Serving diner data for restaurants
Every time you order food from a preferred restaurant from your smartphone — through an app or a phone call — it leaves a sign to understand your profile, which includes why you placed an order, what you ordered, your frequency of order, location and so forth. This helps restaurants understand the customer more in depth.
The UAE is all about giving the best in consumer experience. Being a competitive market, it makes you live in constant fear that your competitor is just a click away and it triggers a race to retain customer loyalty.
Singapore-based startup firm Mobikon — established in 2012 — is a leading AI-driven consumer engagement and predictive analytics SaaS platform for the F&B industry to engage customers, gain insights, predict behaviour and increase sales. The firm is set to expand its Middle East operations with the UAE being at the forefront.
“Mobikon is trusted by over 700 brands across markets. The UAE restaurant industry is growing rapidly, out-of-home eating is getting popular and the choice of cuisines and dining experiences are getting more innovative. Consumers have a wide choice and diminishing loyalty towards brands. The restaurant brands are exposed to social media, review platforms and shrinking margins,” said Samir Khadepaun, chief executive officer and founder of Mobikon.
Participating in the ‘Restaurant Show Middle East’ in Dubai on April 14 and 15, 2018, the startup highlighted the involvement of technology in driving restaurant business more efficiently. At the event, Mobikon emphasised the importance of artificial intelligence (AI), big data, global customer profile and marketing automation to restaurant owners and managers to drive more business and get better engagement and marketing return on investment (RoI).
“Mobikon is placed to help restaurant brands understand their consumer landscape, manage their customer journey seamlessly, thus improving not just customer experience but also retaining loyalty, repeat footfall and improved margins. We see ourselves solving a dominant problem for the restaurant industry. We have seen that change in other markets and are confident of playing a lead role in scaling up adoption of technology. In the next 12 months, Mobikon should be able to gain a market share of between eight per cent to 10 per cent and double growth in the following year,” added Khadepaun.
To date, Mobikon has grown and established its presence in nine countries, including Singapore, India, the
UAE, Malaysia and the Philippines, servicing over 700 restaurant brands and over 3,400 food outlets worldwide. Leading brands currently using Mobikon’s solutions include Citymax Group, Zaroob, 800 Pizza, Majestic Hotels (UAE), Minor Group (Singapore), Shakey’s Pizza (Philippines) and the Bistro Group (Philippines), as well as LiteBite Foods, Pan India Foods, Pind Speciality Restaurants (Mainland China Group), Billion Smiles and Jaypee Group (India).
In October 2017, Mobikon raised $7 million in Series B funding to penetrate deeper in existing markets and strengthen its leadership team in the UAE, among other markets.
Dhruv Kapoor, Sistema Asia Fund, an investor in Mobikon, said: “The F&B industry is undergoing a digital disruption and old school restaurants are struggling to keep pace. Demand side has largely moved, with a plethora of technology options available to customers [mobile app, discovery apps, food ordering apps] but the supply side [restaurants] suffers from old-school practices [e.g
pen and paper feedback]. Industry leaders are beginning to leverage data and invest in technology solutions.”
He said Mobikon is a leader in the F&B tech vertical with its CRM and data analytics solution. “The company’s uniqueness lies in the customer data it captures and its ability to stitch global personas that are useful to a restaurant owner for running marketing campaigns and increasing footfall. Mobikon has built a global repository of 13 million unique diner profiles through its partnership with leading F&B chains and POS partners.”
What does Mobikon offer the UAE? Mobikon integrates feedback, referrals, reservations, online ordering and loyalty, review management and personalised marketing automation into a single CRM solution. Second, with a new AI and machine learning platform, Mobikon will empower brick-and-mortar restaurants with the same data-driven, omni-channel marketing strategies which have allowed digital merchants such as Amazon to continually gain market share through its various consumer touch points. The firm’s platform gathers transactional and behavioural data about consumers and creates a global customer profile that spans customer lifespan across brands. This helps the brand and outlet managers know about the customer preferences, likes and dislikes, perceptions and behaviour, not only at their outlet but also as a diner in general. They can now serve the customer in a personalised manner and generate loyalty far beyond traditional mass SMS or e-mail marketing.
Hitesh Anand — CPO, Mobikon — who recently joined from global payments giant VeriFone — said: “Mobikon understand the challenges these businesses face in today’s digital, connected world and they’re bringing powerful technology to a market ripe with opportunity. The company is committed to improving the success rate of restaurants and the F&B business worldwide by providing cutting-edge customer engagement tools, actionable customer insights and a seamless customer loyalty and engagement experience.”
Mobikon is placed to help restaurant brands understand their consumer landscape, manage their customer journey, thus improving not just customer experience but also retaining loyalty, repeat footfall and improved margins Samir Khadepaun, CEO and founder of Mobikon