Foodpanda wants to deliver more than good eats with these restaurant management tools

Foodpanda is looking to make inroads into restaurants, where it believes diners are likely to spend more if ordering systems are fully digitalized and powered by artificial intelligence (AI). 

The Asian food delivery operator wants to help its network of restaurants do so alongside its sister company, TabSquare. Both businesses are subsidiaries of Berlin-based Delivery Hero, which acquired TabSquare 1.5 years ago and Foodpanda in 2016. 

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Founded in 2012, TabSquare offers software tools that help restaurants manage orders and process payments, letting diners browse digital menus and place their orders by scanning a QR code with their mobile phone. The software company has operations in 10 markets, including Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, Thailand, and Sweden. 

Foodpanda in recent years has expanded its services to include grocery delivery and dine-in voucher redemption. It operates in 11 markets across Asia, including Taiwan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. More than 8,000 restaurants in eight markets offer dine-in deals via the mobile app. 

Foodpanda and TabSquare now will collaborate to help restaurants digitize their operations, spanning ordering, payment, and customer engagement. Doing so can improve these businesses’ bottom line, where ordering via digital menus can push up table bills by 10% and cut staff costs by half, said Foodpanda CEO Jakob Angele, pointing to stats from TabSquare’s clientele. 

He noted that food deliveries account for about 15% of orders processed by restaurants, with dine-in orders accounting for the remaining 85%. 

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Together, Foodpanda and TabSquare are targeting to handle 120 of their customers’ food transactions each month, Angele said. Restaurants on their network also can leverage data and predictive tools to improve their customer engagement and service. 

These AI-powered applications track and analyze customers’ purchase history, so their subsequent visits and experience can be personalized according to food preference. Restaurants also can identify trends related to price sensitivity and volume. 

They then can use the data insights to offer tailored promotions to retain or attract diners, according to TabSquare’s co-founder Anshul Gupta. 

Citing Delivery Hero’s German headquarters, Angele noted that the company’s data use adheres to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 

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With growing interest in generative AI, Gupta added that there was potential for the technology to be used, for instance, to help restaurants create images for their marketing campaigns. It also can be tapped to gather and manage customer feedback, he said, adding that TabSquare currently is exploring how it can leverage and integrate generative AI with its current services. 

Angele pointed to opportunities in using the technology to enhance customer services but noted that some caution would be necessary to address risks such as hallucinations. 

For now, the two subsidiaries will be focusing their joint efforts on helping restaurants with digitizing their operations, starting with their networks in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Philippines.