With eye on serving the hotels and restaurants, Hyderabad-based start-up Galla Pos has developed a platform for tablet-enabled menus and billing. It is now in talks with an Indian mobile handset maker as well as a few Chinese players for the hardware (tablets) for embedding its software.

This will bring down the cost of the handset, according to its founder Nandan Reddy, an engineer turned entrepreneur. His experience as a hotelier has come in handy in coding the virtual menu, he said.

The customers can place orders using the tablets and this will be conveyed to the kitchen. Credit and debit cards can be swiped on a small dongle that sits on the tablet, while the bill is printed on a wireless printer, he said. “With visuals available, the customer engagement will be better,” he said, adding that with descriptive menus and visuals will help removing errors in taking orders for food.

In the first phase, Reddy said the effort will be to reach out to hotels in Hyderabad and later to other cities in Andhra Pradesh and Bangalore. There is a lot business potential. The same concept can be used for small food joints and grocery stores, he said, adding the company will look to provide platform on a monthly rent or for a one time fee.

“As the business model matures, the basic platform could be given free, while we will charge for analytics, predictions and other tools that will be built into this,” he said. At present, it is processing orders from a handful of hotels but is seeing more queries coming. Typically, a small hotel is taking about four to five licences-only the first licence is priced higher and the subsequent ones at a fraction, he said.

krishnamohan@mydigitalfc.com