siliconindia | | APRIL 20198SCM: THE VITAL INGREDIENT TO BUILD LARGE QSR CHAINShe cuisine is a critical ingredient to the suc-cess of any QSR chain. Chef and cuisine mat-ter the most in attracting customers to have a meal and ensuring all covers are occupied all the time. But the chances of success of any res-taurant is higher with a solid supply chain in place. The most appetising of menus and the best of chefs can't do much if behind the scenes the supply chains are not working smoothly. More so, restaurants use perish-able products and today's health-conscious customers seek fresh ingredients and top-quality meals, on demand every time. How efficiently raw material (vegetables, dairy, poultry, sea catch, and so on) move from farm to fork is vital for successful Quick Service Restaurant brands (QSR). Many of the new brands are aiming to scale-up their game nation-wide or even globally, which brings into focus the need for consistency of experience to keep at-tracting new customers and retaining loyal ones. Main-taining consistent food quality and customer experience is crucial since just one bad meal can compel even ardent loyalists to look at another restaurant brand. Consistent, timely sourcing of ingredients play an important role in ensuring this.Indeed, companies are realising fast that efficient Sup-ply Chain Management (SCM) is key to success in this in-dustry. A good SCM is a must-have to tackle unexpected demands as well ­ like special orders or a sudden increase in demand for a new item on the menu. It is not a matter of simply ensuring the supplier is ready with basics like to-matoes and potatoes all the time, but also ensuring timely supply of all ingredients.In fact with limited time between supply and consump-tion due to high perishability of raw material, SCM takes an entirely different dimension for restaurant chains. Food waste is a substantial cost element for restaurants, and this is magnified in the case of chain restaurants. Any supply chain management strategy must minimise food waste to keep operating costs in check. Effective SCM must in-clude knowledge management, analytics, inventory man-agement, logistics, all working in sync and benchmarked against best practices, since success is only as good as the weakest link in the chain. According to retail sector analyst Technopak, the or-ganised QSR business is worth $3.2 billion and growing fast. As seen above, the role of SCM becomes all the more crucial in ensuring success of any restaurant venture. A SCM system for QSR must be capable of forecasting demand and order in real time. Restaurant requirements should automatically translate into requirements for in-gredients and supplies. There is a need for highly accurate consumer-driven demand forecasts that take into account higher traffic on weekends & holidays and even factors in special events and special offers. This is where analyt-ics and knowledge management will come-in handy. Past By Anurag Mehrotra, Co-Founder & CEO, Charcoal EatsAnurag has a Masters degree in MBA, Finance & General Management. His interest lies in Entrepreneurship, Startups, Startup Consulting and many more. Currently, he is a Member of the Board of Directors at Charcoal Eats.SCM is continuously evolving with the use of new technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. This will lend itself to better forecasting and take-out guesstimates, improve real-time demand & inventory management and overall better accuracyIN MY OPiNionT
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