How are Indian QSRs going social?
How are Indian QSRs going social?

Indian quick service restaurant segment has seen many new brands making inroads into the market. Indian QSR market has remained largely unaffected by the economic slowdown and touched nearly around $50 billion from Rs $35 billion in 2013. The segment is growing at a very fast pace.

Brands on demand

Indian fast food majors like Cafe Coffee Day, Yo! China, Haldiram’s, Nirulas, Sagar Ratna and Bikanervala have met all the global necessities to meet the demands of the local customers, who are becoming an adaptor of global QSR outlets. Not only this, the regional QSR chains like Shiv Sagar, Bangs and Ammi’s Biryani created a milestone in competing to their foreign counterparts, but have also adapted their strategies on how to target the over growing demands of their customers.

Meanwhile, we have seen that, global players have tweaked their menu keeping in mind the taste and preferences of Indian customers. We have seen that major global QSR chains, which are entering India, have to localise their offerings before establishing themselves here.

Indian chains have now realised that people here are rushing towards convenience and value that these QSR chains offer and there is a wide gap in the market in terms of authentic Indian Cuisine being served in a quick service format and thus, they ventured into Indian QSR segment to address the local customers with its Innovative concept.

“The Usp of Hello Curry is ‘Indian Food with western quick service efficiency’, many of the QSRs present nationwide today are catering a niche with western products. Hello Curry will be unique with its positioning as the first QSR with complete range of Indian cuisine,” says P Sandeep, Co-Founder, Hello Curry.

Placing it right

Quick service is one of the challenges Indian QSR players are facing with Indian food, as the main preparation itself takes 15 to 20 minutes for preparing a dish. The restaurants have to innovate on processes and technology to develop ways to serve a customer flat in 2 minutes across the counter or 30 minutes in case of a home delivery.

After years of learning from global players, Indian QSRs are now quick to adapt to social media. They are now trying their hands at cracking the social recipe to success by posting new recipes on Facebook and Twitter or promoting it through Instagram and they are becoming quite close to cracking the code of the social marketing strategy which entered India via global route.

“As we are all young entrepreneurs, we are from the tech world of today. Hence, social media is one of the biggest assets of marketing. We are available on Facebook, Instagram, Zomato and we are connecting our consumers through WhatsApp. We are also doing PR and media activities, but I am not in the mainline PR advertising because I believe that word-of mouth is the best tool for advertising, where food works as a marketing tool itself,” says Sachet Shah, Go Panda (one of the partner).

While many international chains have set its footprint across the country, the Indian home grown chains have fought bravely to catch up with them. Cafe Coffe Day, Yo! China and Haldiram’s have set the traditional scene in India and are also leveraging social media by rightly placing themselves in the social gathering.

“There are many reasons for the success of our restaurant. But the major reason is that we operate in the Chinese food segment, which is the most desired cuisine among youth as they are the main consumers today. When we talk about eating out trend, I think we are operating in a segment which is massively catering to the youth. We create fun at our restaurant, we are value for money restaurant, our restaurants are trendy, we offer innovation and are present at the right location. The strategies help us gain an edge over others. We are here for 11 years building brand because brand brings consistency and the ability to stay requires time,” shares Ashish Kapur, MD & Co-Founder, Yo! China.

Thus, we can say that the growing trend in the QSR segment is becoming more of a social engagement rather than restaurants coming up with new products and keeping it to their specific target group.

 
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