team, only to queuing, booking, ordering and other secondary work Third party.
Is catering and the Internet together, is it a conceptual gimmick, or can it bring commercial benefits to catering people?
Take “Haidian Fishing†as an example. Its logistics, supply chain and brand promotion have already set up a separate company to do it. Naturally, it will not require third-party suppliers to intervene.
Despite the troubles, Peng Lei feels that this market is about to usher in a critical period from quantitative change to qualitative change.
“Any new technology can be called a 'pregnancy period' at a stage where market penetration is less than 10%. We have been nurturing this market for the past four years, plus the popularity of smartphones for businesses, 2017-2018, The traditional PC+ keyboard + mouse mode of the catering industry will be replaced by intelligent integrated devices.†Peng Lei told reporters.
Capital is accelerating the market in the back. The old equipment of the old software and hardware manufacturers is not in line with the current Internet environment. In 2014, “Tiancai Shanglong†and “Ishikawa†accepted the investment of the public comment, and gradually settled in the cash register. In the hardware equipment, the interface to the Internet platform is opened. Since 2015, the US group has invested in service providers such as food and health, house rice, tomato, and wine, and must go to technology.
Everyone collects firewood with high flames. "Openness" allows enterprises to form an alliance. The worst result is to help capital speed up the harvesting speed, but "openness" cannot stay in the slogan, and should not be reduced to giant fish and small fish. Excuses; in the specific business model, "open" can not just be technically simple docking API - traditional software and hardware manufacturers do not understand Internet products deeply, when one day both sides can dispel doubts, willing to put down the shelf to learn from each other's strengths "Openness" can produce value.
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