Oddle provides eateries with one-stop tech solutions to grow

Singapore

MORE businesses are turning to technology to provide services to customers. This can be illustrated in the food industry where online marketplaces such as Deliveroo and GrabFood have made food delivery easier with the use of technological solutions.

As the food delivery service boomed, some hurdles to having your restaurant hosted on these online marketplaces have emerged. The large commissions and competition between restaurants featured on these sites have made some business owners cautious about joining.

This is where Oddle comes in, offering an alternative to restaurateurs who want to bring their businesses online without the drawback of losing their restaurant's identity among a sea of featured restaurants on a single site.

F&B owners can choose the look and feel of their shopping cart and management style of their online food delivery services. This gives them the freedom and control to carve out their personal branding online while building a loyal customer base. Customers are able to directly order from these personalised sites.

Businesses can also view Oddle's analytics module to determine what kind of marketing campaign is suited for their customer base. On top of that, Oddle is able to provide logistics support if the restaurant needs help delivering food to its customers.

Oddle was started in March 2014 by Jonathan Lim Zeyan and co-founder Pua Yong Xiang when the online ordering industry had not yet matured.

Mr Lim recalled how logistics companies were still starting out and the industry did not have a sufficiently well-developed infrastructure.

"At that point of time, it was difficult for many restaurants to believe that their own business had the potential in delivery and takeouts," Mr Lim said.

Mr Lim explained that this is why smaller businesses were attracted to online marketplaces such as GrabFood and Foodpanda then as they were able to address the demand for marketing and delivery like McDelivery, which they were not able to afford before.

Attributing the rise of technology usage in restaurants to the government's initiatives, Mr Lim said: "The government's initiative in supporting the adoption of technology has also been immensely helpful," citing the Innovation and Capability Vouchers (ICV) grant and the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) as examples.

The ICV awards SMEs S$5,000, giving companies the ability to upgrade their efficiency and to expand and grow, while the PSG aims to support companies keen on adopting IT solutions and equipment.

Mr Lim, who is also an owner of an F&B brand himself, could understand the frustration when it came to managing delivery and takeaway orders.

"What we want to do is bring down the cost of owning your own delivery platform, so that every restaurant can have their own McDelivery, or online delivery platform so to speak, levelling the technological and operational playing field across the industry."

Oddle hopes to bridge the gap between restaurants and consumers. Elaborating on this point, Mr Lim said, "We have a dedicated customer success team to guide F&B owners on the best practices and teach them techniques like back-to-basics marketing which can help grow and take their business to the next level. This revolves around awareness of the brand as well as customer engagement."

Observing that customers forge stronger connections with F&B businesses in physical stores, Oddle makes sure that they do not neglect offline customer relations, placing importance on offline to online (O2O) marketing.

A wide variety of stores have signed up with Oddle, ranging from bakeries to restaurants. Some examples include Baskin-Robbins, Butter Studio, JW Marriott and Kim San Leng.

Oddle is currently expanding and growing rapidly in Malaysia and Taiwan, growing more than 200 per cent a year in restaurant sign-ups across all territories. They are hoping to expand their reach further to more major cities in Asia.

On top of that, Oddle is planning on introducing Marketing-as-a-Service (MaaS) to their restaurant partners, directly running marketing campaigns for them instead of just advising.

When asked about their concerns for the future of expansion in South-east Asia, Mr Lim admitted that "entering a new country could be like starting up all over again" as the country may not have as developed an infrastructure as Oddle benefited from when it first started in Singapore.

However, Mr Lim is undeterred.

"What we want is to enable restaurateurs to use the best technology to grow their restaurants, and this will be our guiding principle as we charge forward into the future."