Cupcakes from Teacosy are sold alongside angel figurines and furniture.

As technology advances and business concepts evolve, an increasing number of F&B entrepreneurs and service solution providers are thinking out-of-the-box and making life easier for customers.

By innovating, F&B entrepreneurs enjoy reduced overheads, better customer service and additional revenue. Customers feel more satisfied too. In this article, we chart four recent trends in the F&B industry that have dramatically improved how businesses are run.

If you’re a restaurateur or cafe owner, do look at these trends and consider implementing them in your business.

Managing orders wirelessly

The wireless paging system from Food Icon.

Customers often struggle to get the attention of busy waitresses. Staff also find the handling of order tickets a struggle at times.

To solve these problems, food eateries are adopting new wireless communication devices from companies like Food Icon to make the ordering process a breeze. Swensen’s and Aston Express are some of its customers.

One of its products, Wi-Serve, is a paging service that allows restaurant operators to quickly and easily contact their patrons. It can be used to inform customers when an order is ready to be collected or when a table is available.

Consisting of one transmitter with many handheld coaster pagers, restaurant operators can enter the pager number into the transmitter and press ‘send’, allowing patrons to receive the alert on their coaster pagers immediately.

Says Vincent Shi, co-founder of the company: “The increasingly tight labour market is a strain on the F&B industry. Paging technology can help F&B operators improve productivity and efficiency in spite of limited manpower.”

“Matured countries such as Japan and Korea which encountered manpower shortage many years before Singapore, are heavily reliant on paging technology in their F&B industry.”

F&B outlets are no longer just selling food

Running mixed businesses from the same outlet is becoming a more popular trend among F&B operators. TeaCosy is one example: It serves comfort food and sells angel figurines, lifestyle accessories and classic vintage furniture at the same time.

Daphne Tan, owner of Teacosy, has two retail partners housed within its premises: Ten Thousand Angels (angel figurines, lifestyle accessories) and A Thousand Tales (Scandinavian retro furniture).

“We were all friends to begin with and found that each had our strengths to offer which complemented the space we had. We wanted to offer something unique and niche for consumers, especially those who shop for the angels in-store because they come in and marvel at the ambiance. We also give them an opportunity to dine in-house.”

Pocket Full Of Posies, another unique concept store in the form of a floral retail cum café has outlets in VivoCity and Plaza Singapura.

From the very beginning, they’ve merged both concepts into one as economics dictated it. They worked with the landlords who were able to think-out-of-the-box and allow a unit to be mixed-use.

Online reservations are making restaurants more efficient

Reserveit.sg is a pioneer of online restaurant reservation in Singapore.

When competing with a crowd of hungry diners, the best way to get into a restaurant is to reserve a table. But finding the right restaurant and then making a reservation isn’t always easy. That is where online reservation websites like Reserveit.sg and Chope are built to the benefit of both diners and F&B operators.

Reserveit.sg enables diners to search for the most suitable restaurant, reserve a table, and receive confirmation almost instantly. This differs greatly from the usual telephone call to book a table.

Jesper Gustafsson, director of business development, says: “We have seen a steady increase both in participating restaurants and members on our website. It is only in Asia that restaurants and diners have not utilised this tool for their mutual benefit, convenience and efficiency.”

Describing the benefits that such technology entails, he says: “Using such a system helps diners eliminate time calling multiple restaurants, not having their calls answered, waiting for the email reply in vain or worry that the staff didn’t take the reservation down accurately.”

He adds: “Restaurant operators increase their revenue by getting more reservations and are able to organize their restaurant and optimise seating times and seating arrangements in ways not possible with the pen-and-paper system that they are used to.”

Payments over the cloud

Ordering and paying for food at eateries is becoming simpler and more convenient with the integration of new technology into the ordering process. A good case study would be eOrderNPay, a cloud-based menu ordering and payment solution developed by B-Secure Technologies and Swiff.

eOrderNPay cuts down waiting time for diners by providing interactive e-menus, as well as a faster checkout and payment process. F&B operators would also gain from a reduction in overheads and indirectly provide better customer service in terms of shorter waiting time and an efficient order-payment system.

Here’s how the system works:

• Customers browse the eMenu, select his choices and place his orders all from a tablet.
• Payment transactions takes seven seconds to complete with a tap and swipe of a credit card over 3G or WiFi. The transaction is highly secure and authenticated.
• An eReceipt will be sent to the customer’s email account instantaneously.

Conclusion

Restaurateurs and café owners have been traditionally slow to adapt new technology. But that is slowly changing.

Helped by the rising ubiquity of 3G and WiFi Internet access, and also the openness of younger entrepreneurs who are less resistant to technology and different business models, the F&B industry is prime for a shake-up.

Rising rental costs do also play a part — entrepreneurs are forced to think out of the box and merge seemingly disparate businesses into one.

About the author

Julian Abraham Chua is a freelance writer whose works were featured in Strait Times’s Youthink section previously and regularly writes for various magazines including NTUC Lifestyle, Spin Asia, Timeout Singapore and Campus Magazine.  Graduating from Nanyang Polytechnic not too long ago and majoring in business management, he along with his friends, started a company YTY Group and is now an established entreprenuer with his own distribution business in gifts and stationery. His passion for the pen was ignited when he started writing for his polytchinic’s online news portal and interviewed various rising sports stars including footballer Hariss Harun and national gymnast Lim Heem Wei.

After being at SGE for about seven months now, I’ve noticed something about Singapore entrepreneurs: We’re pretty adept at taking a business concept from overseas and applying it locally.

Which is fine by the way — as long as it isn’t blind copying.

The latest to follow in this fine tradition is Singapore-based Connoisseur Club, which is essentially an online restaurant reservation site combined with a group buying site. Think Open Table and Groupon‘s love child.

Connoisseur Club was started by Bel Hwang and a partner this year. It is inspired by Savored, a discount dining site for high-end restaurants that is gaining traction in the United States. Savored was on track to generate US$25M in sales last year.

I’m curious to see if Connoisseur Club will take off in Singapore.

An interesting feature of this site is that customers must pay a fully-refundable S$3 to S$5 reservation fee. The fee is supposed to serve as a confirmation of your attendance. If you want to cancel and retrieve the fee, you need to do so before 24 hours from the date of reservation.

I’m not quite buying it. Why bother troubling the consumer with a fee that is refundable, when practically no other restaurant I know of does this?

Savored, on the other hand, has a non-refundable reservation fee, which makes more sense. I certainly won’t mind paying a fee in exchange for curation of the best restaurants in town, especially if the fee is offset by a steep discount from a posh restaurant.

Another intriguing feature of the service is that discounts are charged discreetly to your bill — which I like.

Trust me, I’ve dined at a restaurant after purchasing a deal from a group buying site once, and the process is unpleasant. The waiter looked confused when we showed her the discount coupon on the iPhone.

The manager then swooped in, requesting that my girlfriend and I present a physical copy of the deal receipt.

We ended up using the hotel’s business center to do the printing — how ludicrous is that?

So I like the fact that Connoisseur Club promises to make the whole process seamless and fuss-free.

Discounts for the various restaurants can range from 5 percent off the total bill to as much as 25 percent.

But I wonder though if these steep discounts will subject the restaurants to the same sort of predicament faced by merchants in their involvement with group buying sites?

Namely, will customers who’ve bitten into the deals return? Also, will brand equity erode, especially since customers would start associating these restaurants with a lower price point?

Also, the startup should really do something about the look and feel of the site. It looks dated and drab — something that belonged five years ago and not in this spanking new decade.

A bigger problem with the Connoisseur Club’s user interface though, occurs at the reservation page of a restaurant. For some reason, I can only make a reservation a few days in advance — which is a big letdown. Chope, on the other hand, lets me book a table on Valentine’s Day, right now.

What’s worse is that instead of telling me that the date is not available, the site tells me that the slot is “fully booked”, which is utterly confusing.

These are little kinks the startup needs to iron out.

Nonetheless, I think the Connoisseur Club is a welcome addition as it brings something new to the group buying scene in Singapore. It might actually have a better chance of surviving, since it probably has a better business model — a combination of a transaction fee from the deals, plus either a subscription fee or one-time fee charged to restaurants for using the online table management system.

However, there are already dozens of group buying sites in Singapore and a plethora of online reservation sites that have emerged last year.

This new startup faces some stiff competition.

In the restaurant-eat-restaurant world of the F&B industry, few local brands have stood out as clearly as Crystal Jade, one of the market leaders in Singapore. Celebrating its 20th anniversary last year with a refreshing of its identity that involves extensive refurbishments at its restaurants, Crystal Jade enjoyed a turnover of S$240M (US$189M) in 2010.

Over the last three years, it has expanded aggressively, investing S$25M (together with partners) to open 39 new outlets across Asia. This year, the F&B group will sink in a further S$17M to open 17 new outlets across eight cities. These efforts helped it to achieve a targeted 10 percent to 15 percent yearly growth in sales.

Beginning from a single outlet in Cairnhill in 1991 — which was closed and reopened with a Kitchen outlet in Shaw Plaza and a Palace outlet in Ngee Ann City – the group now has more than 100 outlets sprawled across 18 cities in nine countries. Half of these are in Singapore while the other 50 are in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and more.

To find out more about Crystal Jade’s longevity in the hypercompetitive F&B market, I had the pleasure of speaking to Mr Ip Yiu Tung, its Group Chairman and CEO. Joining the company in 1992, he was responsible for the group’s sterling performance in the last two decades. With a passion for pianos, the former engineer by training is surprisingly soft spoken with a gentle demeanour despite being the chieftain of such a large enterprise.

Three Keys to Success

Keeping things simple and straightforward, Mr Ip’s business philosophy is embodied in three basic principles:

1) Offering great food;

2) Providing attractive service; and

3) Caring about the dining ambiance.

While innovation is part and parcel of Crystal Jade’s strategy, the group has not veered away from its core competence in traditional Chinese and East Asian cuisine. To ensure that every dimension of the business runs like clockwork, Mr Ip travels extensively to his outlets around the region. He also has his pulse on the business, knowing its ins-and-outs down to the nitty gritty details.

Sourcing and Buying Fresh

Sacrificing profitability for customer experience, Crystal Jade spares no expense in sourcing for quality ingredients in its dishes. Mr Ip shared that its restaurants actually imported higher quality soya sauce from Singapore (which costed about 23 RMB per bottle) rather than buy cheaper alternatives costing 4 RMB in China. They also use hazelnut oil sourced from the UK for their Yusheng dishes, giving it greater fragrance compared to its competitors who use cheaper peanut oil.

Known for its roast meats, Crystal Jade also purchases 49 day-old ducks from a farm in Ipoh. Unlike the more conventional 40-day old birds that other restaurants may purchase, a 49 day-old bird is lighter and leaner with more muscle mass and less fat. Pound for pound, Crystal Jade is willing to pay more to ensure that customers enjoy a premium dining experience.

Innovating to Please the Customer

To understand what its increasingly demanding customers desire, the Group conducts regular surveys to gain their inputs. These insights help to spark new menu ideas or service improvements. It also operates a full-time customer care team since 2005 with a hotline and email for customers to contact them during retail hours. A service call bell is also installed at the tables of new restaurants like Scott’s Square.

While the group is focused on traditional Chinese cuisine, it hasn’t stopped inventing new ways of serving its customers. The group was one of the first to offer takeaway Yusheng back in the old days, and has recently pioneered a new dish called the Pagoda of Eight Treasures. Every quarter, its menu would have a new chef’s special, and seasonal promotions help to keep its customers coming back.

Responding to feedback from businessmen and PMET customers, Crystal Jade has recently launched a new Nourishing Treats menu that combines fresh, high quality ingredients with taste, texture and health. I had a chance to sample some of these dishes and thoroughly enjoyed myself without feeling the typical guilt accompanying a trip to a Chinese restaurant.

Recruiting, Retaining and Motivating Staff

People are the most important resource in the manpower-intensive restaurant business. Running the Crystal Group chain of restaurants is an army of more than 4,000 chefs, waiters, operations, and office staff. To keep them happy, Mr Ip adopts a simple management mantra of giving them respect and allowing them the freedom to innovate. Believing in staff empowerment, managers are free to handle their subordinates.

To ensure that it recruits the most talented chefs — considered the lifeblood of the F&B business — Crystal Jade gives aspiring joinees a cooking test. In a manner reminiscent of Iron Chef, candidates must cook in front of a committee and pass the taste and food presentation test. Once they join the group, however, all chefs follow a strict training programme to ensure that they could meet the high quality and standards needed by the Group.

The Road Ahead

For the journey ahead, Crystal Jade is paying particular focus on marketing strategies that help it to draw closer to its customers. Other than refreshing its logo and restaurant designs, the group will continue to engage both traditional and social media channels, working with journalists and bloggers alike to get the word out. Future innovations include the refreshing of its website and the introduction of a customer loyalty programme to allow priority queueing for members.

Photos courtesy of Crystal Jade

About the author:

Walter Lim is a corporate professional with more than 15 years of experience in marketing, public relations, social media, events management, strategic planning and corporate development. This article was republished with permission from his blog: coolinsights.blogspot.com.

A hungry journalist is a grumpy journalist.

That’s why it’s important to cater serviceable food at press events, instead of serving the usual fried bee hoon and fishballs, which is sure to dampen the mood of the occasion.

I’m exaggerating, of course, but the importance of good food at any event — corporate pow wows, birthday parties, and networking sessions — cannot be underestimated.

Eatit.sg, a Singapore-based startup, hopes to lessen the burden of event planners and the woes of event attendees with its one-stop online delivery service which features dozens of merchants.

The website was started by Jane Shen in November 2011, who’s also an event planner herself. Being a food lover and critic, she’s very particular about what she and her friends eat whenever they organize a party.

“Even though I was an event planner years back, I couldn’t fork out time to hunt for good food, apart from the boring buffet spread we always ordered. Friends complain about eating lousy food all the time, and that we have no fresh ideas to bring about food delivery. I have always wanted to visit a website to order all my favorite food, without having to open a few windows to hunt them down,” she told SGE via email.

That’s how the idea came about.

Eatit.sg works like any e-commerce site: Head to the merchant’s page on the website, order the quantity of food you desire, and proceed to checkout. Participating merchants are grouped according to food types.

Under “main dishes”, for instance, you have Fortune Food, a hawker stall which sells Popiah, Laksa, and Kueh Pie Ti. There’s also Umi Sushi, which sells (what else) sushi.

Since Eatit.sg sells mainly freshly prepared food, orders must be placed a few days in advance. There’s also free delivery for orders above a certain pricing. Specific details are set by individual merchants, which are personally selected by Jane, who has tasted the food herself.

She adds that Eatit.sg is in the midst of developing its own iPhone and Android app.

It’ll be cool if the website can incorporate customer feedback and rating features, so as to incentivize sellers to do a good job. Customers would also gain intelligence on which merchants are up to scratch.

Also, they can consider letting buyers have the option of purchasing plastic cutlery, cups, paper plates, or serviettes from a supplier, along with the food items. I find that way too often these items are forgotten in the hustle of organizing an event.

But maybe that’s just me.

The idea is obscenely simple: It’s a website that detects your current location and helps you find the nearest bar or pub. Hate the recommendation? Simply click ‘No, that place looks shit’ and you’ll be brought to another pub. As far as we can tell, Wherethefuckshouldigofordrinks.com works in Singapore, the UK, and the US.

The website is created by Coolography, a creative consultancy based in the UK. They’ve worked on projects for prominent brands like Topman, Diesel and Sony Ericsson.

It is inspired by another similar concept, Whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com, which throws up recipes in the same fun, vulgar, fashion.

Already, WTFSIGFD has already received over 32,000 likes, and gained almost 4,000 Twitter followers. Which goes to show two things: First, a sure way to get attention these days is to unapologetically drop the F-Bomb. Second, long URLs sometimes work.

Customizable desserts and beverages have been around for quite awhile. From customized yogurts to make-your-own gelato,  Singaporeans have been spoilt for choice when it comes to satisfying their sweet tooth.

So it’s only a matter of time that someone applies the same concept to milkshakes, which of late seemed to be playing second fiddle to the ever-popular bubble tea.

MakeShake is putting milkshakes back on the map. By giving a fun, cheeky twist (‘make shake, not war’, ’1. choose 2. order 3. suck hard’) to the time-honored concoction — like what Frolick did for yogurts — the company hopes to revitalize a vanilla and old-fashioned beverage.

Its main attraction is that customers get to pick the ‘shake-ins’ that they want mixed into their milkshakes. MakeShake has a wide assortment on their menu, ranging from Kinder Bueno chocolate to lychee, to Hello Panda biscuits.

They also have a few ready concoctions like Malibu Shake and Champion Breakfast, in case customers prefer to trust the milkshake connoisseurs to do the flavor-matching.

MakeShake, founded by Seth Lui, Lin Rongjie, and Daphne Ng, sold its first concoction in October 2011 at its first store in City Square Mall. As a YES! Startup, they received seed funding from Spring Singapore and occupied a booth at the recent Global Entrepreneurship Forum Showcase held at The Cathay.

They’re not the only company in the world giving milkshakes a much-needed botox jab. In Hollywood, California, there’s Millions of Milkshakes, which also offers customizable flavors. Their genius is in getting celebrities like Miley Cirus and Kim Kardashian to front their marketing efforts.

Photos: MakeShake

Asking Singaporeans to be disloyal is like asking them to commit seppuku. Be prepared to be given a cold shoulder — Singaporeans are, after all, known for being extremely obedient.

So it comes as no surprise that when two young chaps, Dutch-Indonesian Erik Posthuma and American Luke Norman, brought the concept of a disloyalty card to Singapore, they got plenty of press coverage.

But that aside, Be Disloyal (which is what their loyalty program is called) is an epic win, branding wise.

Here’s how it works: Head to one of the eight indie cafés listed here, and ask for a Be Disloyal card. Buy a coffee, get your card stamped, and check out the remaining cafés. Once you’ve visited all of them, head back to the first one to redeem your free coffee.

It’s essentially a coffee discovery trail.

The idea of a disloyalty card was first conceptualized in the UK by 2009 World Barista Champion Gwilym Davies, and has since spread to different parts of the Western world — US, Canada, and Australia.

Erik and Luke are perhaps the first to bring this concept to Asia. Singapore, said the duo, is ripe for it because the coffee scene is really growing here.

“We cater to people who enjoy coffee but are not loyal to a specific brand,” Erik explains, “we also want to help small businesses by giving them more exposure.”

The program starts with a limited run of 100 cards at each establishment. But last I checked, Smitten, which is one of the eight, has already run out of cards (Update: Erik has told me that new cards will be made available today).

Started in September and slated to run until the end of 2011, Be Disloyal is an initiative that’s still in its infancy. The co-founders have managed to cover cost by charging the cafés a one-time fee. There’s no doubt an expansion is on the cards, although they are tight-lipped about their future plans for the moment.

It’s not hard to imagine where they are going to take this though.

A disloyalty card for ice-cream and desserts, anyone? How about a website, or even an app? Or perhaps they can work with bigger brands, like Starbucks, Coffee Bean, or Gloria Jean’s?

Whatever they decide to do, I can certainly see the idea grow in the near future.

The are: Richard Eu from Eu Yan Sang (traditional healthcare category), Derek Goh from Serial System (electronic components distribution category), Andrew Tjioe from Tung Lok Restaurants (lifestyle category), and Tan Wee Beng from Wee Tiong (emerging category).

Richard Eu is the overall winner, which means he will represent Singapore at the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year (WEOY) award in Monte Carlo in 2012.

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, who attended the event, said: ”Growth in Asia remains robust and the region is set to be a major growth driver over the next few decades. Situated at the heart of this dynamic region, Singapore is well—positioned to ride on this growth. Our entrepreneurs must stay nimble and take advantage of these opportunities to enter new markets as dynamics shift.”

He added that Singaporeans have been catching the entrepreneurial bug. in 2010, more than 29,000 companies were set up in Singapore — highest in the last ten years.

Chope your seats before it's too late!

Sooner or later, someone was going to use the Internet to let diners make restaurants reservations instantly.

Such an idea isn’t new: US-based OpenTable has been doing it since 1998, and they’ve expanded their services into eight countries.

In Singapore, the concept is just beginning to take off. Within the past couple of years, at least four such websites have already sprung up.

Reservations.SG started operating in 2010, while Reserveit.sg (read our interview with them) and Chope launched around the same time, in June 2011.

And most recently, one of Singapore’s largest online food review sites HungryGoWhere.com has entered the game with TableDB.

Chope is a Singaporean slang that means ‘to reserve’ — and tissue packets have become the standard item used to ‘chope’ seats in Singapore coffee shops and hawker centers.

Funnily enough, I bumped into Chope’s co-founder and head of sales Clowie Tan at the recent Techventure conference — I blithely took her seat during lunch because I didn’t see a stack of tissue packets with the word ‘Chope’ in big, bold font that she had left at her seat.

Thankfully, the kind soul next to us gave up his, so Clowie and I could both have our lunch. And talk about her business.

The first question I asked was how Chope is differentiating itself from the other offerings out there, given that they’re all providing essentially the same service.

Clowie said that her website has write-ups for every restaurant they include, highlighting their plus points and unique features. They’re also selective about who they include, picking only restaurants with great food, nice ambiance, and outstanding service.

Co-founder and CEO Arrif Ziaudeen adds that Chope takes great care to ensure the security of the restaurant’s data.

“We sign explicit confidentiality agreements, we don’t share with third parties and we never, ever share with other restaurants. We keep physically separate databases. We don’t put sensitive or unencrypted data on the cloud.”

Chope is also different in that they imported a proven Table Management System from a technology partner. A tested system ensures that they are able to hit the ground running, without having to resort to trial-and-error.

“These systems are mission critical so they have to work,” said Arrif, adding that their technology has already been tested ”at some of the worlds best and busiest restaurants.”

Taking a slightly different tack is Dennis Goh, co-founder and managing director of HungryGoWhere.com. TableDB, which just went live a few weeks ago, uses an in-house system which they are still fine-tuning.

“While it’s easier to license a system from elsewhere, we want full control. This allows us to modify our system according to our customer’s needs and changes in the market,” he says.

At the time of writing, only two restaurants have been featured. But Dennis promised that more will be coming in the following months.

“It’s a very controlled process. We’re testing it to make sure it works. But so far, there’s a large expression of interest from restaurants.”

While TableDB may be late to the game, it does have a lot going for it. It is poised to benefit from HungryGoWhere.com’s traffic and database. Already, users who visit the Lawry’s page on HungryGoWhere.com will see a big orange button that deep links into the reservation page on TableDB.

As more restaurants enter the fold, TableDB would certainly benefit from the sister site’s popularity.

Currently, Dennis is offering the service for free to restaurants. They’re still exploring possible revenue models for the site, and have not reached a decision yet.

“We could either charge transaction fees or subscription fees,” he says. Right now, Chope is currently using the subscription model while keeping the service free for diners.

The adoption of such table management solutions, however, could be delayed by the fact that SMEs haven’t quite caught up on the technological front yet. Arrif explains that many restaurants lack high-speed internet access and a reliable wireless router.

That explains why online reservation services are just beginning to gain steam, which also means that it’s too early to determine who’ll succeed or tank.

Several factors that can influence their success. Having a table management system and site user interface that provides a painless experience for both restaurateurs and foodies are certainly important (check out TableDB’s system, which works on the iPad).

A nice mobile site or app wouldn’t hurt either. Reservations.SG is ahead in this arena right now — since they have an optimized mobile site, while TableDB is already developing their mobile app.

I’ll also be interested to see who is the first to integrate their services with another app (like Shownearby, for example), either by licensing their technology or releasing an API.

Finally, having a buffet spread of restaurants to choose from matters too, but it’s not just about quantity. With so many F&B establishments out there, it helps if these services curate the best restaurants either through an in-house editorial team (like Chope) or via community moderation (like HungryGoWhere.com).

Ultimately, all of them should aim to scale beyond Singapore, as Asia is ripe for such services to grow.

While searching for a restaurant to fulfill your gastronomical craving these days is much easier with food blogs and directories like HungryGoWhere, making a reservation can still be a hair tearing experience.

Spotting an Italian restaurant online and reserving a table for two this weekend sounds pedestrian enough, but in fact comes with unforeseen hassles.

Sometimes, finding the right phone number can be difficult, especially if the website is not updated or badly designed. And if you do manage to call them, you may be kept waiting if the restaurant is either closed or the waitresses are busy. Even if you do get through, the time slot you want may not be available.

We movie-goers sure take a lot for granted.

Reserveit.sg, however, aims to close the loop by letting foodies make online reservations instantly at any time of the day. Launched in June 2011 with 15 restaurants, the website now has over 90 listed F&B establishments.

When users visit the website, they can search for the type of restaurant they want and key in variables like name, cuisine, location, price, or mood. These characteristics can be mixed and matched.

So, how does it help? Let’s say my girlfriend’s birthday is today and I’ve only just remembered it. Desperate and panicky, I visit the website and key in these criteria: ‘Italian cuisine’, available tonight, and located in City Hall. I’m not picky about the rest.

The mood criteria is interesting and in my opinion, potentially useful. In this scenario, I would want a place that’s more ‘romantic dinner’ than ‘out with the guys’.

That said and done, whether Reserveit.sg can serve up relevant results is key. Turning up at what is supposed to be a romantic restaurant only to find monster kids wrecking havoc is a sure way to turn users off.

Reserveit.sg also has a proprietary, online-based table management system that allows restaurant owners to manage reservations from their PC or Mac laptops, iPads, iPhones or other smartphones. The system is secure, with encryption by Verisign.

According to Jesper Gustafsson, the business development director, their system has been well-received by restaurant owners and they are confident it will be widely accepted in new markets. Their goal is to be the biggest supplier of online reservations in the region.

He admits, however, that the company is not profitable at the moment as revenue generation “has been relatively slow so far and we try to keep our prices as low as possible for restaurants.” They hope to develop other revenue streams like ad banners and so on.

The company is founded by Singaporean Malathi Prelaganathan, who has a background in interactive design and years of experience in the F&B industry. She has managed to secure investments, although details cannot be revealed.

“(The funds) should be enough for the Singapore market. New funds might be necessary for other new markets,” said Jesper, who has worked in the F&B industry in Europe, US, and Asia.