Quality means adhering to specifications of the customer
Quality means adhering to specifications of the customer

In a candid chat with Franchise India, Pawan Raj Kumar talks about the Technological advances, the supply chain management process, uniformity and the value position in the market place.

How can technological advances be smartly integrated into existing setup to improve the efficiency and profitability of a restaurant?

I think they should be included into a kitchen because the world is changing very fast; the Indian demography is changing very fast. We are very young country so people want things very fast and this can happen only if you have new technology. There is always new things happening and this is only possible if you smartly integrate the existing setup.

What is the supply chain management process at your company?

It is very obvious that the supply chain management process at my company is very different. We have got very good supply chain management process at the company. Some of them are really very big QSRs and we have to go through lots of audit and certification which are against the quality of product, consistency of product and also manage our own people. We have to submit the reports regularly and of course the quality is something which is checked by everybody. Even for consistency of the product, how we manage the consistency, how we incorporate hygiene into our design we have to get certification. We have to give enough information about how much cleaning we are providing to our own people and how much we are managing their problem.

How can the company like yours say, Continental India can maintain supply chain uniformity in product, price and Quality?

Quality is something which is a very big name. Quality means adhering to specifications, adhering to time of delivery, adhering to the requirement of the customer. We do this kind of things by maintaining proper spreadsheets and by giving proper training to the people; we have to keep proper stock of the things. We have to have some kind of planning predicting the demand of the customer. We work very regularly with our customers to understand their clients for future and work backwards and get ready for the actions.

How do you maintain the value position within the market place?

Value is maintained by first of all doing the cost engineering. That is one aspect about the price-the cost of the customer. However, there is another aspect of providing more value to the same rupee spent-how much capacity of value you may provide, how much more efficiency less energy consumption you can do and also how much you can make your product versatile. The same product can be used for many things. So it is a result of consistent research and development which allows us to give more and more value to the same product that you are giving to the customer.

What should one look for in the right distribution partner and process?

We actually do not have a channel or partner. When we supply to our customer, we supply directly to the customer, to the end user. I think a distribution network should be such that the distributor is allowed to provide good service.

How did you feel getting accolades at the IRC?

It is always exciting as well as humbling because it is a very tough market and you are recognised by your customer in this way. It is very encouraging and helps us to get excited about what we are doing.

Please tell something about your company and your journey as I think your company was the first to get NCF certification?

Our company is more than 30 years old now.  Since our company was started there was one basic philosophy we followed. We wanted to be the leader and to stays like that it is not about doing the business but also staying in the industry. So, our goal was always to do something new and become better at what we have done before. We did a lot of things which were first in the country. NSF is the latest one where we were the first one to do joint venture and fee certification, iso certification and various things. We are the first company to have launched our own brand of refrigeration, known as Frostline. This is the only product in our country which is of international standards.

Are you expanding in International markets also? Who all are your clients?

Yes, we do provide our equipment to national and international chains. We are providing equipments to KFC in Africa and many other chains like that. We also have distributors in South Asia and Middle East.

In the restaurant industry, we work mostly with the QSRs like Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Cafe Coffee Day and Haldiram. Nando’s is also a very big customer of ours. Then there are lots of standalone restaurants where we supply our equipments.

 
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