Accuvia caught up with two of online ordering provider ONOSYS’  partners, Senior Product Manager, Alex Yakubovich, and Senior Sales Manager, Stan Garber, to find out what they see as the major trends in this area, and where web ordering is headed.
 
Yakubovich believes there will be more intelligent solutions. ‘There’s a lot to be done with Artificial Intelligence,’ he said, ‘especially in restaurants. Already we’re seeing technology like HyperActive Bob, and more sophisticated POS, with customized interfaces. We see these technologies getting even smarter.’ He told how ONOSYS is using study groups to attain more intuitive systems and interfaces for its customers, to make it easier for the consumer to perform web or cell ordering.

Yakubovich thinks there will also be more mobile solutions, and that already we are seeing more innovative providers, such as Mobo Systems, and a marked increase in customer demand for text ordering applications. Although the bigger chains were the early adopters, straight after Papa John’s began to offer this ordering method, now even smaller restaurants are taking an interest. ‘Most of our customers are asking about it,’ he said, adding that less enquiries are being made about online ordering, although for some franchisees web ordering is still a new concept.

Developing more mobile solutions is part of ONOSYS’ future strategy. The company is looking to create a platform for remote ordering, for use in restaurants, which would include access to web and text ordering interfaces. ‘We want to be the platform that gets into stores,’ said Yakubovich, ‘and offer more mobility, making it easier to tap into the POS, and for other platforms to tap into ours.’

Another trend seen is for multilingual capability. Online ordering is always a good option for non-English speakers, as they have more time to think about what they want, and don’t have to speak on the phone. ‘A lot can be lost in translation,’ added Stan Garber, Senior Sales Manager. He told how there is a trend for developing more dynamic, multilingual options, such as tracing default languages on the browser, so that the ordering page is put into the language of the customer, but orders still print out in English in the restaurant.

The two see 2008 as a year where restaurant chains that already offer online ordering will be looking at international expansion of this, especially into the large, emerging markets, such as China and India, where web, smart phone, and text ordering is gaining momentum.

Finally, we discuss the question of convergence, and Yakubovich believes this is inevitable, and that it will take over fully within the next 18 to 24 months. ‘Soon, everyone will have a converged platform,’ he predicts. ‘There’s no point in having multiple providers, with different solutions, and having to integrate all of these, so there will be a platform that supports it all, and this is already happening.’ This platform will mean that once a customer has ordered food once from a specific restaurant, by any method, any other method he chooses to order by after that – be it cell, phone, or web, will mean he is recognized, as there will already be a record of him. This convergence of customer data serves to offer the maximum convenience to the consumer.

An interesting, final point that Yakubovich made is that although customers are using all these different order methods, how do you market to people when you don’t know where they’re ordering from? ‘To market across all would be overload – so I believe this will be once of the bigger challenges for operators: How best to reach their customer base and create sales, over a range of different interfaces?’

By Rachelle Claret - rclaret@accuvia.com

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