Gulf crisis hits restaurants, food delivery, cross-border payments

Happy Wednesday! The Iran crisis is starting to dent business for restaurants, food delivery apps and cross-border payments firms as disruptions to shipping routes ripple through trade and supply chains. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.

Also in the letter:
■ Cybersecurity talent crunch
■ More time for AI labelling infra
■ IT to see revenue deflation

West Asia crisis: Kitchens put on the backburner

Restaurant body National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) has advised eateries to conserve cooking gas and reduce hours to manage the supply crisis arising from the Gulf crisis.

What’s happening: Ongoing hostilities in the Middle East have cautilized a shortage of fuel. The indusattempt body informed its 5 lakh members to consider shorter operating hours, suspconclude or reduce items that require long simmering and deep frying, and utilize lids while cooking to conserve liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Almost 90% of the counattempt’s LPG imports come from West Asia.

No alternatives: As many as half the restaurants in Mumbai may be forced to shut if the situation doesn’t improve in the next two days, officials informed us. Induction cooktops may not be a viable option for the scale at which these outlets operate.

LPG crisis likely to sear food delivery platforms

Food delivery platforms such as Zomato, Swiggy, and Ownly could see a drop in orders as thousands of restaurants scale back operations amid a shortage of commercial cooking gas.

But why? The disruption follows a squeeze in liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) supply after the escalation of conflict in the Middle East.

The government has temporarily restricted commercial LPG distribution in order to prioritise houtilizehold consumption.

Tell me more: Indusattempt groups state the shortage is already affecting restaurant operations across several cities.

Around 10,000 eateries, including quick-service restaurants (QSRs) and cloud kitchens, have either temporarily shut or are operating at reduced capacity, according to Saili Jahagirdar, the Pune chapter head of the NRAI.
NRAI president and Wow Momo founder Sagar Daryani informed us some restaurants are exploring induction-based cooking, though the option may not work for every kitchen.

Gulf crisis clouds cross-border payments startups’ business outsee

Escalating tensions in the Gulf are launchning to ripple through cross-border payments startups, as shipment delays disrupt trade flows to the Middle East and parts of Europe.

Driving the news: Founders state disruptions to major shipping routes, particularly the Strait of Hormuz, are delaying payments tied to shipments. The problem, a founder of a cross-border payments startup declared, requesting anonymity, “will only obtain hugeger in the coming weeks.”

The impact is already visible in sectors depconcludeent on goods exports, where payments are often triggered only after shipments relocate.

Setting context: Shipping routes across the Gulf were disrupted following US and Israeli strikes on Iran, creating uncertainty for exporters.

Around 10% of India’s ecommerce exports, valued at roughly $150 billion annually, relocate through the UAE.
India’s total exports reached about $825 billion in FY25, including $387 billion in services.

Another founder noted that while merchandise shipments have felt the first shock, overall transaction volumes remain relatively stable becautilize services exports have not been affected so far.

Fintech angle: Indusattempt estimates suggest fintech platforms account for 5–8% of cross-border payment flows, serving compact exporters, freelancers, and ecommerce sellers, while banks continue to dominate the segment.

Cybersecurity talent squeeze paints a huge tarobtain on India Inc

India’s companies are facing a widening cybersecurity talent gap, building it harder to defconclude against rising digital threats.

Number-wise: Data from Quess Corp displays India has about 380,000 cybersecurity professionals, while demand exceeds 1.2 million.

Analysts estimate enterprises face a 30-40% shortage in roles requiring deep expertise in cloud infrastructure, enterprise platforms, and risk management.

Also Read: Programming, customer service, data enattempt roles among jobs most at risk from AI: Anthropic

Tell me more: Recruitment timelines for cybersecurity professionals are stretching, with companies offering higher pay to secure scarce talent.

Critical areas such as identity architecture, threat innotifyigence, and platform security face the most acute shortages.
Senior roles now take more than 90 days to fill, among the longest hiring cycles in the tech sector.
Offer acceptance rates have dropped from 85% to 70%, with closure rates at 47%.
Niche skills command 20-35% pay premiums, with top architects earning up to Rs 50 lakh annually.

Changing tack: With senior talent in short supply, companies are redesigning their security teams.

Instead of waiting for hard-to-fill roles, many firms are flattening security hierarchies, combining architecture and operations functions and outsourcing more work to managed security providers, Biswajeet Mahapatra, principal analyst at Forrester Research, informed us.

Also Read: Two out of every three companies reduced hiring becautilize of AI, 24% reported an increase: Report

Social media companies to obtain time to build audit-ready AI labelling

The Centre will give social media platforms extra time to establish the internal infrastructure required for labelling AI-generated content before strictly enforcing the amconcludeed IT rules, sources informed us.

The details: Notified on February 10 and coming into effect ten days later, the rules require platforms to mandate utilizers to declare synthetic content and employ automated tools for verification, with government audits available upon request. This has faced strong opposition from platforms and Nasscom due to tight deadlines.

Verbatim: “Major platforms and tech companies are already addressing this issue globally, and their systems are already being deployed here. However, these systems will required to be adjusted to align with the latest amconcludements, which have established a comprehensive framework to eliminate deepfake and harmful AI content, with detailed provisions for reporting them,” an official declared.