Kona Ice began their journey in Northern Kentucky back in the year 2007. Their main objective was to provide shaved ice from food trucks, as not many vendors preferred to sell shaved ice off of an ice cream truck. They are considered one of the largest food truck franchises in the country, with over 1200+ trucks in 48 states, each owned by first-time entrepreneurs. The Kona Ice Truck launched 150 trucks in a year with the capability of serving over 500+ customers within an hour. They are equipped with different variations of shaved ice trucks like the Kona Entertainment Vehicle (K.E.V), Kona Kiosk, and the Kona Mini. However, Kona Ice is well known for its presence at events and festivals. Ranging from music festivals to school events, Kona Ice has made these events fun-filled and frolicky for all age groups. Through their custom software application development, Kona Ice also helps schools to raise funds for the betterment of the institution and involving students and teachers to make it a fruitful fundraiser campaign.
Mission: “BRINGING A BLISSFUL MOMENT THROUGH THEIR PREMIUM QUALITY SHAVED ICE CREAM CUP”
Kona Ice was using the SaaS application development platform to manage its operations. No doubt, SaaS is an excellent website application software built for cloud computing. However, one of the major challenges was the cost. Kona Ice was paying a high cost for this SaaS application. SaaS requires a monthly subscription, affecting the business expenses. In fact, Kona Ice could not save money or keep costs down due to the commission charged on each order. Plus, other problems like inadequate data security, reliance on network connectivity, low performances, etc. were the challenges Kona Ice was facing.
To curb the expenses that are brought by the SaaS application, Kona Ice wanted a custom website application development software similar to SaaS and a more cost-effective solution compared to the previous one.
Kona Ice wanted a custom web application to manage the orders of multiple events hosted throughout the year at schools, daycares, corporates, etc. Hence, Kona Ice teamed up with Mobisoft to develop a custom web application that would help customers place their orders from a web app well in advance. The solution would also help Kona Ice to keep an eye on each order with detailed order information like the number of orders fulfilled at each event with earned revenue. It consists of three user panels to complete the entire order fulfillment process smoothly at various locations. Let us have a look at the integrated features of each interface:
With the help of this user interface, the super admin can manage all events, franchises, and menus for respective events. Admin can view each event and customers in the online event management system with detailed information of the location. With the new system, the super admin can view reports based on orders, payouts, events, and franchises. It provides a detailed evaluation of the reports regarding any activity under the above-mentioned headings. He can access the data of all users on the web-based system, manage all necessary reports related to the order and events. Therefore, these reports help Kona Ice be informed regarding sales, inventory, deficits, orders, events, and more.
The franchise admin’s role is to manage the data for all the franchises and maintain communication with the head office. The franchise admin can add, edit, or view the menu as per requirement. The franchise admin can update or view pending and delivered orders while managing refund related queries. The added feature in franchise admin performs a detailed view based report dedicated to orders and events and the product reports of the events. The franchise admin is capable of holding school events according to customer requirements, hence the detailed reports act as the proof for all event activities.
The web-based system has incorporated a specific section for customers to place an order. The customer can add their required order to the cart, or explore the options and choose accordingly - the process is simple, followed by an easy payment method for quick clearance of the amount and proceed with the confirmation of the order. This feature can help in gaining customer satisfaction and feedback regarding the services and delivery system.
The recent implementation of the custom application garnered cost-effective features for Kona Ice delivery. The custom project implementation was done with the help of Agile methodology combined with three and more technologies, we were able to implement this web-based system for Kona Ice. The key specification for this project includes:
With the new web-based system, the desired objective was achieved. Kona Ice can now cater to multiple locations at a time and manage the online ordering process.