Zomato is a well-known meal delivery and restaurant discovery website that has achieved impressive growth in the food business with great leadership & management by utilizing digital marketing tactics.  Founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, it began operating in 2008 and has since grown throughout the world, serving a wide range of users. Its success may be ascribed to its creative use of digital marketing strategies and Zomato's leadership team, which has strengthened user interaction, created a strong brand presence, and expanded its clientele.

 

Delivering Delicious Happiness to the Doorstep

Zomato is unique in the industry because it provides foodies with an extensive platform to find and interact with restaurants. Its success is largely due to its user-friendly interface and the vast array of restaurants and cuisines it covers. Furthermore, the company has become a strong force in the meal delivery market. Similar to other businesses, the organization has grown significantly with the use of cutting-edge marketing techniques. Customers of all ages utilize the company's user-friendly food delivery app, which it has designed. Zomato's success story is only a result of the sophisticated tactics used by the company's experts.

Zomato's Business Model 

In the early days of the business, Zomato would scan restaurant menus and store them online, where users could access and view them. It continues to operate using the same concept but now offers additional services. Zomato's business model differs significantly from those of other meal delivery services. Uber and London & Partners are two of Zomato's main partners, and they may help the company debut in the UK on schedule.

Although the company's main asset is its extensive database of restaurants spread over 10,000 cities in 24 different countries, with the leadership of Goyal, the business strategy is focused on offering local restaurant search services, gathering information on contacts for food menus, and giving clients pertinent information. Zomato's primary platforms are its website and its mobile apps. Users searching for local eateries offering a variety of cuisines and eateries hoping to expand their brand recognition are the company's target market. Customers who prefer home delivery are also catered to by Zomato, which also assists with database and market research for businesses. Concurrently, the web-based platform is designed with an obligatory grading system. The food sector has seen a transformation because of Zomato's business strategy, which combines a variety of restaurants and makes it easy for customers to find eateries, leave reviews, and find listings that suit their preferred cuisine.

The organization employs people in more than 10,000 locales and conducts business in more than 24 countries. Due to its widespread visibility, Zomato has access to a big consumer base, which facilitates the company's ability to grow its clientele and offer more services. Additionally, it has given the business a competitive advantage over its rivals by enabling it to serve a variety of cultures and cuisines. Zomato's most recent annual report states that the company has 32.1 million active monthly users. The business has made calculated investments and acquisitions in a number of areas, most notably the 2020 acquisition of Uber Eats India. Additionally, the company's ability to collaborate with other businesses and brands has been facilitated by its wide reach.

Zomato’s Footprint in Online Grocery Delivery

An app for ordering and delivering takeaway online under the name ‘Zomato Market,’ Zomato has entered the grocery delivery market, promising to deliver and hoping to capitalize on the increased demand for these services. Zomato's entry into the grocery market coincides with a period of rapid order volume growth for online grocery stores, primarily as a result of the government's stringent implementation of instructions to stay at home in order to maintain social norms.

weatherunion.com. by Zomato

Zomato announced India's first crowd-supported weather infrastructure to offer localized, up-to-date information on important meteorological factors like temperature, humidity, wind speed, rainfall, and more. It is a proprietary network of more than 650 ground-based weather stations that goes by the name weatherunion.com. At present, it is accessible in 45 locations, and the firm has said that it will shortly be extending to additional cities.

“At Zomato, it was crucial for us to have access to precise and real-time weather information to make the right business decisions to serve our customers better. Hence, we took it upon ourselves to develop a solution capable of empowering us on this front. This rich data holds significant potential in unlocking weather use cases for enterprises and research institutes. Having already collaborated with CAS – IIT Delhi, we expect more institutions and companies to benefit from this and contribute towards the greater good of our economy,” says Goyal.

Challenges Faced

The Zomato graph, which is looking great so far, changed after 2014. Due to various challenges that the company faced in 2015, some difficult decisions had to be made. After purchasing Urbanspoon and rebranding it as its own, the business performed so badly that the corporation had to fire 300 workers—10 percent of whom were US citizens—to reduce losses.

When things reached a breaking point in 2016, Zomato was forced to halt operations in a number of nations, including the US, UK, Brazil, Chile, Sri Lanka, Canada, Italy, Slovakia, and Ireland. Additionally, Zomato had to use remote services when it eventually started operating again in the aforementioned nations.  

 

Their narrative has more in store. When a cyberattack threatened Zomato's continued existence in 2017, the company suffered a severe setback. A hacker had gained access to 17 million users' records from the company's database. Zomato quickly realized that the hacker was the only one with access to the data, and after speaking with the hacker, the breach was fixed. 

As a result, in 2019, a movement known as #logout emerged, in which participating restaurants blasted the firm for allegedly eating into their profit margins through services like Zomato Gold and Infinity Dining, which gave users steep discounts. Following significant opposition from its affiliated eateries and internal staff reductions, Zomato terminated its Infinity dining offering and changed the Zomato Gold guidelines, causing the issue to eventually fade.

But despite all, Zomato's essence endures, as its slogan, ‘Never have a bad meal,' perfectly captures. The cherry on top is that Zomato added 73K new eateries and saw a 177 percent increase in its restaurant partners.

Zomato’s distinct and enduring business and revenue model and a clearly defined organizational framework have enabled the company to maintain its position as a leading player in the industry. Because of its assortment, affordability, and ease of use, Zomato has achieved success and gained its customers' trust over the years.