Say no more to cold burgers, wrong orders, and endless waiting times! As customer demand for seamless and efficient service across different platforms is getting higher, omnidata intelligence company Skyfii (ASX: SKF) has signed a three-year agreement with fast-food giant McDonalds. Skyfii will deploy its real-time restaurant monitoring technology and analysis solution to improve customer experience across an initial eight US locations. 

Skyfii collects and analyses 11 billion data points every day from a range of venue types across five continents. The company’s SaaS cloud-based solution, the IO Platform, helps venues visualise, measure, predict, and influence customer behaviour, creating better experiences for their visitors and customers. 

In fast food restaurants, changing consumer patterns and the increase in mobile ordering, food delivery and drive-through pick up have introduced new challenges around food freshness. As a solution, the Skyfii technology is deployed to monitor various service channels at the outlets (including order at counter, order on mobile and drive through) to determine the time it takes for the customer to receive their order. 

Skyfii is utilising Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and thermal imaging technology as well as a bespoke algorithm to automatically categorise and analyse the movement of crew and customers. The data and insights provided by Skyfii will allow McDonald’s to understand how long it takes to complete each step of service and to determine what factors may lead to a customer experience that does not meet their standard. This will allow for continuous improvement across their restaurant operations, to always ensure food freshness and maximum customer satisfaction.

Wayne Arthur, Chief Executive Officer, Skyfii, commented: “I am exceptionally proud that as consumer behaviour continues to evolve and the needs of our customers change, Skyfii can advance its solution offering to provide valuable operational data analytics to help solve these pain points for our clients.”

Skyfii has been targeting growth in the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) market niche. McDonalds is not Skyfii’s first high-profile client in the industry, as Skyfii had provided the same technology to Nando’s Australia in 2018 in deploying the IO Platforms across 120 stores nationwide. Skyfii had also sealed a 3-year deal with an anonymous UK-based “premium fast-food chain” back in 2017.

Skyfii secured $5.4m revenue in the September quarter and spent $0.9m in operation expenses. Though these were an improvement over the previous corresponding quarter of $5.1m revenue and $0.29m expenses, Skyfii’s cash at bank decreased by 26% from $5.8m on pcp to $4.3m in Q1 FY23. According to the Company, cash flow was reduced primarily due to delays in key annual renewals in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and Northern American region, a seasonally slower start to the FY due to extended summer break in the Northern Hemisphere, impact of a one-off credit note to a large US-based Casino, and slower than anticipated working capital cycle. 

Despite the cash burn in the quarter, Skyfii remains confident of achieving sustainable positive cash flow generation in 2H FY23 mainly through recent contract wins (including McDonalds) and increasing global trend in crowd analytics and occupancy management.