Gurugram, October 30, 2018: Fast Food & Café Convention, New Delhi tasted success once again, attracting more than 300 delegates who livened up the 3rd edition of the only show in India dedicated to the QSR, Café & Fast Casual Community. This event was organized by Oddbox Business Solutions. In addition to providing a highly anticipated forum for sharing information, gaining valuable updates and learning about new innovations, it also presented a high value place to meet and do business.
It is towards addressing the immense challenges in operations, expansion, recruiting and franchising that FFCC has focused its ambitions, helping largely to provide a platform for this niche segment to meet, network & learn. This was summarized well by Rahul Singh, President NRAI & Founder The Beer Café, after the event – “FFCC showcases the best that Indian QSR & Café sector have to offer. It recognizes and celebrates resilience, thought leadership, success and brilliance, as well as provides a platform for industry stalwarts to mingle & imbibe a sense of fraternity. Having made its mark in the last two editions, FFCC Delhi 2018 turned out to be bigger & better. NRAI is proud to be associated with this stellar event.”
The tone for the event was set by the Chairman of the Event – Samir Kuckreja, Founder, Tasanaya, who touched upon pointers that operators need to look out for as well as the key trends in the industry today. The first panel discussion had a number of industry stalwarts discussing the impact of technology on business. A common view expressed across the panel was that, if the industry does not embrace technology towards the consumer, as well as the way they operate their businesses, they will soon be moving towards the dark ages. Technology, creating a seamless experience for customers, employees, vendors and aggregators is becoming the need of the day. The panelists also discussed the must have technologies for restaurants today and how it has helped in aspects like getting customer feedback, maintaining inventory etc.
The second panel deliberated on HR issues and people challenges and the importance of addressing them on time. With the growing attrition rates in restaurants the biggest question to the panel was what makes employees stay. Some of the solutions included training & up-skilling, connecting & engaging with employees, building learning & development practices, recognition & rewards, identifying individual talent & using it appropriately, etc. The panelists agreed that the traditional approach of command and control doesn’t work any longer.
The final panel of the day dealt with the online delivery dilemma and how businesses have to think out of the box to stay relevant. With the premise that delivery is clearly the way forward, the panelists deliberated on how empathy, personalization and integrity are different dimensions that customers value when it comes to online delivery. The discussion also revolved around what is the economics of delivering customer experience and the impact of overspending vs under-spending, while trying to balance it out when pitched against expectations. The panel agreed that reliability, timing and quality are important dimensions for delivery but whether the Indian food industry is ready for personalization is to be seen.
The breakout sessions with the delegates were led by senior professionals from the industry on three different topics – how to optimize your restaurant for profitability, building a strong procurement strategy and what could be potential new age locations suitable for the business. These sessions were very interactive as they were held in smaller groups and brought a lot of different perspectives to the fore.
The grand finale of the conference was the on-stage interview with Rahul Singh, President NRAI and Founder The Beer Café, hosted by Tanu Ganguly, Editor NDTV Food. Rahul elaborated on how NRAI works, especially with FSSAI to help restaurants build a safe food environment as food safety takes on a bigger role in the industry today. According to him the three challenges that most restaurants face are that of being hyperlocal, real time and dynamic. His message to the audience was how important it is to have passion to do anything in life – for which he is definitely a true role model!
10 programs, 32 Speakers, 340 delegates, 32 exhibitors and over 200 brands attended the show. The event ended on a high note with cocktails and a lot of networking and bonhomie. This was evident amongst all the attendees and was succinctly put across by Subhajit Mazumder, Director Customer & Channels, KPMG “I attended the FFCC 2018 for the first time. Earlier I have been part of multiple retail forums, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the deep focus & concentration of the stalwarts from the QSR & Café industry at the event. There were good insights, experience sharing, networking and the community went back happy after a day well spent to run their businesses better.”
A big shout out to NRAI, NDTV Food and all our partners & exhibitors for supporting the event and making it remarkable. As stated by George Mohan, Co-Founder, Oddbox “More and more professionals see Fast Food & Café Convention as the leading business event for the QSR, Café & Fast Casual industry, and their presence, continually increasing, reveals the extraordinary dynamism of the sector. The fourth edition of this event will be on 22nd May 2019 at The Lalit Ashok, Bengaluru along with the launch of The Pub Convention, an exclusive event for pub owners, clubs and microbreweries.”
