Business Plan Karishma: Food Delivery on the Move

Business Concept:
Karishma would Pioneer India's First 'High Quality' Packaged Food delivery at Railway Passengers' seat during the Train Halts at Intermediate Stations. We would Maintain a Centralized Call Facility and a web-portal that shall enlist available Food Menu at various stations. At Initial stages our Focus would be Passengers of AC Compartment. Later we would expand to sleeper coach passenger segment with a vision of creating an awesome cuisine experience at affordable prices. IRCTC has taken up the Initiative of setting up various Private Food courts and Fast food centers, in Majority of railway stations. These Food Courts are legally authorized to cater Food to passengers and their terms and conditions permit them independent pricing provided they are able to maintain on quality.

Currently Few Food court chains like Comesum, 'Re-fresh plaza' etc are already into the service of providing packaged food on seat by their individual Numbers. Given the Nature of the railway passengers who may not visit the station more than twice on annual basis and their (Food Court's) limited geographic presence makes prospects of them Implementing a Central Pan-India Advertising Strategy difficult and infeasible. Our Business Concept would be: Much like concept of redbus.in, Enter in Partnership with Food courts, where we levy a prenegotiated Commission on each order we book. The commission may be Nil during initial launch stage, where our prime aim would be to build consumer Base and later leverage our Monopoly in negotiating a Commission. In Station were It might be difficult to get a quality Food court to get into tie up with, we can get into agreement with a Tier II or Tier III Food court, and Then train him using Our chefs. Apart from a Cental Booking Platform, we would also assist the Food courts with our Technology Intensive Logistics and delivery Infrastructure, that would help us in Minimizing Misses and in creating Customer delight. Cash on Delivery with Food court owing the Responsibility of Delivering Food on time. More detailing on Execution can found below under heading Implementation.

Business Insight:
Though are Major Chunk of Booking is expected to be from Central Call facility. Proportion of Booking through web-portal is Expected to Grow sharply. 1) PWC report Forecasts No. 3G Subscribers in India to be 107 Million by 2015 (10 % of Indian Population). 2) Railways has already begun their pilot project for providing WI-Fi connectivity in trains. Most of the Business Opportunity arises by being at correct place at correct Time. Internet Giants like Flipkart and Redbus were best placed during their Inception at 2007. With Number of Smart phone Users growing exponentially with Railway committed at bringing Internet connectivity during travel, a year from now it would be the Best Time to Initiate Karishma. It would bring about a Paradigm Shift in Railways Cuisine experience. Today the only alternative that lies with passengers for Food is either from pantry or Fast Food from stations. It would also turn out to be Best alternative for passengers of Train without Pantry and we would also look for strategic partnerships with Corporates and Travel & Tour agencies for serving their clients during Travels.

Value Addition to Customers:

Our prime focus would be Customer Satisfaction and for that we would Ensure: Food served is Hot. Building a Team of 'Expert Chefs' who would consult and help our Partnered Food court in building exemplary Food quality standards at-least in select Food menu items like Pizza, Burgers, Fast Food like Idly, Khaman, Vada-pav etc in Initial stages. Minimize the Misses, where we fail to deliver despite a booking. Initially we can start our Facility only for Fast Food, with takes little time, Improve are standards and then Expand to a broader Food menu portfolio. In case of Misses, despite this, we would offer passenger a free coupon say worth 50/- deducted on next order that get placed with us. Given any railway station, Partnership would be sought only with a single Food court (The Best) that would also help us Negotiate our Terms and Conditions and keep a check on their Food quality.

Marketing & Advertising Strategy:

Awareness of Our Services would be through Creative and Focused Pan-India Advertising worth 20 Lakhs for first year and 10 Lakhs for the second year. Break-even in Second year of Operation. Advertisement On: Railway E-ticket and M-tickets Platform Bill-boards Agents in trains with out pantry service Leading Railway Enquiry E-portals

Implementation Details:
I would First do some basic Research on quality of Food Courts or Food Vendors at different Stations and would ask myself if It is really possible to create a 'Customer delight' with such a cuisine experience ?

If Yes, then I would try to negotiate a deal with the vendor, try to show him how through
central Advertising worth at-least 15 Lakhs during first annum, through Logistics/IT infrastructure support from us, also through the exclusive right that we would give him for delivering food for all request pertaining to this station we can add value to his service. He may still hesitate, In such circumstances we ready to let him serve without any compensation or commission to us. His obligation would be limited to reserving at least one Manpower for handling real time request. If he Still hesitates then I would scrap the offer and look forward to different alternative as suggested below.

If No, then I would try to find any Local vendor who may not Maintain such standards, but who is ready to have association with us and in exchange I would let my Expert chefs help him out in perfecting at least few Fast Food recipes. In this Scenario, I would make sure that I Levy a reasonable commission of say 20 % on every order that I'm able to fetch. Worst-case scenario, We can both share the Employment cost for handling live request and delivering it on time.

It is to be noted that Food courts are Independent in their pricing (with IRCTC). Hence Delivery on Seat can also be charged at 20 -40 % Premium rates. Since we would be booking orders on their behalf, we would also have accurate picture of each order worth. Once we are able to reach a stage where we are able to book 20-30 orders on daily basis for Food courts, the Food court would have no hesitation at all in reserving his Manpower , but in initial stages when No. of orders would be yet to pick up, it may stand out to our Initial barrier for rolling out such service. Our Initial Target stations would be those which are Pretty crowded Junctions like Vijyawada, Cuttack, Bhubaneshwar, Bhusawal etc which see highest number of Trains passing through them during Karishma's operational time. Being Pioneers in this Field Media might give us some Publicity. Also Important to the strategy would be very creative and focussed advertising.

Expense Estimate:
During Phase I: Net: 40 Lakhs. Around 15 Lakh would be covered on Advertisement Expenses during Initial Year with service operational across 25 stations ( and Expand to 75 stations over time) across India. Around 10 lakh would be spent on getting consultancy services from expert chefs in Improving the quality of our Partnered Food courts. Around 10 Lakh on Call facility , web-portal and logistics Infrastructure. Around 5 Lakh on Operational Expenses.

Long Term Profit Estimate:

Assuming Order commission to be 10 % , Average order worth of Rs 150 and and services across 50 Centers in India. An average of 350 orders per center per day can Translate into a Revenue of Rs 10 Crores per Annum and Expected Gross Profit margin of 75 90 % .

Team Details:
Setting up an Efficient process system and Good people skills would be the key requirements in the Initial phase. I have 3 Months Internship experience at ITC in Implementing Six-sigma projects for Minimizing their process defects and reducing their Plant downtime. The Final outcome of the My project was 1% increase in their Process Capacity utilization, which helped ITC realize a cost saving worth 5 Crores. I currently work at Flipkart, Data Analyst where I analyze complex data, decide on key Metrics and build reports that enables data-driven business decision making. I believe My experience at ITC & Flipkart would come in handy in executing My business Plan. My friend Siddharth Jain, also My Hall-mate at IIT Kharagpur is a very creative person with good know-how of various design platforms. He has also been the Creative Head of Saamanjasya, Annual fest of VGSOM, IIT Kharagpur. Moreover this is my second Start-up Idea, the First one I started during my college 3rd year, an Educational Consultancy was more of a social entrepreneurial initiative aimed at reforming our current schooling system with emphasis on overall development. And above all, I'm very passionate about start-ups. Even if it means failing 10 times, I would still give one more try! It was a need that I felt during my Train travels. And one of my key business philosophy of Customer Obsession comes with my working culture at Flipkart, that in a way Is also my Inspiration.

Contact details:
Tarun Kothari : +91 9036 406 226 , tarun.kothari@flipkart.com Siddharth Jain: +91 95 93 181 373 , sjiit007@gmail.com