Any professional community should have a strict hierarchy based on some fundamental criteria. The hierarchy is supposed to feature both proven leaders and outsiders as well as highlight bold rookies and former jet sets in a particular industry. Everyone takes an appropriate position that fits the level of trust and reputation.
The latest research has revealed top 5 most loved gas station chains in the United States. Shell takes the lead followed by some other big names in the fuel industry including EXXON, BP and some more. However, leaders should hardly lay back and be satisfied with the state of thing. All 5 companies are inevitably approaching the “boredom” stage. What is it and what are the steps to avoid that stage?
What does the term “smart gas station” mean? What features it should have? How can IT solutions boost its operation in relying on all aspects of the non-fuel business and gas station chains? These are the question we are going to discuss in this article.
We all can find ourselves in different situations facing the need to have a glass of hot water. Whether you have just escaped from the desert or simply need to take your pills, it is p to public catering establishments whether to provide water for free or charge customers minimum prices to gain higher revenue. We are not talking of any altruistic or ethical issues. It’s just a business, baby! On the other, charging several cents for services that are actually not services appears to be a modern trend.
For example, a woman in a Moscow restaurant asked the staff if she could charge her cellphone, but her claim was rejected. This occasion resulted in numerous discussions and appeared to be another proof in favor of caterers that are eager to charge their customers for every extra breath. There are plenty of other examples of such greediness or tight economy, if you like. Such approach shoes a great eagerness of business owners to save every cent. However, they are so concentrated on the small things that they do not consider some obvious reasons of losing their major revenue. This is the point for another discussion.
Coffee is doubtlessly one of the most important products available in the market. On the one hand, it can boast great tonic features. On the other hand, it brings different people from different parts of the world together forming a huge global community of dedicated business professionals. The role of coffee should never be underestimated, as its importance for the global economy is the same as finances, oil or other market-defining products.
Moreover, coffee highlights some extra features such as flexibility and some other resources letting the product change in accordance with the market development and met its expectations in the long run.
Let’s talk about the habit of drinking coffee outside the home in Europe, Canada and Russia. Drinking coffee at the gas station, taking a cup of coffee to go on the way to work are the new habits of the modern metropolises inhabitants which change the coffe-drinking traditions in different countries around the world.
Mornings in the establishments of the Canadian coffee chain in any city of Maple Leaf Country starts in the exact same way. The crowd of visitors sweeps stocks of coffee and pastries in the blink of an eye – the nation is one of the most coffee-addicted in the world, which is confirmed by the impressive figures of consumption and the degree of prevalence of drink among absolutely all categories of citizens in terms of monthly income, place of residence, occupation, etc. .
In 2015, the country has topped the list of 80 countries in terms of coffee consumption, calculated in liters per capita that are bought and cinsumed in catering establishments – mostly in the cafes. In terms of absolute consumption, including the volumes of coffee beverages drunk at home, Canada is the third in the world with 152 liters per person each year. Ahead are only Netherlands and Finland coffee fiends, confirms the authoritative Euromonitor study.
The Russian market of IoT solutions has a pronounced contrast compared to Europe and the United States in terms of ensuring connectivity of networks for M2M-technology devices. Its potential is regarded as a very high one. Therefore, analytical firm J’son & Partners Consulting in its research on the results of 2016 for the market of distributed systems and telemetry, remote monitoring and control services paid some special attention to the Russian Internet of Things market. Non-fuel businesses of filling stations may become the exemplary ones for the whole IoT industry, because the industry has a request for major changes to be made. It’s one thing when startups are looking for new items, and quite another one when such a request comes from the leaders of Vertically Integrated Oil Companies (VIOC).
What exactly J’son & Partners Consulting analysts evaluated?
Both the level of penetration and scale of systems that were examined in the study in the were assessed by the amount of wired and wireless devices in the segment of machine-to-machine (M2M), which are automatically (or with minimal human involvement) produce and transmit data collected by telemetry systems, and execute commands of these systems. Devices with built-in data processing functionality were not taken into account. The main objective of the study was to evaluate the prospects of transformation of distributed telemetry systems in the light of Internet of Things (IoT) future development.
“Without my friends there’s a little bit of me, but with a lot of friends there’s plenty of myself” – lines from a soviet children’s song perfectly describes the essential meaning of co-operation in any business. You can be the author of most innovative solutions, to develop breakthrough technologies, but it’s only going to be possible to bring it to a state of “finished product” by going through a complex chain of cooperation with a number of business partners.
And this is true even for applied business initiatives of the microscopic, compared to the market standards, formats. Opening a small shop selling two or three positions of coffee beverages and about the same range of pastries (i.e. we’re talking about literally micro scale of business, not even SMBs), immediately causes the owners of such an enterprise to the need to acquire the suppliers of coffee machines, cups, coffee beans or ready-to-use blends , semi-finished products for baking, microwave oven – and so on and so forth.
When traditional logistic models and the organization of the supply chain have jeopardized the dynamic growth of the company, the owners of Costa Coffee went all-in. The company completely changed the leadership, adopted a new strategy for the organization of supply, hired a new logistics operator, and also introduced a new enterprise software to provide a new level of benefit from the telemetry component of its system. We believe that the final result speaks for itself.
Author’s note
When I was preparing this article, i was surprised by how similar problems had to be solved in RusHOLTS around the same time. An illustration of the similarity could be invention of the rad by Marconi and Popov. The problem is in the air and solution comes to those who are looking for it. Only RusHOLTS had to be tis own “new” logistics operator because of the lack of worthy proposals. No “regional partners”, no services outsourcing – only our own trained and well-managed structures that guarantee the high quality of work.
Vending as a sales technique is good – but only when it comes to newspapers, chocolates and chips, as well as personal care products. He who presses the button is the one who got the goods. Just pushed it – and continued their own way. Coffee beverages vending business now comes with minimum human involvement.
Coffee vending tend to vary in terms of product quality from “Lord, what is this ???” to “Well, okay.” Why is that? Because making of coffee – is a complex process with a thousand of nuances. No exceptions. The only thing that differs very much from a good “vending coffee» to a vending of a bad coffee” – is a chain Costa Coffee called Costa Express Company.
Costa Express Coffee – is an unexpected example of the coffee business in terms of a combination of indicators varying from “country of origin”. How this company was able to appear in the UK, a country of a totalitarian tea cult – it is a mystery. Nevertheless, it was there in 1971 when this brand appeared, which not only takes a confident second place in the World after Starbucks but represents today the very notion of “premium coffee vending” that tend to vary in terms of product quality, from “Lord, what is ???” to “Well, okay.” Why is that? Because making the coffee is a complex process with a thousand nuances. Virtually no exceptions. The only thing that is very distracting from the association with «vending coffee –is a vending of a bad coffee” – is a chain called in Costa Coffee.
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