Things change, as time goes by. What was created as a symbol of the fast food industry, calories and junk burgers may eventually turn into healthy food provider. McDonald’s tends to change the strategy in the nearest future obtaining a brand new look customers have never witnessed before.

The food giant is about to correct its strategy and focus on a so-called healthy fast food highlighting some fitness diets in addition to a separate food consumption propaganda. The new concept will feature a selection of recipes that can boast an optimal nutrition formula for people aimed at keeping fit. In other words, McDonald’s may turn into 100% opposite concept we are used to introducing some venues of the new healthy concept in different parts of the world. The extended menu includes a range of soups and salads, healthy sandwiches and main courses.

New Old Fast Food

Farewell to junk burgers full of fat and cheap soda with tons of sugar. Well, not for now. Some epic positions will still be included in the menu. On the other hand, we should finally get rid of stereotypes and decide whether fast food is actually so harmful. Most of you would be surprised to know that some professional athletes and the most dedicated fitness fans also eat in fast food restaurants from time to time. This is all due to a rather intensive life rhythm that is a signature of every metropolis. We are always in a hurry suffering from a constant lack of time being unable to cook something healthier for ourselves on the go. Moreover, your hunger will hardly wait until you come across another “healthy” grocery store in the long run.

At the same time, it is vital to have a clear understanding that what you eat is of the same importance as how much and often you eat. One will hardly argue that eating out at McDonald’s on regular basis can be a fatal mistake. On the other hand, if you constantly work under pressure and suffer from tiredness and exhaustion that is not about food to be to the detriment of your health. There is nothing wrong in visiting McDonald’s a couple of times per month. For this reason, fast-food restaurants will hardly ever refuse from their junk burgers and sugary soda in the nearest future considering growing revenues.

No matter how hard some people try to fight back all disadvantages of the fast food industry, a few of them are really eager to count every calorie in their daily food consumption. They’d batter outsource the task to someone else. So, why cannot a fast food restaurant be that someone else? This is why McDonald’s has already introduced some changes in its traditional concept that combines advanced and innovative high-tech approach with old-school food industry traditions that we love so much. Such symbiosis has already made its debut in more than 500 venues under the brand across the United States. Also known as McDonald’s of the Future, the new concept introduces new restaurants where customers can place the order using special kiosks. The staff serves the food directly to your table instead of waiting in a line at the counter. A new menu and the ability to save time when ordering are the two main innovations if compared with traditional concept.

Lead the Scene You Cannot Conquer
The symbiosis of healthy foods and innovations is actually what we call fast-casual concept. It has already started changing retailers’ minds and McDonald’s is the first in line.

The fast0-casualconceptis not new to the food industry. Already used by Chipotle and Panera chains, it has proved to be rather popular although the average cheque is a bit higher if compared with McDonald’s. The price per snack may range from $9 to $13. On the other hand, chefs are picky when It comes to choosing ingredients for the meal.

As for customers’ convenience, the brand has introduced its new Create Your Taste option accessible via special kiosks. Here you can choose from a selection of ingredients, toppings, and presentations according to your tastes and preferences. Customers can add as many ingredients as they like without any limitations. The pilot version of the kiosk has shown some amazing results. For instance, a Chicago-based customer orders a burger that cost $900! The company decided to replace the mechanism with a new one called Signature Crafted Recipes. Moreover, the company decided to improve the state of things in the coffee niche spending up to $12,000 on every new coffee machine and announcing new coffee blends and specialties.

McDonald’s seems to take a new concept seriously. Marketers and promoters even refused from a well-recognizable logo and letters “Mc” in the name of every beverage and burger they make. In this occasion, an extreme popularity of the brand may be to the detriment of the development of the new concept. Moreover, the company decided to get far beyond the boundaries of its home market to make the new concept look like a brand new independent branch. For example, there is a healthy food restaurant under the Corner name located in Sydney, Australia. It seems to have nothing in common with McDonald’s at first sight. However, if you look closer at its logo, you will notice “by MaCafe” marker making it look like a separate division. Of course, the experiment is not 100% flawless and features some slight misses and pitfalls at its start. However, it certainly has some great potential although the company has never dealt with any of that before.

There are no questions about what to cook and serve. We can witness a growing number of fitness cafes and veggie restaurants preparing fruit-based cakes with berries and without the slightest sign of fat and sugar. You will hardly find it difficult to bake the same cake at home. People are ready to pay more for healthier food reserving enough place for the new paradigm. The same thing is with defining targeted audience. As a rule, targeted customer include adult people looking for a chance to keep fit. Teenagers will hardly appreciate such concept. So, the Corner is very unlikely to see them as their returning customers. On the other hand, it seems to grab its place in the niche moving over some healthy food chains due to better tasting coffee and innovative customers’ approach.

Every Nation to Its Own Taste!
Practically all Western healthy public catering projects can boast great margin. The reason is very simple. We have the term “super food” that represents a selection of products with high nutrition value. For instance, Australian consumers are used to eating freshly salted cabbage that appears to be extremely healthy, as it contains a huge amount of Vitamin C and some other useful ferments. The price per one jar of cabbage ready for consumption is about $10-15. Everyone can afford it. However, the gap between the end price and cost price is enormous as well as the revenue.

Summing up, healthy fast food concept can be developed in millions of directions. IT certainly has some potential. If McDonald’s accepts the concept, we should expect a new boom in the food industry in the nearest future.

Alexander Kuzmin, RusHOLTS CEO, spoke at the conference “Global and local markets of oil and petroleum products: the analysis, pricing, trade flows“, presenting the report on the non-fuel businesses of filling stations. Development and marketing of modern gas station chain have become relevant and even a prime-time topic for Russian gas station chains, both large and small. Request for an effective program of roadside service comes from the top of the Vertically Integrated Oil Companies’ management which is good. On the other hand it is sad that in the minds of many leaders the level of understanding of the non-fuel business development remained at the 2010 level.

Recently, representatives of the world’s leading management consulting companies have spoken a lot about the need for Russian gas stations chains to develop their potential of non-fuel businesses. In most cases, to the audience’s attention are offered the “best practices” based on the experience of more mature foreign markets with no less than half a century of history. Why are these recommendations still not massively implemented in the Russian conditions?

As a practitioner, I see several reasons for this: the main one – the majority of local gas station chains has no basis for the application of such recommendations. We got many gas station chains that havn’t the elementary basic structure of the non-fuel businesses, for which it would be possible to apply the proposed tools to improve efficiency. Zero multiplied by any number still gives you a zero.

Presentation >>
Full version of the report presented at the conference >>

Key figures:
The income of one station with customer traffic of 1000 people per day and more at baseline (!) level of the non-fuel businesses’ organization is more than 1 million rubles.
Profit of a gas station with 1000 checks of customer traffic per day from CAFE department – 350 thousand rubles (with the revenues of 700 thousand rubles).
Coffee with the right sales organization can cover 10% of customer traffic, it is 210 thousand per month. Fast food covers about 5% of customer traffic and 80 thousand per month and pastries will ensure another 60 thousand per month.

Profits from a gas station with 1000 checks per day from SHOP department – 450 thousand per month (with revenues of 1.4 million rubles).
Again, it’s more than a million rubles a month as a profit. And it is at the base level of the organization of non-fuel businesses, a result that can and should be improved. After all, if the basis is zero, it won’t matter how much you will multiply the efforts, the result is still will be a zero.

These figures can be rotated again. You have a basic level of development of the non-fuel businesses, if the sales of coffee cover 10% of customer traffic and another 5% of customers buy fast food and pastries. This is the level from which you can push off and seek to improve the situation.

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.

One of the main conclusions drawn by the analysts - in Russia there is no fully developed IoT-systems, because 99% of the devices that are used in distributed telemetry systems are not connected to the industry IoT-platforms. Instead they are working on proprietary software and hardware products with a very limited functionality. These solutions are, in fact, the systems of "machine-to-man" (M2H) class. Thus, the number of connected devices identified in the study is simply the number of devices used for distributed telemetry and remote management and control systems that could potentially be transformed into IoT-systems.

Another feature of the market today is its very deep fragmentation: there is no single, unified market of telemetry solutions in Russia. It do not exist as such. In fact, customers are dealing with a set of virtually unrelated markets, which determine their profile on the basis of combined number of customers from various industries.

The main categories here are:
• Market of vehicles' tracking systems and services, including so-called "smart insurance"
• Market of protective consoles and video surveillance security systems based on them. It is the only major segment of the market which is directly linked to the "smart home" segment.
• Emerging markets of systems and services for the commercial metering of consumed utilities' resources (electricity, water, heating, gas) by companies and households. This segment can also be used in "smart home" projects.
• Market of payment systems: ATMs, POS-terminals, cash registers with WAN-connection, mobile payment modules.

I also should note that for the non-fuel businesses of filling stations the very situation regarding the creation of a full-fledged IoT-platform has its benefits, because large companies are using processing for fuel cards, they also have fuel supply logistics solutions at the required level and there are companies (RH and the BMS, for example, link), which have comprehensive offerings for the organization of non-fuel businesses. Our industry is ready to take off.

The total number of telemetry devices involved in the assessed systems in Russia is shown in Figure 1, along with the yearly dynamics of the segment.

Government programs as engine for progress

Government programs were the main growth drivers in terms of the installed and connected devices in the distributed telemetry systems in Russia during the period from 2010 to 2013.

Basically, it is cargo and passenger vehicles monitoring systems, programs for residential buildings and public spaces' equipment with accounting systems of utilities' resources, and the development of geographically distributed video surveillance systems.

Cash registers connected to payment systems (POS-terminals) are the single large market segment which was formed during this period under the influence of the actual market factors.

The only period of decline in the growth and development of the IoT/M2M market of connected devices in Russia occurred in 2014 due to the reduction in funding of government programs of this profile.

However, in 2015 the growth of the number of devices that are connected in the framework of projects with telemetry components resumed and was able to fully compensate for the decline in 2014 coming back to the 2013 level of growth. The key driver here was the introduction of "Plato" system for trucks tracking, activation of M2M programs for private housing and communal resources management segments, as well as the launch of the Unified State Automated Information System (USAIS) program.

It is the combination of mandatory government programs and market factors that will determine the high rates of growth in the number of new connected devices in 2015-2018, predicts J'Son & Partners.

Along with USAIS program, introduction of IoT / M2M projects in the housing and communal services will be the main driver in the field of industry's state-stimulating, which also may be helped by the introduction of market incentives for the further development - for example via smart cars insurance systems services development, as well as the most widespread services as of today, "smart home" that is, including security and the whole range of other connected devices for modern building's operation.

At the same time, the development of the industry's IoT-components into a full-fledged market can be expected no earlier than 2018, analysts believe that the proprietary control systems and MES-systems will be replaced by new solutions and services in the segment of industry automation, which will be based on IoT-principles.

The Russian market in this respect has pronounced differences in terms of network connectivity technologies for IoT / M2M-devices. This largely represents a contrast to the global trends. According to Ericsson, out of 4.6 billion connected M2M devices, only 9% (0.4 billion) are connected via the cellular networks, while the structure of the connected devices in Russia can boast a much higher share of connected devices via mobile communications. Most of the mobile devices use GPRS, support the transfer of data in SMS format, as well as employ modems for data transmission via the networks supporting voice traffic exchange.

One of the practical implications of such a market structure is the following situation. When the connection is implemented through cellular networks that are technically obsolete for these purposes, and this is being superimposed on the lack of trunk Wi-Fi networks, the developer of the telemetry system and telecom services providers can not guarantee a 100% implementation of SLA in terms of service availability, its security, and other key characteristics. For example, security and fire alarm systems usually have two SIM-module for SIM-cards of different operators. But even this approach does not allow the operator of telemetry solutions to ensure high-quality SLA compliance at least at the level of availability of the service itself.

And this entails the very fact that all distributed telemetry systems deployed in Russia involve only the monitoring function, often not having the components for any real-time analytics, which limits their capacity to control. This feature is used today only in isolated proprietary systems for processes control and BMS-type systems (Building Management Systems), which do not have access to external (public) networks. Moreover, this control is carried out mainly manually by employees of the telecommunications provider or network operator, and it does not optimize the controlling functions.

This fact, in turn, determines the relatively low level of economic efficiency of the implementation and use of such systems in the light of the relatively high level of the costs during the implementation stage.

The forecast gives the market 32 million of connected devices by 2018 and 50 million by 2020. The ones connected to the IoT-industry platforms will exceed 50% of all devices involved in the distributed telemetry by 2020. By 2018, the first implementation of projects with telecontrol functions across the industry IoT-platform are to be held.

In terms of services quality it should be noted that soon it will be possible to talk about the formation of the completed IoT-ecosystems, including components such as:
• Sensors and run-time modules that interact with a variety of cloud IoT-services while being connected to the public Internet.
• Open IoT-analytical platforms and IoT-services based on them
• Libraries of open APIs that allow to integrate the specialized IoT-services with other cloud services.

Quantitative changes in the Russian market of distributed telemetry systems are inevitable. The economic situation will contribute to acceleration transition made by the developers and providers of the telemetry services from proprietary telemetry ideology to the use of IoT-sectoral platforms that will ultimately play in favor of the increase in the total number of connected IoT/M2M-devices in Russia.

RusHOLTS - in tune with the times

The role of a person or a company in the general history or the history of the business has not been abolished yet as such. It so happened that in Russia there is a company that is complex and has for many years been engaged in the development of non-fuel businesses, according to global trends.

Remote monitoring of coffee machines (BMS Coffee Control), while being a licensed product of an american company BMS which has its own views on the Russian market, however, has become a significant IT-solution for RusHOLTS, its visiting card. The effect of coffee machines remote monitoring implementation takes place in the first months of use. Sales growth, reaching 400% per quarter, usually convince business owners, financial department, as well as middle level managers. But we stepped on further to create a full flow of information on the movement of goods at a gas station - processing system of non-fuel businesses of filling stations chains, that is, by implementing a vivid example of matching the real sector of the economy with the B2B market of virtual information services. In fact - a new management platform.

The essence of the processing system is that a unified monitoring center receives online information on all goods that arrive and are sold at the gas station of the chain owned by the service's customer. Daily the masses of reports on the needs for each commodity on each of the stations are automatically generated. These documents are recommendations based on which stations' employees place daily orders to suppliers of goods or services, serving these stations. Operational analytics can accurately determine which company is the supplier of the required goods or services, processing center automatically creates "history" of each vendor, recording any deviations from contractual obligations. Manager, responsible for working with suppliers, has the opportunity to choose the most effective partner, just as the user of Uber is able to choose driver with the best feedback from previous customers. Purchasing of goods and services becomes transparent, impartially recording any violations of the regulations of supply and not allowing any concessions to unscrupulous contractors.

Effective management of orders and deliveries of the gas station chain with extensive geographical presence from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok – is a very daunting task, effective solution of which are complex information and telemetry services unified by a concept of processing for non-fuel businesses of gas stations chains.

BMS Coffee Control solution revised by RusHOLTS specialists surpasses all the analogues, which are available in Europe and even in the United States, so RusHOLTS has some very ambitious development plans. In today's world information management becomes a universal commodity, and companies that can create information flows that are sought for are not only full-fledged rivals of the traditional market players, but also the very center of the real sector of the economy changes.

The price for a cup of coffee can be set at any level? That's a trick question! Because right away one is tempted to distract the attention to other topics. What kind of coffee will you be able to sell cheaply? Remember, we are talking about the delicious coffee!

Coffee market experts usually get confused when answering this question, because they know that the price of a cup of coffee ingredients is 20-25 rubles at the most. Espresso or Americano do not require the use of milk so their cost is even lower. Selling a mass product with retail margin of 1000% - is a good business, which is being guarded by its "locals" in a very tough manner. Coffee makers position on this one - a "good cup of coffee can't cost more than 50 rubles".

I understand that it will be followed by an ironic question: "But you do not offer coffee for 50 rubles at gas stations!". Gas stations' cafes and shops offer impulse demand goods, so their price is not exactly built on the principle of the discounter. But just think about why the stations are so often to tempt you with «free coffee» offerings? 

Nobody gets surprised by a sign on a cafe's facade: «Business lunch + coffee for 50 rubles», that's for sure.

But in addition to the gas stations and Moscow's city center there are still many places where the coffee business can develop and there are good examples of discounter's format. For example, in 2015, St. Petersburg COFiCO (Coffee Fix Company) was launched that sells everything at the same price - 50 rubles. By year's end, the chain owners were going to have 50 outlets in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Now according to their page on VKontakte, from June 1, 2016 there are three coffee shops where everything goes "for 59 rubles". In 2016 the time has come for a large-scale experiment. Finally an «enfan-terrible» company emerged which is going to work in a "hard discounter" mode, selling coffee for 50 rubles. Israeli Cofix reports that it found a partner to open 1000 outlets in Russia. The first phase stipulates opening of three Cofix own cafe, the second - 300 franchising outlets in Moscow, the third - additional 700 throughout the country.

Fixed price

Produced on a mass-market scale, inexpensive but still a delicious coffee means that we are talking about the flow production business model regarding the coffee sales. The principle of fixed price works due to the fact that the cost of most goods is much lower than the selling price. Cost of coffee beverages is really not that high, but trying to save money on the drinks' quality –is a bad job, given that the coffee business is based on repeat sales. The biggest selling point's expenditure is the rent of premises and staff's salary, so these are exactly where one should seek opportunities for savings.

Renting the premises must be treated carefully and intelligently, just understanding that you are here to stay. Study your customers here and now, at this particular point: universities and other educational institutions nearby, cinemas, stadiums, transport's routes etc. Permanent business or tourist flow can provide a point of sale with possibilities for fixed price for coffee.

We still need to talk in more detail about the staff. Flow coffee sales imply that such outlets do not need a professional barista, but that does not mean that you can start saving your money on the staff significantly or not to pay any attention to this issue. Savings on the people – either on customers or employees – are usually turning up to be too expensive for business.

But there are "reasonable" ways to save if you use the IT solutions that directly suppress sales opportunities "by cash", make substitution of grain or manipulation with recipes of drinks impossible. In the future, the cost of coffee machines' maintenance will decline due to its service. So "the perfect barista" for such a sales point – is a professional automatic coffee machine plus remote monitoring and responsible employee who complies with all the prescribed regulations.

Attention to the products' range

Coffee sells products for the different price categories from cars and jewelry to the buns and hot dogs. Yes, coffee is selling gas stations' related services for millions of dollars.

A cup of coffee – is the key to customer service, which focuses on people.

When intelligently compiled, products' range is open to include in it some decent quality products and selling them at not expensive prices. But you will have to think about it and work on that permanently. In the big city it will be hard to attract visitors by primitive donuts. The high-tech baking - it's high-quality semi-finished products from world-class leaders. So, again, professional equipment and remote monitoring of this kind of equipment. These are the costs which have to be met consciously. If all of a sudden there is an "accident" refrigerator defrost happened that caused damage to a monthly supply of semi-finished products for baking, such a force majeure threatens to ruin small businesses. Only large-scale chain companies like McDonald's will deal with similar incidents calmly and will survive them, for the small businesses they would mean company's closing.

The range should not be contrived or complicated positions. Being simple and please everyone, and yet not be boring or bothersome. This is a constant work for the leader of such a sales point. You made a mistake and you are bankrupt, you are afraid to make a mistake – and your products like the Nokia's, good quality, but no one wants to buy it.

But I believe that the "fixed price" approach certainly has a future. Even though retail margins in trendy coffee houses reach up to 1000%, there are players who would be interested in working with the margin of 100-150%. Coffee is a product, which is bought not because of the price, so in the market there will be enough space for any pricing model.

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 >> 

About a thousand and a half gas stations across Russia are already connected to the online-monitoring system. The “smarter” car becomes, the smarter gas station should get, too. What IT-solutions can really improve the efficiency of the store at the gas station and cafe, tells Alexander Rytheu in his report.

Delicious coffee at the gas station - is a coffee prepared automatically with the café owner also making efforts to ensure that operators don’t interfere in the process. When to change coffee grains in the coffee machine, to update the product layout on the shelves or to clean the bathroom at the gas station? To answer these questions the remote monitoring of the gas station process equipment emerged.

Alexander Kuzmin, CEO of RusHOLTS company: "We’ve been working with the gas station chains over 20 years, we have identified one major problem - this is the human factor. Unfortunately, the staff is not always fulfills the regulations, which they are obliged to perform. To alleviate the problem, we have created a remote monitoring center".

Employees of the center receive information around the clock, and remotely follow the condition of the equipment throughout Russia. If necessary, the operator calls the gas station and make recommendations. The most striking example of the successful implementation of such systems is the remote telemetry of automatic coffee machines. After its installation stations provide explosive profits from coffee sales - up to 400% in the quarter. The company's goal - to teach the stations to sell no less than 100 cups of coffee per day.

Anna Borikhina, RusHOLTS manager: "Coffee machine is a complex and expensive equipment, to which the manufacturer appoints many routine procedures, which are sometimes difficult to carry out, and sometimes people forget to do this, and that’s the human factor, which we discussed. IT-solution that we offer, i.e. coffee machines remote monitoring - it's just something that helps people to observe all the necessary procedures so that they can bring the taste of the coffee, which was conceived by the manufacturer".

Another solution developed by the company - smart watches. In fact, it is a personal time-manager which aims to increase the efficiency of the employee.

Alexander Kuzmin, RusHOLTS CEO: «Interface of such watch reminds the station's manager that it is necessary to make cleaning or send an order to the supplier. For example, the watch is now suggesting that it's time  to fill the coffee machine with coffee grains, because the grain bin ran out of it. We plan to equip with such watches all gas stations employees of our customers".

The company plans to connect to the remote telemetry all stations' equipment, including fuel dispensers. And at the same time to dispel the prejudice that gas stations can only make their profits on selling the fuel. After all, a well-organized non-fuel business can bring millions of rubles of additional profit

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".

It makes no sense to compare the two opposing leaders by the value of their brands, or the number of sales points – it would be better to assess the potential of their respective business models. At the modern coffee market there are only two such models: first, the so-called "Thread-Process" which involves automatic coffee machine, the other - "manual" coffee brewing, when the barista makes the drinks. The first model is used by both world leaders in question, the second – by "traditional" coffee houses, which make the majority in our country. So far they do ...

"Thread-process" technology model of making the coffee beverages is focused just on reducing the human impact on the final result. No "copyright drinks", "masterpieces in every cup" or "individual brews!". Strict technological template and standard formulations that are the same for all points of sale. Following these technologies both the "Good Old Starbucks" and "Coffee appendage of McDonalds" equip their establishments exclusively with automatic coffee machines. Therefore, to the program with such a topic of discussion it is logical to invite the manufacturers of coffee automatic equipment, specialist in in-line models of the coffee business, integrators of IT solutions for process automation, not restaurateurs and especially the representatives of coffee roasting companies.

Drop of IT in every cup of coffee

Starbucks uses almost the same model of automatic coffee machines that simulate the "manual" brew around the world, McDonalds sets the equipment of several leading manufacturers, but in any case, both networks acquire coffee superautomatic macines exclusively from automatic coffee equipment market leaders, so they can not win the fight for the buyer against each other only at the expense of coffee machines' technical perfection.

During the discussion, one of the experts mentioned that McDonald's leads the market in terms of "manageability" of the chain. Where did he get this notion – i do not know because Starbucks is just as good. On what it would be reasonable for the two world leaders to apply their efforts in the fight for the consumer?

Any coffee house – it's a special atmosphere created not only by the design of its space, but also by customer-oriented service. The fact that some of the technical issues can be solved by telemetry, I already told you.  Implementation of IT solutions, including the remote BMS Coffee Control coffee machines monitoring system is guaranteed to remove part of the concerns that both companies have. For example, milk under-filled in coffee. You'd be surprised, but it's the most common complaint of customers in catering all over the world.In eight cases out of ten  milk is under-filled due to the improper care of the elements of the milk system. And a delicious cappuccino or latte can be only made with natural milk, no with the powder one. So, in the coffee machine there should be a system of milk supply, which should be washed regularly and correctly. I specifically highlight these words - regularly, which means on a daily basis, and correctly, that is, strictly according to instructions. Telemetry solutions eliminate minor bugs, errors and influence of the human factor, which would allow both companies to improve the quality of beverages offered to the level of the world's best coffee. In addition, I am sure that these guys always find a way to use the benefit of customers-generated big data, which is created by arrays of coffee machines' online monitoring data. There are already IT-solutions for the coffee machines to memorize their regular customers' preferences, recognize them etc. These are some excellent opportunities for the growth of both businesses using the model of the automated coffee machines. Opportunities that are not available for the "traditional" coffee establishments.

"Affordable luxury" or the Price of a cup of coffee can be…any

I was surprised that respected "experts" got so confused trying to answer a simple question about the cost of a cup of coffee. That's really an open secret! Let's count on the fingers: to make a cup of cappuccino you need 10 grams of coffee beans - 10 rubles, 120 ml of milk - 7-8 rubles, plus sugar and some cinnamon. Espresso or Americano do not require the use of milk and, accordingly, their cost is even lower.

No surprise then that knowing these numbers one of the "experts" mentioned: "The price of a cup of coffee can be any". Apparently, to say publicly that the cost of a cup of good coffee is never more than 40 rubles, is scary. Both host's guests couldn't not know that, but managed amicably "to blur" the answer, hiding it by the words about the price of the brand and "affordable luxury." I agree, you have to pay for marketing, the question is, to whom and how much?

Summary: Fortunately, the modern customers use no glamor verbiage to remain well versed as to where there's tasty and pleasant coffee, voting with their feet. Judge for yourself: the most traditional coffee houses consider a great success if they manage to sell 200 cups a day, Starbucks or McDonald's restaurant on the average sell some 800 or even more cups. And this is not the limit ... So whose coffee business is better, Starbucks or MacCafe? The answer is obvious - these are two equally important businesses using the same business model. Prospects for growth are not laid down in the poaching the customers from each other, but are present in the inflow of new customers who previously were not supporters of good coffee or prefered the "traditional" coffee places.

Bottom line: Lyrics about the mystical properties of coffee beans and its roasting ordinances can be skipped. Philosophy of consumption of coffee as a drink, too. My seditious thought is the following - there is no particular "World of Coffee Idea". But there is a snobbery with which the adherents of the traditional coffee business reject newcomers, breaking the established coffee market as they please.