Nirula's dines on SAP; Zen Gourmet served

MUMBAI: Nirula’s, a specialist in the family style restaurant business in India, appears to be leveraging technology for next level of innovation. It seems that pressures of the present economic scenario on an already low margin food industry have encouraged this hospitality chain to continue steaming ahead by reducing costs and improving business processes.

Nirula's has consolidated its business processes onto a single SAP platform. Marking the recent launch of their 65th outlet in a joint partnership with HPCL, Nirula’s adopted the SAP solution to innovate, assess and re-define its business model faster in order to maintain market leadership. Adopting SAP for consumer products is expected to fuel Nirula’s growth by enabling greater enterprise wide visibility, improved operating margins, and process transparency whilst strengthening stakeholder, customer and partner relationships, adds a press release.

“We are glad to be associated with SAP. The food industry is constantly evolving and we, at Nirula’s, required a technological partner to enable us to adapt to the changing circumstances,” said Samir Kuckreja, CEO and MD, Nirulas. “The creation of the online platform has given us greater visibility in cash flows from procurement to sales. We now have increased clarity into food preferences across each of our restaurants. As a result, we can stock our restaurants suitably and drive promotions accordingly at each outlet.”

“Our preconfigured solution ‘Zen Gourmet’ built on the SAP platform, has provided Nirula’s with a system that is scalable and reliable and enables the organization to derive immediate business benefits. As a part of our extended programme, post this implementation, we will continue to support our users to ensure that we bring innovation and improvement in the business process and ensure value for our customers,” said Prakash Tripathi, Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing, Zensar-OBT Technologies.

Advanced enterprise solutions in food service industry provide deeper insights into customer trends. The Food Industry, like any other fast moving goods industry, is looking at upgrading their technology inputs in order to ensure higher return on investment.  They are looking at investing in advanced enterprise applications to understand the needs of the customer and especially to integrate their production and distribution cycle on one platform. According to Ernst and Young IT Investment Trends Survey 2009, ERP continues to be top priority for CIOs. In today’s evolving business environment, processing and distributing have a great deal of opportunity to leverage ERP to enhance revenue, productivity, and overall effectiveness. ERP solutions can help companies increase operational efficiency, coordinate global supply chains, and modernize their warehouse and logistics functions.

“Nirula’s has been extremely successful in gaining great customer loyalty. As a brand, it has constantly broken stereotypes and influenced consumer taste, evolving into an avant garde enterprise,” said Debdeep Sengupta, Vice President – SME & Channels, SAP Indian Subcontinent. “This collaboration is designed to help Nirula’s respond to market challenges by giving them access to consumer insights. We wish Nirula’s all the best in their endeavor and are confident that technology will play a crucial role in fuelling their continued growth.”