Not rendering correctly? View this email as a web page here.
MAKE THIS UPDATE YOUR OWN! Read it, share it, post it on your intranet or favourite Slack channel!
 

Panda Selected, a Beijing-based shared-kitchen company, just raised USD 50 million in Series C funding led by Tiger Global Management, a previous investor in Uber. The company provides additional, off-site kitchen space to restaurants; each Panda Selected kitchen can be shared by up to 20 different establishments. So-called ‘cloud kitchens’ are gaining momentum in China’s major cities, as restaurants struggle to meet the demand for online food delivery. Panda Selected earns revenue from monthly rent for their space, and earn additional fees for services such as marketing and data analytics, which helps merchants boost sales on delivery platforms Meituan and Ele.me. Founded three years ago, the company now operates 120 locations across China’s biggest cities and hosts over 800 domestic brands in its kitchens.

So, a powerful new opportunity is taking shape in F&B. It’s said that former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is planning a similar play, with plans to bring shared-kitchen company CloudKitchens to China. Better hurry Travis! But even if F&B is not your industry, and China is not your market, there are some key lessons here.

Look upstream. China’s online food delivery market is already worth USD 34 billion, with 296 million people using the service in 2018. But instead of engaging in the cash-burning battle currently being waged by delivery platforms Meituan and Ele.me, Panda Selected saw an opportunity to play upstream and think about the challenges that online food delivery poses to restaurants. So ask yourself: what new industry-specific trends are playing out in your industry? How are they creating new challenges for upstream businesses? Can you innovate to serve those players?

Sharing economy 2.0. Having become mainstream among consumers, expectations of shared access to resources is now spreading to businesses. It surely won’t be long before other kinds of businesses start to expect shared access to relevant resources. And we’ll continue to see those resources sliced in innovative ways: consumers used to rent an entire house, now they can just rent a swimming pool; restaurants used to rent a whole restaurant space, now they can rent just a kitchen. Apply this perspective to your own industry: how can you maximise value out of the extended sharing economy?

 
FoE | Asia

Our latest briefing on The Future of Experiences in Asia is now live, featuring three trends reshaping in-person customer experiences in 2019 and beyond!

READ NOW  »