Tag: Club of experts on non-fuel business of gas stations

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.

Project Marlow – сoffee GOELRO* plan

By Alexander Kuzmin

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 “Marlow Project” team

Auto purchases, CRM-system for competitive tenders and directories in the clouds

By Alexander Kuzmin

On 14.06.2016

In No subject

To simplify the work of purchasing department? To avoid hundreds of competitive tenders for each item? To gather together the information on the balance and delivery schedules? Easy.
“ADR” system developed by RusHOLTS has been solving these problems since 2011, making the work of gas station staff and managing companies much easier.
Auto purchases for retail
Solutions that automate procurement processes are actively developing in certain retail segments. A striking example – restaurants and shops at gas stations chains.
Product range in gas stations’s cafes and shops includes about 3 000 commodity items. At the same time, according to the established standards, the station may make an order starting from 500 rubles which, taking in the account the Russian distances, is simply ruinous for the suppliers that have no consolidation tools for trade flows, – Says Alexander Kuzmin, CEO of RusHOLTS – a company which is engaged in supplying on-fuel products for gas stations.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the large chains of filling stations are being built via buying incorporating the smaller ones, each of which uses their own accounting systems: Excel spreadsheets, “1C” and others. This makes it impossible to use standard solutions, so RusHOLTS developed and successfully introduced a number of services: “ADR”, coffee machines remote monitoring and other technological equipment.
As a result an online system for automated collection of information on all products at gas stations was created, on which are based the reports on the need for a particular product at a particular station on a daily basis. Gas station employees are using these documents to place orders with suppliers or service organizations that serve gas stations.
The system eliminated the need for holding hundreds of competitive tenders for each of the goods, increased the transparency of the process and the level of control. To the customer it is simply enough to select one or more operators, which will continue to provide comprehensive management services for the supply of goods and services within the contractual terms.

Full article >> http://www.b2b-center.ru/zakupki/analytics/resheniya-v-sfere-zakupok/

Private label goods – a trend in demand by gas stations chains

By Alexander Kuzmin

On 11.03.2016

In Gas station chains - non-fuel businesses, RusHOLTS

How we started to work with the products under the brand name of our private label, how we were developing this direction and what conclusions we’ve drawn. >>

This material includes, perhaps, a one fifth part of the story, so the full version is available to read in the blog.

We’re thanking the magazine “Trick of the trade”, which gave the opportunity to speak out on the important subject for us. Because the private label goods for hypermarkets and private label goods at the gas stations require a different technology to be applied, pursue different goals and objectives, have different pricing and so on and so forth. We’ve said it and we will repeat it for 100-500 times. Those who have already realized this, please, do not be offended.

In terms of shopping malls business, RusHOLTS is now among the five largest suppliers of automotive products for the relevant departments of the federal hypermarket chains. We started off developing our business in the 90s by supplying chemicals and auto cosmetics. In the Russian market we were the official representatives of world’s two huge brands – Holts and Redex. At that time in our country there was no hypermarket chains and gas stations chains have only been planned to start manage its shops on a unified and centralized basis. Then there was 1998 defaulted payments crisis.

The people stopped buying expensive imported car cosmetics, but no one refused from the use of the cars and their quantity only grew. Then we decided to create our own full-scale range of chemicals and auto cosmetics from fluids and fuel additives to polishes and air fresheners. So that niche of autochemistry saw import substitution by Russian-made goods as early as in 1998. Many well-known brands in this direction became the history since that time. Products created by us were unified under the umbrella brand EXPERT.

Why retailer needs its own chain of gas stations?

By Alexander Kuzmin

On 03.03.2016

In Gas station chains - non-fuel businesses

Walmart to create its own network of filling stations

What is more important for a modern gas station- gasoline or store? For western retailers this issue has beenresolved long ago. Fuel sales attracts more buyers, increasing efficiency and allowing the store to recoup substantial part of the costs for the maintenance of core business. In the Russian consciousness gasoline has the added value that is not comparable to any “related” business. The top priority for any manager of Vertically Integrated Oil Company will be the fuel. Why? Because the fuel is a staple of any oil company focused exclusively on oil production and refining.

In the West there always have been the retailers owning gas station chains. Thus it is not surprising that the development of its shops and cafes is considered by them as a priority business. (Couche-Tard, Costco, 7-Eleven, Tesco). The combination of classic retail and gas stations works well at improving the traffic in shops in terms of attracting additional customers. In Russia, such a model was implemented by “Lenta” and Neste without unified business management center, each of the partners was to manage their part of the project. But we must remember that Walmart is the world’s largest business network, the scope of future reforms is impressive.

You want something done well – do it yourself

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

Tag: Club of experts on non-fuel business of gas stations

Costa Coffee: supply chain as a growth factor

Project Marlow – сoffee GOELRO* plan

Auto purchases, CRM-system for competitive tenders and directories in the clouds

Private label goods – a trend in demand by gas stations chains

Why retailer needs its own chain of gas stations?