Organizing coffee in the office is very simple. But if you have been working with coffee machines, coffee and coffee IT solutions for many years, then you forget that some people may not know basic things. The article reminded me of this».
In any profession there is a special kind of immersion, professional deformation. To feel it, try to remember your state when you couldn't read. Therefore, I seem to be repeating obvious things for myself, but it turns out to be a discovery for many. The purpose of the article below is to tell you how to build a coffee business for offices.
The foundation of the coffee business, regardless of its location
Any project can have external customers and internal ones. When you organize a coffee point at a gas station, in a communication store, or in a shopping center, you are targeting an external customer. When creating a coffee zone in the office, you use all the same organizational principles, but adjust them a little, based on what conditions your internal customer sets for you.
First coffee rule You can't compromise on the quality of your coffee. You need a recognizable, repeatable good taste for a long time. This goal is achieved in the same way as when selling coffee in advanced filling networks - a good automatic coffee machine, a properly selected grain mixture and monitoring the technical condition of the coffee zone. This is the foundation of the coffee business.
Coffee corner in the office
In the article, the programmers accurately caught the "client" part of the question - tracking who drank and how much, remembering preferred drinks, drawing prizes. Absolutely correct line of thought. By the way, the direction of thinking of the programmers from this company is correct, they even remembered about the prizes for each cup of coffee.
Given that the characters are not yet "experienced" users of coffee machines, they do not know about the technical component of the process - the maintenance of coffee machines. Who will carry out maintenance (maintenance), repair, in what time frame and under what conditions? Even such a simple question can become a stumbling block: “Who will flush the milk system of the coffee machine every day?” A trifle for 10-15 minutes, but daily. You can entrust the office manager, you can appoint a duty officer, you can score and in a couple of months lose the opportunity to drink cappuccino and latte.
Or, for example, the coffee machine must be washed with special products, which also need to be bought, otherwise you will taste coffee with fairies. The price of special chemicals is trifling - 12 rubles a day, but how many times did the masters have to clean the cars from the consequences of saving on consumables ...
I give the simplest examples, in fact, the monitoring system takes into account more than 400 parameters of the unit. A coffee machine is complex and expensive equipment, for which the manufacturer prescribes a lot of maintenance work aimed at preventing possible breakdowns of the unit. Good professional equipment is designed to last for decades if properly maintained.
The foundation of a solid coffee business for in-line sales of coffee is an automatic coffee machine, a specially selected coffee blend and a whole range of IT solutions aimed at preventing equipment operation.
Three whales for the coffee business
If all of the above seemed complicated to you and you really wanted to outsource the coffee issue to the side of the contractor, that is not comforting news. The technical realities of the world for the contractor are also not canceled, but he will solve them at your expense and not always in the most optimal way. Tested on thousands of coffee outlets that are connected to our coffee machine monitoring system. If you want to have delicious coffee, all the key issues must be kept in your hands. We reveal a rake on the way of office coffee lovers.
Choosing a coffee machine
Firstly, you need to choose a coffee machine yourself, guided by your own criteria.
The main criterion is the automatic preparation of coffee. Neither electric Turks nor professional coffee shop machines are suitable for the office. The programmers caught this one, but then they let the situation go to the discretion of the enterprising young lady, who offered them a lease on what? History is silent on this. Four buttons that perform 51 commands are information about nothing. Korean and Chinese units have a bunch of buttons that you can press with full diligence, and they do not affect the operation of the coffee machine in any way. Italian coffee machine manufacturers – a story with many unknowns. Only 3-4 well-known brands remain, but they are “above average” at first glance.
You don't have to spend even 30 minutes learning how to use an automatic coffee machine.
Choice of coffee blend
Secondly, the taste of coffee depends on the quality of the coffee mixture. It is difficult to argue with this statement. I am almost sure that along with the long-term lease agreement, the authors also signed a clause in the agreement that they use a grain mixture that the owner of the coffee machine will supply to them. (Otherwise, there is no point in leasing and renting). So they missed the key point of influence on their coffee without looking.
If the office manager is responsible for the coffee for the office coffee machine, then they will not gain much either. A good coffee machine is tuned to a certain type of grain mixture. Ideally, the settings are corrected monthly by the master. If every kilogram of coffee comes from a new batch, a new manufacturer, then either call the master to set it up, or drink a coffee-flavored drink. Here you also need to add a point about what kind of milk system does the coffee machine have in this configuration? Delicious coffee happens on natural milk. Is the refrigerator next to the car or do we put a carton of milk and a straw next to it?
Users at this stage did not discuss the maintenance of the coffee machine with the contractor, but in vain. For example, at a brewing temperature of 93,3, you get perfect coffee, if you brew a drink with 99-degree boiling water, you get a bitter burda. The temperature is set, of course, by the master. The settings even depend on the dishes to be used - coffee cups or ceramic mugs. The heat capacity of a ceramic mug is greater and it is customary to heat dishes in coffee houses. It is very nice that the author brought a cup and saucer from home, but this is not a guarantee that her coffee will be perfect.
Service life
IT solutions for coffee machine
I can list the nuances for a very long time, but the third part is the most interesting for me - IT solutions for servicing a coffee machine. I have already said about monitoring the technical condition of the unit above, now the “client” part, what affects the economics of using the coffee machine.
The first and most obvious solution is to somehow count the cups drunk. The programmers are really great, because it came to them on the very first day of owning a coffee machine. Some gas station managers have been doing this for years. IT people have quickly gone from a piece of paper and Google spreadsheets to automation. This process should definitely take place without the participation of the "human factor".
The next logical step is to identify who drank which coffee. Dropping 400 rubles for coffee is, in my opinion, the redneck of the employer. But as decided, so decided. Perhaps the next option is the sale of coffee, such options also exist, and they are implemented by modern technical means. Special prices are set for their employees, etc. This, however, is better perceived, that "we chip off for coffee and cookies." Selling coffee by pass is a workable idea. In some cases, it is more important to protect the coffee machine from unauthorized visitors, then the coffee dispenser also works great.
Access to coffee with a pass or check
Recognizing a client with a video camera is so trendy that in America they have already begun to prohibit recognizing everyone at every corner.
What I would write a bonus for is the idea of thinking bonus points from a cup of coffee you drink. Consumption should be encouraged. Marketers do not understand the first time how cool it is. It is immediately clear that real programmers working for the result, and not spherical horses in a vacuum. Business acumen is visible - instantly we are talking about a patent and the desire to “cash in” on neighboring coffee-loving departments. Until fellow programmers get excited, the HR department urgently registers the coffee theme in the loyalty policy in the company and implements it.
A possible client for such ideas could be an IP-shnitsa, who gave them a car for rent. But I think that the programmers will ask her so many technical and economic questions that the young lady will prefer to run away from the very smart ones and continue to pile up sellers of tights. The coffee market is so unsaturated with offers that even such a crooked business survives.
The only thing left to add is that if programmers, before inventing themselves, studied the issue, they would find that all their inventions have already been implemented and have been working for a long time. If you want to lose weight ask me how. Or look at what the search engine gives out for the query “monitoring coffee machines”.
Hack and predictor Aviator
So, in order to have delicious coffee in the office, you need to choose a coffee machine, a grain mixture and coffee IT solutions to suit your needs as much as possible.
Source: habr.com