Best Startup
Multi-use multi-lingual online ordering system for hospitality businesses offering online, in-store (order at table, kiosks, room service, and more), and telephone ordering along with table bookings with pre-ordering
Tell us about yourself?
As an IT solutions company we were often asked to create systems with the same base functionality. So in an effort to achieve efficiencies we created a base platform upon which we could build further functionality to deliver what each customer required.
However, through the years this base platform became so sophisticated and comprehensive that it could be seen as a standalone product. ..and Food-Ordering.co.uk was born.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Promote it more aggressively to generate better awareness of the system’s existence.
What problem does your business solve?
Complete ownership, control, and flexibility when it comes to various forms of online and wireless in-store ordering.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
As previously stated the system was born organically as a result of customer requests and requirements.
As hospitality businesses sought independence and control over their systems and sales/data we worked hard to create a base platform flexible enough to cater for multiple types of business needs and in different languages too.
What is your magic sauce?
We work very closely with our customers to understand what they want, and we deliver EXACTLY what they want to the point that they love the result so much they are the ones shouting out about us and the system.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
There is already a functionality pipeline for the next 3 years so we have a pretty clear idea o what’s coming, which is nothing more than implementing functions and support for processes our clients want.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Speed of implementation has been the main issue for us. In complex IT projects you cannot simply add more developers. It does more bad than good.
There is a balance to achieve when it comes to team sizes. However that means that the speed of releases is not as quick as we’d like. But it’s something we are always working on.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
Once people dive into the system and start to use it they realise its flexibility and value. From then on there is very little that we have to do to demonstrate its value.
The system speaks for itself. When a takeaway for example, if we speak about the one end size-wise of our target audience, gets an order every 50sec…what more can they ask for from such a system.
Or if we speak about larget businesses in multiple countries, if the system can adapt to their exact needs and integrates with whatever other system they want, be in CRM or accounting or ERP, is there any other supplier out there who can be that flexible and helpful?
