Home delivery apps can end up being a double-edged sword for food establishments looking to increase their visibility. This is the topic that Pablo Foncillas deals with in this new chapter, where he analyzes the emblematic case of Grubhub, a Glovo-type company that offered such a good promotion to its clients in New York that it ended up dying of success.
Specifically, it promised that all orders under $15 were free from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The most surprising thing is not the offer itself, but rather the fact that it was done "without notifying the restaurants", says the business school professor, which is why many of them "were overwhelmed by the avalanche of orders". And not only them, but also the riders and the call centers.
Despite the chaos it organized, the platform considered it a success, arguing that it was able to manage almost half a million promotional orders in a single morning. And he defends that, in addition, it was "a real win-win for businesses and restaurants". But is that true? Foncillas maintains that no.
The teacher in general management explains why these types of companies have to take into account their environment -such as the city, the delivery men who work for it and the affiliated establishments- before launching this type of growth strategy. "In any case, be it through malice or incompetence, every company must be legal and honest if they do not want to contribute to the end of restaurants and deliveries," he concludes.
