A recent Linkedin search, showed that Lisa Hasen has left Dimmi to become the Vice President, APAC for Open Table. Lisa has extensive experience at OpenTable, having worked her way up from beingan Account Executive in 2007 to District Director, NorCal and Hawaii from January to May in 2013. We previously wrote about the imminent entry of OpenTable into the Australian market.
Lisa Hasen brings a wealth of experience in the Australian market, having been the Head of Business Development for Dimmi in Australia. (Photo from Linkedin)
Dimmi to face increased competition
The loss of Lisa must be another blow to Dimmi as they prepare to face off against the OpenTable behemoth. It remains to be seen what strategy they will take under their new owners, Priceline, but they can be expected to be very aggressive. It will also be a blow for Restaurant Diary, the great restaurant table management system that looks like it has become the core product that Dimmi is now reselling as they changed their business model from focusing solely on clipping the ticket on the way through for Restaurant bookings. We believe that restaurants have become increasingly reluctant to pay for the privilege of taking online bookings, especially when Dimmi uses their customers contact details to email out deep discount offers to other restaurants in the area. The Groupon by stealth strategy is one that many restaurant owners are concerned about it when they find out what is happening to their customers contact details.
Our Free Online Restaurant Booking system has seen continual growth since it’s release. It will be interesting to see what kind of uptake OpenTable sees in the Australian marketplace. Their admin fee for bookings taken from a restarurant’s website is certainly lower than that charged by Dimmi and could prove to be a significant advantage if they use a similar model to what they do in the United States.
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