Data has become the new currency of competitive advantage, a notion that Johor Corporation (JCorp) has not only recognised but leveraged to redefine the food and beverage landscape (F&B). Utilising a robust portfolio of digital strategies — from data analytics and blockchain to artificial intelligence (AI) — JCorp is setting a new standard for what it means to be an agile and customer-centric business in today’s increasingly digital world.

Worldwide, there are more than 2.6 million IT and custom software services companies, which means there is a lot of technology out there that businesses have never heard of. Cutting through the noise is essential. JCorp asserts that the judicious adoption of the right technologies is not just a competitive edge; it is a necessity for attracting top talent and remaining relevant.

“It’s obvious now that technology and data science have and will continue to change the way we run our business and the nature of it. Hence, the key to our future success is how much and how fast we embrace, adapt and integrate new technologies, including data analytics and artificial intelligence, into our business. That is the marching order for QSR Brands,” says Tan Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim, chairman of QSR Brands.

One major endeavour at JCorp is making restaurants digital first, which involves equipping them with digital kiosks. Previously, daily operations and food safety checks were completed using printed forms that were only verified during store visits. With the new digital approach, these operations have shifted from printed forms to mobile apps, improving sustainability and overall efficiency.

Another challenge was the manual process for equipment repairs, where response and repair times were not systematically captured. This has now been digitised through the maintenance helpdesk system.

With the implementation of e-commerce approaches, Nehchal Khanna, CEO and managing director of QSR Brands, says they have been able to improve customer experiences, granting customers a more user-friendly experience and giving them access to loyalty programmes that continually attract them to the brand.

“Digital channels are transforming the way we do business. In just three years, online sales for both KFC and Pizza Hut have skyrocketed and 2023 has seen the company achieving double-digit growth in the first half of the year. This dramatic uptick confirms that our digital initiatives are not just welcomed but actively embraced by our customer base,” says Nehchal.

“As for in-store technology, our self-service ordering has been a hit with compelling adoption rates. These kiosks and QR code ordering methods aren’t just speeding up transactions; they are freeing up our staff to focus on what matters most — customer service. And, interestingly, thanks to AI-generated menu suggestions, the average kiosk order size has been notably larger.”

JCorp and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have partnered since December 2022, which has resulted in tremendously improved efficiency on a management level. JCorp says following the appointment of AWS as its public cloud platform provider, JCorp has progressively migrated key data sources into AWS, demonstrating the potential of building automated data pipelines for financial and operational metrics.

“We get immediate access to world-class storage and computing services, especially database services. We get this with no additional purchasing of licences and such. It is to be noted that these services come with enhanced levels of data security and network reliability, thus allowing us to signal that our data is safe and on a platform that is highly reliable. With the use of AWS, information transfer between JCorp and QSR has become a lot smoother, especially for processes such as the consolidation of financial metrics,” says Nehchal.

Machine learning-based algorithms have many applications in the food service industry, he explains, such as forecasting future requirements for food ingredients and non-food inventory items; guiding kitchen workers on the number and sequence of specific food items to prepare; and scheduling and optimising the delivery rider pool. QSR has deployed food service technologies that incorporate such machine-learning applications across its businesses.

JCorp’s Digital Transformation pillars at present include innovation from aspects of human resources, cybersecurity and analytics, among others. In terms of analytics, QSR Brands has incorporated analytics and has developed an enterprise data lake, enterprise data warehouse and an analytical data mart to power the business intelligence dashboard for revenue analysis. The development for Pizza Hut is scheduled to be completed in 2Q2023 while the completion for KFC is scheduled for 4Q2023.