In the wake of the pandemic, hoteliers were plagued with supply chain shortages. Whether it was linen, produce or other basics, most items they needed were in short supply.
Even as things limp back to normalcy, ordering new stock is proving to be a challenge, especially in the backdrop of the war in Afghan followed by the one going on in Ukraine. Kushang Kumar, Co-founder and CEO of SupplyNote tells Hotelier India how they tackled this issue by sourcing alternatives without compromising quality. He also explains how they did not let the shortage of supplies impact the guest experience.
How did the pandemic put the global and regional supply chain under strain for restaurateurs?
During the pandemic, hotel businesses have suffered significant losses. F&B companies incur fixed costs for storage and logistics, which were not operational during the lockdown. As the business reduced, the entire supply chain took a hit, with many facilities going out of business and many people left unemployed. In a way, the whole supply chain came down in terms of resources.
How did this disruption highlight the criticality of evolving supply chain systems to make them more responsive and agile to the changing dynamics?
Traditionally, the businesses had to build their own supply chain, renting out their spaces and renting or purchasing vehicles for their transportation. This model can be switched to a cloud-based usage model that allows more effortless management flexibility to upgrade/downgrade and requires lower management efforts. Also, by having data-driven inventory purchase decisions, businesses can always avoid over-stocking. This move reduces wastage, increases efficiency and reflects in books.
How can these players leverage technology for successful supply chain management?
The communication and transaction between the suppliers and the merchants have always been on phone calls with little to no digital records. Today, the technologies can help both parties discover each other and transact over a platform that offers fair and standardised business terms.
How can this technology help them synchronise supply and demand to reduce cost, waste and optimise inventory?
When an efficient inventory management platform is used, it can take in the sales data to forecast demand and help with purchase decisions. When connected with a marketplace, it can also automate the purchase process, reducing wastage of man-hours and goods.
What are some challenges that restauranteurs and hoteliers face when it comes to building end to end sustainability in the food supply chain?
For a sustainable and reliable food supply chain, a business/merchant would need to build a network with suppliers as per the location, having different suppliers for different geographies to reduce operational costs. Either of the sides incurs an additional charge on logistics and storage, which results in more expense. Also, extra man-hours are required to manage the supply chain, not to mention, the inefficiency of staff could lead to losses.
While many desire to become eco-friendly, their ability to go sustainable depends on economic activities and resultant income? So how can they find a way to make more with fewer resources?
By using technology to replace man-hours and letting the technology handle logical decisions as well as defining standard operating procedures for all the activities, they can optimise the need for resources, and reduce inefficiency.
How can they adopt food technology to nurture sustainability credentials?
We live in a world where technology doesn’t have to be built and is already available on subscription. The entire ecosystem of inventory management, supply chain management, and the marketplace is already offered by companies like SupplyNote at pay-per-use costing. It replaces the requirement of man-hours, and can be downgraded at any time, providing sustainability over traditional models.
Say, a restaurant owner has been running a menu, and suddenly he realized that a particular material has been consumed less and is going stale one day. Or one day, he realizes he is short on a product and is in urgent need of it. He would make some calls to arrange the same, and without any price comparison or exact understanding of the required quantity, he would order the same. This approach results in thinning margins and increasing operational costs.
