Passion

THE IDEATION ROBE - POLL

Every working-person in their work span has heard about or come across the term ‘IDEATION CENTRE or IDEATION ROOM’.

What does the word IDEATION mean here? To a simple layman it means to ideate or to create an idea which can be used by one’s company or the company one works for.

And when the companies talk about ideation, they are looking at creativity, thoughtful ideas that can solve a problem or resolve a challenge.

And there is a universally accepted saying – that one gets maximum ideas or bright ideas on the throne.

That brings me to the poll of the day:

With the lockdown and WFH – work from home becoming the new normal, what is your IDEATION ROBE – a piece of clothing when worn makes you think about bright ideas, creative solutions, or simply inspires you to think about something new something different you would like to do today. Please give your answers in the comments below:

• PJs
• Night Wear
• Pants
• Track Pants
• Jeans
• Salwar Suit
• Skirts
• Hoodies

Let’s find an answer to the ‘Most Wanted Ideation Robe’ during the lockdown, coz that looks like the last thing you will wear for a LONG LONG TIME!

MOVIE REVIEW – GULABO SITABO

Movie Name:                Gulabo Sitabo

Date of Release:          12.June.2020

Mode of Release:         OTT – Prime Video

Genre:                          Drama - Comedy

Star Cast:                       Amitabh Bachchan, Ayushmann Khurrana, Vijay Raaz, Brijendra Kala, Farrukh Jaffar, Srishti Shrivastava, Nalneesh Neel, Tina Bhatia, Mohammad Naushad, Archana Shukla, Ananya Dwivedi, Ujali Raj, Sunil Kumar Verma, Azad Mishra, Uday Veer Singh Yadav, Poornima Sharma, Shi Prakash Bajpai, Poonam Mishra, Jogi Mallang, Trilochan Kalra, Behram Rana, Zia Ahmed Khan

Gulabo Sitabo was slated to be a movie ‘etched in history’ for its story, comedy, cast…

Now let’s be fair, it did go down in history, but not as an unforgettable film; but as the first movie to have its release done via OTT channel than in the theatres as we would traditionally love to see it. Though gladly enough we didn’t have to go to theatres to watch it, as that would have been a big letdown…

Now let’s get back to the reason why there was such a big disconnect between the actual movie and what we were expecting. This movie’s Genre is Comedy – Drama wherein the emphasis is more on the Drama element of the story than on the comedy element.

Personally, I am not a big fan of Comedy-Dramas, as both these emotions are poles apart. I fail to understand how one can do justice to comedy when the whole movie is built on drama! You got to have massive expertise to bring in the satire at the right place in the drama.

This movie left too much to desire, for even after: 

• The setting was fantastically used
• The set was brilliant
• The actors did a great job to convince us about the state of affairs in the Haveli
• The little suspense towards the end was engaging
• The cast was brilliant – Amitabh Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurrana
• The songs were earthy, desi

Then again as mentioned earlier, comedy is one emotion that should not be diluted with other emotions and especially with drama, they are like the antithesis waiting to blow up! If this same story would have been narrated with comedy as the core, it would have been a different ball game altogether.

If my memory serves me right, in the movie Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro the total chaos scene of Mahabharat was picturized brilliantly; cut to the chaotic scene at the haveli with the builder’s group, the mantriji’s people, the archaeologist and the lawyer were all together, that scene could have become as memorable as the JBDY movie scene. However, the method to the madness was missing. How I would have loved to see history repeat itself in that scene.

SUMMARY:

Every aspect of the movie in its own right was very well depicted, but the movie missed its spot for want of the biggest show stopper - COMEDY!

The scene from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro can be viewed on this link - https://youtu.be/SDClKXKn0l8

CLOUD KITCHEN AND ITS REVIVAL

The concept of ‘cloud kitchen’ has been gathering momentum for some time now.

India has different types of food consumers:

• Those who love to go out to eat
• Those who want to order take-out and eat from the comfort of their homes. They further fall into 2 categories:
• Those who like to order from well-known restaurants (eg. McDonald's)
• Those who want to try out new types of cuisines from small-time eateries. And the eateries that cater to these food consumers are either:
• Well-established dine-in eateries or food courts
• Or Cloud Kitchens

The hospitality industry has taken a massive hit during these unprecedented times of pandemic. Within the hospitality industry, a well-established restaurant or eatery still have the resources to bounce back with little or no impact. But the same can’t be said for the Cloud Kitchens which work on an operational break-even model. This blog focuses on these very budding Cloud Kitchens. We will try to understand what can be their way forward now and post COVID-19.

Before we deep dive lets understand what a Cloud Kitchen is:

Cloud kitchen is a phenomenon in which a small food outlet or group of food brands share kitchen space under one roof without the options for dine-in. You can only take away your food order or you get it delivered by ordering through aggregator apps like Swiggy, Zomato etc. So in a broader sense, it is a delivery-only eatery.

While there are a lot of benefits to run a cloud kitchen, it also comes with its fair amount of challenges:

Benefits:

• Streamlined order process as a minimum to no customizations of orders
• Staff requirement is pretty less when compared to a full-fledged restaurant
• Real Estate requirements are low
• Low operational costs
• Low to minimum marketing cost as it is done through the aggregator
• Easy expansion possibilities in cuisine and customer outreach

Challenges:

• No personal touch to build on customer relationships
• Limited audience, only tech-savvy customers to reach out to
• Limited brand presence as compared to traditional outlets
• Low margin – High volume model
• Difficult to maintain trust

Did you ever realize – why does Dominos has a see-through cooking area in most of their dine outs? Well, the answer to that is pretty simple; transparency! Why transparency? Why not, if someone is coming to you to eat the food you prepare and offer, then you might as well as build their trust from day-1. Haven’t we always been inquisitive to find out who cooks and prepares our takeaway order?

Cloud kitchens, however, don’t have this privilege of customers coming to their outlets to see their preparation and cooking. Thus they end up losing customer loyalty to branded restaurants and food outlets for the lack of trust & transparency that could never be established.

During this COVID-19 crisis and even after that, the food industry will have to rethink their strategy to get their customer patronage back. This can happen only when TRUST, which is the key element to build a Renewed Society is given due priority.

How can these cloud kitchens build the trust of their apprehensive customer-base? Like the saying goes – ‘devil lies in the details’:

• Social Media presence: As the first step, they need to establish their social media presence via. Website, Facebook page, Instagram, YouTube channel, Pinterest etc. Pick 2 or 3 from these channels and go viral…
• Social media will play a very big role: All the social media accounts should be constantly flooded with preventive measures that are being taken to avoid any spread of the pandemic. Posting pictures or videos of cleanliness routine being followed, social distancing norm being adhered to, applying a hygienic mode of food preparation, etc. will help win over the customers’ trust
• Influencers' reviews: Trying to get food-industry-influencers to talk about their food and their brand will also help in winning the trust of the customers
• Transparency via live video feeds: Nowadays with the way technology has advanced and become cheaper, one can also contemplate getting cameras installed in the kitchen and transmit continuous live feed on the YouTube channel or Video-on-Demand applications
• Follow all the norms prescribed to avoid COVID-19 spread: Maintain social distancing, wearing masks and gloves at any point of time and maintain cleanliness in and around the kitchen and cooking area. Get themselves audited with correct agencies and keep the certificates handy and displayed on their Social Media pages
• Packaging: This is another big concern from customers’ point of view, as, if the food is not well packaged it can get contaminated on its way to the customer’s homes
• Create a winning combination: To become profitable and ensure faster order fulfilment, cloud kitchens should prune their menu and focus on the top 5-6 top dishes from their pre-pandemic times. This will lead to –
• Lesser staff being utilized and social distancing being maintained
• Faster turn-around time
• Increased order fulfilment
• As the situation gets back to normal additional menu items can be added until the kitchen reaches its former capacity

There will always be food lovers and there will always be good eateries and great eateries to cater to them. I hope that some of these suggestions given above will help the cloud kitchen owners attract many more food lovers and become better.

Picture Courtesy: https://www.quora.com/

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