Manager Central operations

Job Description: Manager, Operations Control Tower Oct 6, 2026 · @Dilfoods Role overview Dil Foods is hiring a Manager, Operations Control Tower to be the single point of command for daily order fulfillment across all our cloud kitchens and cities. You will watch live operations, catch failures before customers feel them, and close the process gaps that cause repeat misses. • Reports to: Head of Operations / Business Head • Works with: City Heads, outlet and kitchen managers, supply chain, tech and product, customer support, delivery and aggregator partners • Location: Bangalore with coverage of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai and Delhi • Team: Control tower analysts / shift controllers (to be hired and led) • Working pattern: Peak-hour coverage (lunch and dinner) with a rotating weekend roster Key responsibilities Daily fulfillment command • Run the live control tower dashboard across outlets: order intake, kitchen prep, rider assignment, dispatch and delivery. • Track order backlog, kitchen load, rider availability and delivery delays hour by hour; reallocate load, pause or throttle outlets, and trigger escalations before SLAs breach. • Own the daily start-of-day and end-of-day operations briefs for leadership, with misses, root causes and next-day actions. • Manage real-time exceptions: stock-outs, item unavailability, kitchen downtime, aggregator or app outages, weather and rider shortages. Process gaps and continuous improvement • Run root-cause analysis on repeat failures such as late orders, wrong or missing items, cancellations, refunds and poor ratings; own the corrective action log until closure. • Audit adherence to SOPs for prep, packing, handover and hygiene, and flag gaps to City Heads and outlet managers. • Design and roll out standard processes, checklists and escalation matrices; remove manual handoffs through automation with tech and product. • Run weekly process review forums with city and outlet teams and track action closure. Ops metrics and reporting • Define, maintain and publish the operations metrics framework (see KPIs below) with a single source of truth for every metric. • Build and maintain dashboards and alerts in partnership with the data team; ensure data accuracy across POS, aggregator and delivery systems. • Produce weekly and monthly performance reviews by city, outlet and brand, including outlet ranking and trend analysis. • Convert data into decisions: flag underperforming outlets, forecast demand-driven staffing and inventory needs, and size the impact of fixes. Partners and stakeholders • Monitor aggregator, logistics and full-filling restaurant partner performance against agreed SLAs; escalate and drive resolution. • Be the first escalation point for City Heads during peak hours and coordinate with customer support on high-impact complaints. • Partner with supply chain on inventory availability and with finance on cost-of-failure impact (refunds, wastage, discounts). Team leadership • Hire, train and roster control tower analysts and shift controllers; set clear shift handover protocols and performance expectations. KPIs this role owns Targets below are indicative starting points; calibrate them to current baselines before hiring. Area Metric Indicative target Speed On-time delivery (within promised ETA) 92%+ Speed Average kitchen prep time (KPT) Within brand SLA, e.g. under 15 min Speed Order-to-door time Within brand SLA by city Quality Order accuracy (no missing or wrong items) 98%+ Quality Customer rating (aggregator and app) 4.2+ Reliability Order cancellation rate (kitchen-attributed) Under 2% Reliability Outlet uptime during operating hours 98%+ Reliability Item availability / stock-out rate Under 3% of menu at peak Cost Refund and compensation as % of GMV Under 1.5% Cost Food wastage % Under 3% Process SOP and audit compliance score 90%+ Process Corrective actions closed within SLA 90%+ Control tower Escalations acknowledged within 10 min at peak 95%+ Qualifications and skills Required • 6 to 10 years in operations, with at least 3 years running multi-outlet or multi-city operations in cloud kitchens, QSR, food delivery, quick commerce or logistics. • Proven experience running a live command centre or control tower: real-time monitoring, escalation handling and shift-based coverage. • Strong working knowledge of food-delivery metrics: KPT, order-to-door time, cancellations, refunds, ratings and aggregator performance. • Hands-on analytics: advanced Excel or Google Sheets, plus SQL and a BI tool such as Power BI, Looker, Metabase or Tableau. • Track record of root-cause analysis and process improvement using methods such as 5 Whys, Pareto or Lean. • Experience managing and developing a team of 3 or more, and influencing City Heads and outlet managers without direct authority. • Clear written and verbal communication, and calm decision-making under peak-hour pressure. Preferred • Experience with Swiggy, Zomato or ONDC partner dashboards, POS and kitchen display systems. • Exposure to automation, workflow tools or basic Python and APIs for alerting. • Fluency in English and Hindi; additional regional languages are a plus. Education • Bachelor's degree in any discipline; MBA or PGDM in operations, supply chain or business analytics is preferred.