The demand for catering service businesses has now increased exponentially in big cities like Jakarta and Singapore. Besides providing a potentially decent profit, running this business is also suitable for those who have cooking hobbies.
But your business won’t be successful if you only have your cooking skills. There are many other things that you must prepare so that your catering service can make a decent profit. To help you start a successful catering business, you might need help from an integrated system meant to support your business activities, for example, an ERP System.
We happen to have something that you need to boost your sales, simplify your inventory management, and also maintain your customer retention with the leading software, Hash F&B Technology, especially for businesses in catering services. Thus, we will summarize what you have to prepare in the following article.
Table of Content:
Table of Content
Determine Your Target Market
Increasing awareness of healthy food importance is one main reason for the catering services proliferation. People who want a menu to support their diet program, a special menu for vegetarians, or a menu for sportsmen. These three examples are just a few of the various target markets that you can choose.
By determining the target market, you will be easier to adjust how much capital funds you need to get your business started. For example, preparing food for office employees clearly costs more than preparing for students. For beginners, especially if you don’t have a large capital fund, it never hurts to target a smaller market. When you already have your regular customers, you can try to expand and try to offer your business to offices and the like.
Do Some Research about Catering Services
A lot of novice business owners neglect this step. They don’t realize that research is the most important thing to do before running a business. This research includes monitoring competitors, finding suppliers, and monitoring market prices.
Ignoring competition will make it difficult for you to find customers. Not looking for suppliers before opening your business will make it difficult for you to meet customer demand. Carelessly determining your price will make you lose customers.’
Find Experience
It is unwise to run a business with little to no experience at all. Owning a catering services business not only requires you to have cooking skills, but you also must be knowledgeable in financial management, managing employees, and inventory management.
Therefore, it is strongly recommended to find experience by working in a similar business. This will make you experience firsthand the ins and outs of taking care of a catering service business. Only then you apply the experience you have to your own catering service business.
Related article: The Best Food and Beverage Software in Singapore
Prepare Capital and Equipment for Catering Service
There is no business that can be built with no capital. You will need capital to rent a place, buy cookware, pay employee salaries, and buy ingredients when you run a catering business. If you have previously set a target market, researched, and have the much-needed experience, then determining how much capital you need to start your business will be easier.
The previous preparations will also be useful if you plan to ask for a loan from a bank. By describing your research and being able to project your monthly profit, you can get your loan easily. By implementing the Finance ERP System for the Financial Sector from HashMicro, we can help you automate your daily business operations and optimize client requirements fulfillment in a real-time platform.
Recruiting Employees for Catering Service
When starting your own catering service, maybe you can run your business by yourself or with the help of a family. But this is not the case if what you serve is offices or wedding ceremonies. At this level, you need other people to help you meet your customer demands. Cooking, food packing, and deliveries will certainly be very tedious if you do it all by yourself.
Catering services are actually quite flexible in terms of employee recruitment. In essence, if you start to get overwhelmed by cooking, add more people to help you cook. If you do not have time to deliver food, add employees and the fleet to facilitate delivery.
Related article: How to Gain Competitive Advantage in the Food Business
Conclusion
Running a business that suits our passion is indeed fun. The catering service business is one of them. But that does not mean starting a business like this can be successful if you only have your passion. Make the necessary preparations before you start the business that you desire. By making preparations, you not only channel your passion but also make it a potential business and profit.
In order for that, you must have a powerful Hash F&B Technology for Professional Services to support your catering business. And for that reason, we can offer you our Hash F&B Technology from HashMicro. We can help you run every aspect of your service business automatically and maximize your revenue with Singapore’s Best ERP System. Get your free demo now!