Exclusive Interview with Shaival Desai, Vice President of Growth at Petpooja

The incorporation of software solutions in the restaurant business is growing these days with the rise of online delivery and instant orders. Petpooja is one of the leading restaurants PoS software developers in India. Now after a decade in business, Petpooja has made its name for being the simplest yet most powerful restaurant management software in the market. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Shaival Desai, Vice President of Growth at Petpooja.

1. Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.

Petpooja is one of the leading restaurant PoS software developers in India. Now after a decade in business, Petpooja has made its name for being the most simple yet powerful restaurant management software in the market. Petpooja is used by 30,000+ restaurants in India, UAE, and South Africa. Currently active in 140+ cities, the brand is assertively expanding nationally and internationally. The Petpooja PoS is developed to cater to the needs of all kinds of outlet types like dine-in, bars, bakeries, QSRs, Cloud kitchens, etc.

2. With what mission and objectives, the company was set up? In short, tell us about your journey since the inception of the company?

We started in 2011 as a simple delivery platform for corporates. We would take mass orders and coordinate with the restaurants to deliver food. It was then, that our co-founders Parthiv Patel and Apurv Patel detected severe loopholes in the traditional method of restaurant management. That became our motivation to build software that helps SMEs to manage and upscale their restaurant businesses. Our idea was to develop a product that simplifies restaurant operations and helps the owner manage his business efficiently. By working closely with these restaurateurs, Petpooja understood what exactly the client wanted and developed a competent POS module. By powering 30,000+ restaurants now we have become more robust in understanding market trends and evolving ourselves as per the need of the hour. This philosophy has also been the base of our expansion internationally.

3. Mention some of the awards, achievements, recognition, and clients' feedback that you feel are notable and valuable for the company.

When Honest group of restaurants became our client in 2015, it was the first major milestone for us and then there was no stopping us. We kept effectively upscaling our PoS software and many more big clients like Sankalp, Hocco eatery, La Pinoz, U.S. Pizza started trusting Petpooja as their go-to POS. Not just regionally, we started getting national-level recognition for our efforts and success. We are proud to contribute around 10% of India's F&B industry's GDP. Petpooja processes more than 20% of the daily order volume of Zomato and Swiggy. In 2020, the company received funding of $1.9 million from a B2B e-commerce unicorn named Udaan. And recently in 2021, we received funding of $4.5 million from Udaan, Aroa Ventures, and GVFL limited. We are proud to announce that we have partnered with Times Of India for Times Food and Nightlife Awards 2022 which will be conducted in 11 cities of India. This event will award more than 800 restaurants in 60+ categories for their valuable contribution to the Indian restaurant industry.

4. Brief us about the proactive Founder/CEO of the company and his/her contributions to the company and the industry.

Parthiv Patel who is the co-founder of the company has always led the ship from the front. He has been instrumental in building a merchant-first culture at the company. This has allowed us to create a product that deeply resonates with the customer's needs. This ideology has also created a superior customer-support culture which makes sure that we can assist our clients in the best way. His strategic vision has not just helped in the growth of Petpooja but has also shaped the industry and created unprecedented processes to assist the customers.

5. Please brief us about the products/services/solutions you provide to your customers and how do they get value out of it              

We always have aimed to make software that is a one-stop solution for all restaurant types. Today, all PoS companies are integrated with aggregators such as Zomato, Swiggy, etc. But when we started integrating with FoodPanda back in 2016, we were the first one to do so. We were one of the first restaurant PoS globally that worked closely with their German team to ensure APIs on their end was created in a way that allowed PoS systems and aggregators to communicate orders and sync the menu. Integrations like these have significantly reduced the time taken to accept aggregator orders, reduced order cancellations, and simplified workflow for billers. This in turn has increased customer satisfaction and contributed to increasing online order volumes for aggregators and revenue for our restaurant partners.

One of our biggest USPs is the simplicity of our software. Our PoS is built not just for the biller or the restaurant staff, but also for the owner. With our software, the owners get to choose and regulate how the business works in their absence. This type of transparency is another key aspect of our POS. With 150+ third-party integrations, Petpooja PoS enables owners to handle all their operations from a single dashboard. Our Suppliers Hub feature helps owners buy kitchen equipment and inventory from more than 7,000 certified sellers without paying any commission to Petpooja.

6. Kindly share your point of view on the current scenario of Big Data Analytics and its future.

Big data was a buzzword that originated from the massive data sets that were being generated by card companies and social networks. However, both these types of companies have very organized and effective ways of using such data. In a more generalized term, Big Data is meaningless unless it has valuable business insights that can be derived from it. Also, the term has fallen out of fashion since the early 2010s when processing large amounts of data was a challenge which is not the case now with the significantly increased computing power that we have today. The term we mainly focus on is Data Analytics and Insights. No matter the amount of data, it's all about finding precise insights and levers that can significantly impact business.

7. Kindly mention some of the major challenges the company has faced till now.

In terms of analytics, we haven't faced many challenges because rather than focusing on the sheer amount of data, we start with the simple questions we want answers to. Following this framework, we believe that any amount of data can be processed and often leads to processing much less data than if you just go ahead with ingesting and processing massive amounts of data.

8. What is your biggest USP that differentiates the company from competitors?

Petpooja Analytics is one of our largest differentiators for restaurants. Most POS and ERP companies have fixed reports and structures that allow managers and owners to see what is happening. However, these reports are standardized across all users and are not interactive. Petpooja Analytics is a fresh way to look at data that the owners and managers want. With Petpooja Analytics, users can get the exact reports that they want to run their business. We understand that a standalone bakery has very different reporting requirements than a chain of breweries. We recognized this need in the market and thus, created an analytics dashboard that allows restaurateurs to look at data that is relevant to them. Petpooja Analytics is also interactive, which means that they can click on a certain section of a chart to drill down exactly on that data. They can also compare different periods allowing them to get a much better comparative picture of their outlet. We also provide a host of standard templates that they can customize according to their requirement (add columns, graphs, etc) to be in better control of their business.