Kuzminblog

Changing the world for better... at least the world of gas stations)

Category: Gas station chains – cafe Page 3 of 4

Project Marlow – сoffee GOELRO* plan

By

On 09.08.2016

In Gas station chains - cafe, Gas station chains - non-fuel businesses, Сoffee business

In 2011, Costa Coffee, the second largest chain of coffee shops, decided to expand its portfolio and hit the vending area.

The movement in the new direction began with the acquisition of the Coffee Nation chain – thus Costa Express brand was born. Costa decided not to lose time and quickly started to transform the quality of vending coffee to new heights.
The main tool for the breakthrough was going to be a new approach to the implementation of the vending machine itself to make it an example of all that people usually invest in the concept of “innovation”.

Brewing high-quality coffee “from-grain-to-the-cup” via the vending machine – it’s a constant challenge. At some stage it was even a challenge to the very common sense. Getting a consistently high level of quality in the long run was not allowed by the specific historical moment’s technology.

The

The “Marlow Project” team

Read More

Is Your Cup of Coffee Worth Paying that Price?

By

On 04.08.2016

In Gas station chains - cafe, Gas station chains - non-fuel businesses, Сoffee business

How much should a cup of your favorite coffee cost? What key factors does the price include? Which coffee is cheaper? One will hardly find the exact answer to all those questions when considering a well-flavored aromatic drink, as we are speaking of a tasty one. 

Regularly proceeding with an in-depth statistics and analysis, coffee market experts are very unlikely to reveal the truth. They know that the average price may range from $0.5 to $1 per cup of your beloved espresso or Americano. Those drinks do not require additional ingredients like milk making cost price lower if compared with latte o cappuccino. Producers and marketers benefit from enormous revenues selling their products with up to 1000% markup. For this reason, the niche appears to have a great potential for businesses, which use all possible means to protect their segment keeping newcomers away. They established an average market price, which is about $1 per cup.

_4

Read More

Efficient Solutions to Reduce Human Factor Errors at Filling Stations

By

On 18.07.2016

In Gas station chains - cafe, Gas station chains - non-fuel businesses, RusHOLTS, Сoffee business

My colleagues often blame me for inventing efficient tools that reduce the influence of human factor. They often say I don’t like people.

Well, it’s true. You can’t like all the people, anyway. However, every time I share my ideas on the human factor, it does not mean I reproach filling station operators or other employees for being negligent or low qualified. You can always find a responsible and initiative person as well as those who suffer from a lack of ambitions being unable to perform an extra move. Some employees try their best to follow their duties and fulfill their every responsibility while other do not give a damn what employers expect from them. Others make efforts to be a real pain in the neck interfering with devices operation without having enough knowledge and operational skills.

%d0%b0%d0%b7%d1%816

Read More

Life after oil. The transformation of the gas station

By

On 27.06.2016

In Gas station chains - cafe, Gas station chains - non-fuel businesses, RusHOLTS

«Life After Oil» is one of the most quoted events held during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. “For our country the oil is everything, it is 25% of GDP. So to imagine the structure of our economy without the oil which has not only a direct impact, but also an indirect contribution to GDP by attracting investment through consumption, is probably impossible”,- quote from a speech by Herman Gref.
Accepting this new reality is difficult not only to Russia. In Canada they also believe that country’s status as an energy superpower is under threat because of the more rapid speed of decline of the era of fossil fuels on the market than it was thought previously.
We’ve told you already about the history of the financial relationship of David Rockefeller and company Exxon Mobile.
David Rockefeller-Sr., the grandson of the founder of the dynasty, said he had lost faith in Exxon Mobil and donated its shares, which he’d got directly from his great-grandfather, to a non-profit Rockefeller Family Fund, which deals with environmental issues.
For non-fuel gas station businesses this trend has some good news in it. The modern driver’s need for a cup of coffee and some rest occurs more frequently than his car runs out of gasoline. This can easily be confirmed by the figures. Shell in 2015 had an operating loss from the core operations in the tune of $5.7 billion, but profits from “auxiliary” businesses, including retail, have grown over the past year three-fold to some $10.2 billion. Source >>
Therefore i consider an interview of Istvan Kapitani, executive vice president and Head of Retail businesses in Royal Dutch Shell, to be an essential one.
Istvan Kapitani joined the company in 1987 as a manager of filling station in Hungary, namely at his homeland. Today he leads the direction, which includes more sales outlets than Starbucks or McDonald’s. 43 000 gas stations, 500 000 employees and 25 million customers in 70 countries every day.

The future of fuel retail
Many of the current problems of fuel retailers today can be reduced to one thorny challenge – how exactly gas stations should be transformed in the light of the needs of the world with constantly falling oil prices, growing environmental requirements and the upcoming emergence of unmanned vehicles.

Read More

McCafe vs Starbucks business models – a difference that does not exist!

By

On 10.05.2016

In Gas station chains - cafe, RusHOLTS, Сoffee business

RBC TV tried to find out whose coffee business is better – McCafe’s & Starbucks’? Classic children’s question: “Who is stronger, an elephant or a whale?” And a boring grown-up answer: “Two subjects must be compared on common parameters”. It is strange that none of those present in the studio have not identified these “common parameters”, having lost sight of that in the competition between the two world HoReCa market leaders we observe frontal confrontation between players using virtually the same automated technology of coffee preparation and not the difference in the “approach to the consumer”.

19 copy

Read More

Excise stamps for all food products

By

On 15.04.2016

In Gas station chains - cafe

Rospotrebnadzor (Federal Service on Surveillance for Consumer rights protection and human well-being) has developed a “Strategy for raising the quality of food products in the Russian Federation by 2030».

It’s really a big deal they are about to start – after all it is necessary to create a single unified information system, which will track the movement of food products – from components to finished products. Plus, they’ll have to introduce compulsory state registration of the basic kinds of food additives. “Excise stamp” on the whole range of food production, cool, #whythehellnot!
Dealing with grand challenges is a profitable endeavour, because while you’re fighting for peace around the world no one will ask you about the devastation in your own WC. We haven’t yet figured out the simple issues, which one won’t have time to do within this large-scale project or vice versa, and now it is a good time to identify the specifics. For example, how do you enter the legislative amendments that will help to distinguish the coffee beverage prepared from the so-called “coffee material”?

Read More

Coffee culture and spiritual braces

By

On 25.03.2016

In Gas station chains - cafe

Starbucks is having problems. Again. At this time, customers in California believe they have not enough milk in their latte. IMHO (personal opinion of the author), whatever has been written about Starbucks it’s more popular than all other coffee houses in America put together.

Any American shopping mall is full of coffee establishments, but half the tables there are usually free. Only at Starbucks you may see a line of people from opening morning hours till late at night before closing. It’s coffee culture and “spiritual braces”.

You can only manage what you can measure

Still, there’s actually a real problem remaining. Underfill of milk is the most common complaint of customers at gas stations. You will be surprised how easily it can be solved. Milk actually is poured badly because the coaffee machines aren’t being washed properly.

Read More

Express-coaching for top officials in 30 minutes

By

On 29.12.2015

In Gas station chains - cafe, Gas station chains - non-fuel businesses, RusHOLTS

This conversation has been translated in English with some abridgements. Full version >>

Line personnel from procurement departments is recommended to refrain from reading.

Alexander Kuzmin is an expert with over 20 years in non-fuel business of gas stations and the implementation of projects of its reorganization. With this huge experience, Alexander is ready to offer the plan for the changes to the chain of stations of the federal scale in just 30 minutes.

His partner in this conversation is the head of federal chain which is bringing together more than one thousand stations located over the entire territory of the Russian Federation. In our dialogue, he will be called the Leader.

Leader: Alexander, you promised to tell me about the most important changes that I need to carry out so that customers perceive our stations on a par with the best European chains. And you promised to do so in just 30 minutes.

Alexander Kuzmin: Before you begin the conversation i would like to clarify what are the specific goals you want to achieve?

Leader: For over the last five years there has been a significant strengthening of the position of vertically integrated oil companies, whose major shareholders are various state-controlled structures. In the eyes of the vast majority of Russian citizens oil companies and their corresponding chains of gas stations are clearly perceived as being a part of  the “state”. All attemps to prove them otherwise had the opposite effect.

Alexander Kuzmin: In simple terms, Russian drivers should take your gas station as being the same as “cool” foreign ones. Is that so?

Read More

Remote coffee machines monitoring – Saving 2 billion. Part 4

By

On 26.11.2015

In Gas station chains - cafe, Gas station chains - non-fuel businesses

Part 4. Remote monitoring of coffee machines

Dmitry Petrov: It’s not the first time I hear from you about the remote monitoring of coffee machines – what’s that?

Artem Astafurov: Remote monitoring and control system is designed to bring together in a single control network an unlimited number of coffee machines installed on your chain of filling stations, regardless of their location. The main functions of this system will be the remote control of the settings, on-line monitoring of technical condition, collection of statistical data, as well as the exclusion of the risks of abuse and / or unskilled actions by gas stations’ personnel and service engineers.

In addition, the remote monitoring system allows timely identification and prevention of attempts to change coffee machines or data-sensors settings. If you try make any unauthorized changes, the system automatically restores the specified configuration parameters, and in case of disconnection of hardware and software module, it will immediately report violations in accordance with information algorithm (sending notification in an agreed format – in the form of SMS or e-mail to the list of responsible recipients).

Dmitry Petrov: I.e. instead of choosing the “best” of beans, you are suggesting installing yet another IT-solution?

Read More

Customer service

By

On 20.11.2015

In Gas station chains - cafe, RusHOLTS

The way to a man’s customer’s heart is through his stomach. The girls also love a cup tasty coffee, and the long journey makes everybody equal. The role of the caf? at gas station is to provide a tasty meal!

Gas is the same and let’s say it is equally good or even great everywhere, but we brew some gourmet coffee and will treat our customer with tasty buns, and now he’s here to stay with us. Real life experts are rubbing their hands as if they were saying “Wait ‘till we’ll tell you”. And indeed they do tell a never-ending story about customer service.

Recently I have found on the Internet one such story.

It happens that two experts are looking at the same situation from different angles. It does not change the components of the situation – poor customer service is still being that way. But an expert on corporate culture sees a way out in the education of adults, which is a hard task. From where I stand it seems to be as one more validation of propriety of non-fuel business automated straight-line organization. I swear, half of the dialogue between the well-known business coach Konstantin Kharsky and an unknown employee of the gas station would not have happened even if only the business process was organized properly.

This is an audio recording of this story. >> 

I do not know the cost of a liter of gasoline

Drivers often choose the gas station not because of the cost of a liter of gasoline – over the last few years the prices in most gas chains have been almost identical. Chains are competing via related services.

If the driver can fill a full tank or refuel it at 1000 rubles – this is a good and profitable customer. This man before this whole story had no particular preference, but chose this particular chain as it  guaranteed the quality of fuel and related services. Pretty ordinary course of conduct of our time.

Read More

Page 3 of 4

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén