From Karachi to Dehradun to Indore and Gujarat, the Hocco and HRPL chain of restaurants has explored places and won hearts across India.
Introduction
It all began in 1944, in Colonial India, in Karachi before the partition (present-day Pakistan). When Satish Chona an engineer at BOAC (now British Airways), started working at his uncle’s restaurant after his day job in order to supplement his family income. There he developed his passion for food and also learnt the art of making ice-creams. But little did he know that his small idea will grow into something so big one day!
Early Journey
Post partition, Mr. Chona along with his family, moved to Dehradun (India) where he started with a small shop. Unfortunately, it didn’t do well, one of the major contributing factor being the unfavourable cold climate. Later, he moved to Indore and then eventually on few close friends’ suggestion, he moved to Ahmedabad (Gujarat). He was told that “People in Ahmedabad have a sweet-tooth and the climate is warm enough and well suited for the business”.
Interestingly, the shop where it all started in year 1944, still in Karachi but is now operated by a different owner.
- 1944 Restaurant,
- HOCCO Eatery (named after House of Chonas Collaborative),
- Huber and Holly (serving premium fresh churned ice-creams and fresh food such as croissant sandwiches, pizzas & pasta)
- Cloud kitchen
HRPL Switched to Petpooja in 2018 and the Chonas haven’t looked back since!
After years of using various Point of Sales systems, “We were on a lookout for a POS that would not only help automate and digitalise the business but also help us get through the challenges Covid-19 presented”
-says Somesh Jha, General IT Manager at HRPL
(Left) Mr. Japesh Jayadhevan- COO at HRPL, (Right) Mr Somesh Jha- General IT manager at HRPL
Problem
Solution
“Thank god we had Petpooja with us during Covid-19 lockdown. Though businesses around the world suffered due to pandemic, we did quite well. We were able to take online orders and use deliver services. We wouldn’t have been able to offer delivery or online services with our old POS system. What really sets Petpooja aside is its direct integration with different third party aggregators like Zomato, Swiggy etc. Because of which we were able to take huge volumes of order and serve more customers. Petpooja helped us transition from regular business to home delivery”.
- Taking Orders like never before
Petpooja’s Online Ordering enables all the major third party apps like Zomato, Swiggy, Amazon, DotPe, etc, to send orders directly to the restaurant POS. It enables the restaurant to manage all menus and raw material stock directly from the system. In addition, it also allows to manage and view all physical, online, and delivery orders in one place. No need to switch screens or tabs to accept orders, you can manage all your online orders from a single screen itself.
Earlier the staff used to come under a lot of pressure if they did not accept orders within 30 seconds. As that 30 seconds acceptance rate is valued very highly by Zomato & Swiggy. If restaurants accept order immediately, it organically gets listed on top in Zomato & Swiggy. With Petpooja’s auto-acceptance feature, orders are accepted irrespective of what the cashier is doing at that point of time. They added, this is the only solution which has provided with multiple dashboards i.e., both touch-based and keyboard option. They believe that Petpooja has helped them with ease and speed of doing business.
Before, where the staff used to process 10 orders a minute, now they process around 60 orders. The volume has gone through the roof.
- Data management has never been so easier
“So far whatever POS system we have used before Petpooja, they have never been app-friendly. They have always been a website version of it, Which you can use on mobile phones to evaluate data”. Petpooja gives us a more comprehensive view, like: The amount of sales done, No. of tables occupied, etc, can be easily seen and instant decisions pertaining to them can be made. “In fact there are times when I call the outlet and say that you just gave discount to somebody, why did you give that?”
– Japesh Jayadhevan (COO at hrpl)
Data visibility and availability has increased. Earlier, this was a pressing issue as all senior departments & operation teams were dependent on their MIS department for collecting and presenting the data to the management. It was a long and time-consuming process which in turn resulted into delayed decision-making.
Now with access to Real-time data and descriptive analytical tools, Petpooja’s POS helps us to run business more effectively than ever. Moreover, now all directors can directly have a look at the data anytime and from anywhere.
With Petpooja’s simplified reporting, we had a complete picture of our operations and reports on finger tips. You don’t need to open multiple reports to see how your restaurant is doing. Ultimately, quick decisions and actions can be undertaken.
- Reduced workload on staff
“We were always looking out for ways to make work easier for the cashier as he/she has a lot of things to do- attend home delivery phone calls, make bills for people standing at the parlour and also ensure that he settles the bill for dine-in customers”.
The use of Petpooja’s Desktop Billing Software allows your biller to manage high order volumes with ease. It also reduces the amount of time staff dedicates to manual tasks, ultimately enabling them to focus on other important tasks.
Out of all the decisions we haven taken from Senior management’s standpoint, it is for the first time where our cashier, billers, servers have come back to us thanking and saying that you have implemented a very good system, making their lives so much simpler. Moreover, the system is very intuitive for users, any layman person can understand how to use the application. Hence, it doesn’t require much of a training.
- Conclusion
