15.04.2016

<p>RusHOLTS company will participate in the First Don fuelforum, which will be held in Rostov-on-Don on April, 15 2016.

For the Russian South oil and gas industry is one of the driversof economic growth. Development of roadside services createsopportunities for a wide range of partners from many differentindustries. Gas stations are "country's face", so the southernregions should be as comfortable in terms of service at gasstations as Moscow and St. Petersburg. RusHOLTS as anambassador of advanced technology for the development ofnon-fuel businesses of filling stations chains is expanding itsgeographical presence.

For filling stations fuel and non-fuel businesses are two groupsof equivalent and complementary businesses. Foreign playersearn up to 60% of their profits from shops and cafés. Foreignchains operating in Russia gain at least 40% of their profits fromthe non-fuel businesses whereas the Russian players on the samemarket only manage to gain from 5% to 20%.

"The foreign fuel companies, selling Russian, domesticallyproduced gasoline have far greater trust and respect fromRussian consumers than the Russian filling stations. Thissituation must be urgently corrected, - said Alexander Kuzmin, CEO of RusHOLTS. - We see that our partners in the south ofRussia have seriously decided to get engaged in non-fuelbusinesses. Usually we come to a chain of stations when it hasfuel business in perfect order and it needs some additionalfeatures to stand out among its competitors. Theforum is a convenient discussion and communication platform forproductive partnership for all the participants of the fuel marketand a meeting place for representatives of related industries".

Reporting within the timeframe of a single conference makes itimpossible to put the full concept of  cafe and store at the gasstation, so during the Don Forum head of the "Cafe" departmentin RusHOLTS Vadim Emiliyan will introduce to the audiencethe five main success factors of non-fuel businesses of anyfilling station – from the effective coffee project at the gasstation to the telemetry impact on the quality of final productand centralization of chain's management.

Донской топливный форум

Recently the market of retail fuel trade has been witnessing a clear tendency of strengthening the role of major verticallyintegrated oil companies, major shareholders of which are thevarious government agencies. In the ordinary mind of thecustomer, such changes in the market should be followed by a positive change, and above all, service level improvement at gasstations belonging to these oil companies.

12.04.2016

You get nowhere without IT. Information technologies are so closely intertwined with all the business processes of transportation and logistics companies, that even coffee machines monitoring is implemented as an remote solution. Here's an interview with CEO of RusHOLTS Alexander Kuzmin for the magazine "Technologies and means of communication", # 1, 2016.

 - What the trends in the field of IT and telecommunications are priority for your organization?

- Logistics companies of 4PL level are engaged in supply chain management, they become part of the business processes of partners with whom they work. We organize the supply chain of gas station chains in all aspects that relate to the non-fuel business. Simply put, we supply all the necessary from the goods for sale, supplies, furniture, coffee machines to IT-solutions that automate processes of gas station's daily operations. Gas stations chains as a retail object have a lot of features. Each store by itself is small, but the scale of the chain may be hundreds or even thousands of stations. The total number of chain’s cafe and store items is about 3000 SKU (items' ID), the station may make an order starting from 500 rubles worth. And everybody can imagine Russian distances very well. The organization and supply chain management in these conditions are a heavy task requiring a lot of masterhood which is impossible without IT.

Non-fuel business for a long time did not recieve enough attention from owners of Russian gas stations chains, so, for example, the system "ADR" in the retail networks is the industry standard, but for gas stations it is considered as being a great progress. Gas station chains do not have their own logistic structures, warehouses and transportation. That is why they cooperate with 4PL logistics companies, outsourcing a number of key business processes, especially in non-fuel businesses.

- Please tell us about the most significant projects in the field of IT and communications, which were implemented in 2015. Assess their effectiveness in terms of meeting your expectations.

Company RusHOLTS follows the path of creating its own IT-solutions that reduce the impact of human factors. We started with "ADR" system, without which the work is almost impossible. For the reformation of the "Cafe" category the crucial point was the remote monitoring. The system, which can manage and control hundreds or even thousands of coffee machines. Now we are working on the same system to manage and monitor the performance of microwave ovens, refrigerators, air conditioning systems and combine the data into a single cloud-based system. Regarding the transportation industry, it is extremely important to develop a system of online monitoring of isothermal transport (transport of goods requiring the maintenance of given parameters of temperature and / or humidity) .In 2015 coffee machines remote monitoring system has stood the test of implementation at the level of federal customers with more than 1 thousand gas stations across Russia. In 2015, for the visualization of this system functionality we have set up a monitoring center and won the competition "Project of the Year. The choice of Russian IT-Directors". So we are happy with the implementation and progress of the development of this project.

- What are the priorities of your business automation development in general in 2016?

- The next endeavour is development of IT-solutions for the merchandise display management. Having a system of sales representatives who monitor the availability of goods and their display for the gas station chains - is very expensive. No staff of merchandisers is able to keep track of what is happening on remote stations. Shops at gas stations operate in a self-service mode, where the display of goods is the main tool of work with customers. If the logistics company becomes part of the business processes of other large companies, their problems and tasks stop being percieved as someone else's problems.

- The current economic situation in Russia leaves its mark on the transport sector. How in this difficult period you manage to develop your business?

- With the reduction of external traffic we are witnessing the growth of the internal one. Possibility of on-line monitoring increases the quality of services and reduce costs, and this can not be but interesting to our partners.

In addition, by using our own transport we cove about one-fifth of the traffic volume we need. The rest of the vehicles we hire from third parties. Owners of transport companies reduce prices and look for stable customers, which we are.

- What are the trends in the field of IT development in transport? What are the technologies of the future?

- It would be necessary and useful to have a system of on-line monitoring of the vehicle position and status, providing not only an understanding of where the car with the cargo is, but also observing the conditions of cargo transportation, especially the desired temperature mode.

 

20.02.2016

The article on "anti-francise" became one of the most popular materials of www.vc.ru over the past week! Thanks to everyone who showed their keen interest and participated in the discussion in the comments. Below are a slightly abridged translation.

Coffee anti-franchise or long live individuality!

I got interested in the theme of the acquisition of various franchises after my close friends, whose children have grown up to the age of an earning money to live independently, several times invited me as a business consultant, waiting for an expert to answer the question: "To take or not to take the franchise? And if we take it, which one?".

The younger generation which does not get disconnected from the social networks, found it a tempting offer to open a franchise as their own business –a "coffee to go" sales point. This idea has been picked up on the web-site "VKontakte. For parents, it is encouraging to hear that the children want to "develop their business by buying a franchise that guarantees success", but our generation can't be fooled by these tricks. Our "internal filter" was originally set up to fight the tempting offers from the category of "Pay me and become rich", being affected by business experience in the 90s. It was curious to see what "VKontakte" had to offer. Alas, the more I studied the issue, the more i got turned away from the idea of such a franchise.

Opening a cafe or selling "coffee to go" is the perfect solution for today's market, but why use franchise for this? Moreover, why this franchise should be bought from a person whoseonly "social capital" comes in the form of a 150 000 subscribers of his VK-page? A neat attempt to combine infobusiness and franchising, but the gain in this case clearly goes not the franchisee. After all, the main value of the franchise is that the fledgeling entrepreneur is being carefully led past the pitfalls of a particular business, which in the case of low-cost franchises nobody is going to do.

Tale of the "Naked King"

But let's get back to the coffee. Coffee is very marginal product. For professionals  of HoReCa it is an open secret. The cost of a cup of coffee sold for 90-110 rubles starts from six and almost never exceeds 30 rubles. Coffee is also one of the few products that showed an increase in sales in 2015. In particular - coffee sales in the shops at gas stations, where, for a moment, pruduct range of shops and cafes is close to 3 000 SKU. Of course, coffee is a great locomotive salesforcross-selling. And the idea to do such activities as selling coffee in the format «take and go» is good by itself because it's affordable and highly in demand by customers.

But have you ever thought about why full-fledged franchise of coffee shops such as "Shokoladnitsa" is worth 6 million rubles and the numerous "coffee to go"franchises - only 60-80 thousand? The difference is not only in the cost, but also in the approach to business and in the presence (or absence) of a system. Many coffee franchises in fact are no meore than a proposal to open a strictly coffee sales point, in fact it's a soviet kiosk "Beers and beverages". What know-how and technologies are there to be found? So why give money to god knows who for god knows what?

"Coffee to go", "Coffee at the gas station", "Coffee in a large shopping mall" – it's a threading automated model of beverage preparation, for the success of which it is important to minimize the human impact on the final result, as well as the speed of the coffee beverage delivery in conditions of high traffic of orders. Simple rules for the organization of such a "coffee" point: professional automatic coffee machine, coffee blend specially designed for automatic coffee machines, proper setup and remote monitoring of the coffee machine which guarantees the "right" service and prevents minor tweaks of personnel, you can also add "branded" consumables to it.

 "Simple rules" are perceived in a couple of days of a careful study of the subject. This is a part of the business which is already visible to anyone. Paying money for such knowledge? Nonsense! Of course, in each case there are still many hidden details. But does the franchisor, who is throwing dumping offers at you, warn you about them? In dozens of "cheap" franchise, which I have studied, I did not see it. Instead i saw franchisor's disguised desire to make money supplying coffee beans, branded paper cups and other "branded" consumables that any entrepreneur can easily buy on his own at a lower price.

Fast food is not that simple as it seems

Then I expanded the franchise market research, examining proposals for fast food segment. Franchises in the catering are very popular, especially because catering showed growth in 2015. Fast food is not as primitive as it may seem at first glance. This is a high-tech field of activity, with all the appropriate equipment, ingredients, and specially trained personnel.

A couple of examples. Cutting-edge fastfood sausage must withstand freezing and "know how" to remains well cooked for 4-5 hours on the frying surface of the shelf. This is achieved by using calibrated recipes, the slightest deviation from which leads to the loss of the presentation.

The coffee machines may cost 50 thousand rubles or even a 1 million and both of these will be branded as "professional" solutions. If you want to offer customers a delicious cup of coffee - you need to buy an expensive coffee machine, German or Swiss-made one. Select the appropriate quality for the grain, specifically designed for automatic coffee machines, properly configure the machine and connect remote monitoring of coffee machines for efficient equipment operating.

Even with the simple pastries like donuts, where it seems  enough to use only the dough and the oil you may have problems. Not every room can harbour a kitchen hood, which means that the products will either be brought from elsewhere ... or defrosted in place. Modern technologies create an effect of fresh baking. When you look at the windows of modern coffee shops, it seems that numerous cakes and pastries just came out from the oven, baked by an experienced pastry chef. But in fact, most of the product are defrosted and then placed in a special display case, with a special microclimate, where "fresh" baked is patiently waiting for its buyer.

The aroma of baking affects sales. Think about it, if the institution does not bake anything, and there's baking smells – where does it come from? Right, there's aromamarketing being used. Even the color of the backlight of display cases affects the buyer. I tell this to the fact that conveying such business subtleties is a precious knowledge. Implementing the technological requirements by half or even 90% - means to spoil the whole thing and to serve the consumer with the product which not only does not meet his expectations, but also fails to correspond to the standards of Rospotrebnadzor.

Gas station cafe – owning a business or buying a franchise?

Some gas stations chains employs the franchise system. Majors (vertically integrated oil companies) give remote and inaccessible stations under the management of individual entrepreneurs. In some cases, this is the only opportunity to achieve efficiency in terms of sales ofa loss-making station.  The topic of cooperation with the filling station by "Cafe" category alsways been close to me.

In the world market the leaders in fast food have partnership programs with gas station chains, but let's look at the real possibility of such cooperation. For each partner, whether it is McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, Autogrill, or someone else, you need a separate room of a large area. While most of the gas stations have sales areas of 30-80 square meters, and on this territory should be placed not only a café, but also a shop. No fast food operator is able to expand business in such cramped conditions.

Therefore, the majority of gas station chains have found a way to develop their own direction of "Cafe". With the right business' organization selling coffee at the stations may earn from hundreds of millions to several billion rubles a year. Hot dogs and fresh baked goods will be able to bring similar profits.

You want get done it well? Do it yourself!

Coffee in a conditional "Shokoladnitsa" or coffee to go - are two different drinks, which you can prepare deliciously and sell profitably, but it is necessary to take into account the details of each of the sales model. Solid franchise network players capitalize on brand recognition, unique technological processes, optimized supply chain of many ingredients and components. But such major franchises are quire few - a dozen at the most. Our market is currently swamped with pseudo-franchises created by enterprising crooks who do not have any real competencies. After a detailed analysis of proposals for the franchise in "my industry" I am even more cautious about  the proposals in fields unfamiliar to me. For example, upon closer inspection, it turned out that in addition to the HoReCa segment, there a lot of "naked kings" in the  segment of hostels, car-care centers, beauty salons and other.

Franchise market has changed under the influence of the crisis, the elevel of requirements got lower as for the franchisee, fairly low level of investment offers appeared. But the world which is composed of standard pieces of the same type design solutions will be dull and boring. Look at Italy - this is probably the most "coffee" country in the world where most coffee shops are unique, and this is their charm. Think carefully before you "stand under the banner" of a foreign brand - maybe you are able to offer your own ideas  and not someone else's? Do not be afraid to express yourself and learn the business thoroughly, it will bring invaluable profits. And if you decide to take the franchise - select offers from people who understand how to do business in your chosen industry and have experience in the successful launch of the projects during  the last 10-15 years.

 

Thank you for attention)

04.02.2016

Non-fuel businesses of gas stations are typically a cafe and a shop. Chains of gas stations in terms of the traditional retail have too many specific features.

For example, for a "normal" cafe selling 100 cups of coffee a day is nothing special, no big deal. Whereas to the gas station it is a landmark achievement. Same thing happens with the store sales - each individual station’s sales volume is small, impressive numbers add up when hundreds or even thousands of stations are summed up. But there is a problem of a different level. For example, a station can make the order of 500 rubles, you can imagine a store that makes such a small order? The station normally doesn’t have a warehouse that can store the goods a month or two ahead of its coming to the shelves. Even common practices for the retail sector, such as “ADR” system, for the gas station are a great progress. Gas station chains don’t have efficient logistics partners or system of regular merchandising, and for retail professionals it is a different reality for sales, with different principle of pricing and different accents, rather than at the now habitual discounters retail chains, gathering in their stores most of the Russian customers.

Automation is the solution of your problems

RusHOLTS has been delivering the goods to gas stations chains for more than 15 years. During this time, step by step and through local implementation of projects, the company created a single unified instrument for Supply Management.

 We started with the system "ADR", which takes into account the internal organization of businesses of large gas stations chains. For example, the presence of 3-4 accounting systems in the infrastructure of a chain.

 Gradually we worked through the automation of other business solutions. For example, we completely reformed the category "Cafe". If done right, the coffee zone achieves rapid economic effect, because every third non-fuel sale is coffee. We have summed up the basis for the concept of "quality coffee" and defined the conditions under which 9 out of 10 visitors to the gas station say that coffee is good.

 In the context of gas stations only flow-process model of coffee beverages sales is functional. In this case, 70% of the taste characteristics of coffee depends on the settings of the coffee machine, the rest - the quality of the coffee blend and the human factor.

So we recommend customers using automatic coffee machines, a special coffee blend for automatic coffee machines, certified service center and remote monitoring via BMS Coffe Control system.

IT-solutions from BMS - is the first and important step towards creating a system of "smart gas stations", the analog of "smart home" systems. BMS Coffee Control takes into account the number of drinks sold, sets formulation, captures cases of coffee machines' breakdown, keeps the record of maintenance work, makes recommendations to remedy the situation, or automatically creayes repair applications. The staff is deprived of the opportunity to "forget" to wash the machine, fill in the coffee beans in the coffee machine or sell drinks for cash without the reciept.

For several years, the remote monitoring of coffee machines has grown into a complex cloud IT-solution - BMS Cloud.

Now specialists are working on the automation of merchandising, creating their own solution - the "Atlas of gas stations' chain".

All of these programs are in demand by the gas stations, and add up to one big solution, which we call " processing company for non-fuel business of gas stations". Processing in this case is a great tool for managing a pool of suppliers, contractors and service logistics company serving the chain. Processing company arranges activities of suppliers by automating the orders fulfillment and monitors the completeness of these orders automatically, too.

Full article >>

 

02.02.2016

At the competition "Project of the Year 2015" RusHOLTS presented results of the implementation of coffee machines remote monitoring system developed on the basis of a large federal chain of gas stations (more than 1000 stations). IT-solution BMS Coffee Control allows two-way on-line monitoring and managing of an unlimited number of machines, installed at any spot on planet's surface. The result is a victory in the “Project of the Year“'s category "Communications".

Every third non-fuel transaction at gas stations – is a coffee sale. It's one of the few segments of the business that even in times of crisis on the background of the general downturn shows dynamic growth. Good coffee -  is a"locomotive" for related products. Coffee helps to sell cars, jewelry, not ot mention the pastries, chocolates and similar products.

The economic effect of remote monitoring

Cafe at the gas station, equipped with similar IT-solutions, showed sales growth of 400% per quarter. Economic security is the first and most obvious benefit of coffee machines remote monitoring. According to statistics, in the absence of automated control at least 20-30% of the paid cups of coffee were sold for cash without using the register. The system allows to promptly detect and deter any attempt to alter the counters and all the coffee machine settings. Gas station's staff is deprived of the opportunity to change the formulation of beverages or substitute coffee beans. In case of unauthorized changes in the settings, the system automatically restores the specified parameters, and in case of a power module outage it immediately reports violations in accordance with the algorithm. Information about violations has clear reference to the date and time which allows the security structures of the gas stations chain to easily identify violators.

In general, in the market of gas stations, business' owners "give away" to the employees 2-3 billion rubles because of the lack of reliable records of coffee sales, annually that "generosity" of the owners of all Russian public catering establishments is not less than 25 billion rubles.

A further economic benefit is achieved by the correct organization of coffee machines servicing. Coffee machine is a complex and expensive mechanism for which the manufacturer requires lot of maintenance work aimed at preventing potential damage. Good professional equipment is designed for decades of work with proper maintenance. Using the remote monitoring allows coffee machines to perform all service operations to the extent defined by the manufacturer.

As a result of the use of remote monitoring system downtime of coffee machines compared to "traditional" system of service decreased 3 times and service technicians visits paid by the chain of gas stations got 50 % fewer.

The response time of on-line service system to breakdown of coffee machine - 10-15 minutes. Prior to that traditional industry "standard" was 4-6 hours.

Project's development

The economic effect of BMS Coffee Control appears the brighter, the larger the chain is and the wider region of its presence is.

For efficient processing of information from more than 1,000 points of sale was developed an additional user interface and established the Coffee Machines Center for Remote Monitoring (http://www.dp.ru/a/2015/10/06/Centr_udalennogo_monitori/), the only one in Russia.

As a result of the implementation appeared the possibilities to extend the functionality of the system: connecting to it the modules of sales via bar codes, the lotteries module, etc. Now specialists are working hard to extend monitoring to all the technological equipment of gas stations and unite the entire flow of data into one comprehensive cloud solution - BMS Cloud.

Thus, a company creates not only difficult-to-replicate competitive advantages for the business of those who use such innovations, but also new standards for the industry.

Reference:

RusHOLTS is a diversified holding company, specializing in non-fuel business run by the gas station chains according to the most successful global trends. The portfolio of RusHOLTS has IT-solutions for the management of orders and deliveries to the shops and cafes of gas stations, a wide range of products and goods for the gas stations, authorized distribution of equipment for cafes, service department, certified by equipment manufacturers. The only Russian center for remote monitoring of coffee machines and technological equipment of gas stations.

 

BMS Coffee Control - coffee machines remote monitoring system. Developed by BMC LLC (USA) in collaboration with RusHOLTS.

 

 

10.11.2015

RusHOLTS’ customer service and gas station technological equipment monitoring center received a certificate of quality from the manufacturer of coffee machines WMF.

Coffee machine is a complex and expensive piece of equipment for which the manufacturer prescribes a lot of maintenance work aimed at preventing potential damage of the unit. With proper maintenance good professional equipment is designed for decades of work. 

After specialized training and successfully passed exams, RusHOLTS became a certified service partner of  WMF Group Gmbh coffee machines. This means that RusHOLTS customer service provides a level of service quality in the form in which it was intended by the manufacturer.

WMF is a recognized world leader in the production of professional automatic coffee machines. Its superautomatic coffee-makers provide the brewing process in full and reduce human participation and impact on this process to a minimum. Such machines are widely demanded in HoReCa by chains of establishments with a huge traffic of people.

Modern IT-solutions extend the capabilities of automatic coffee machines even further. RusHOLTS experts have demonstrated to manufacturer’s representatives  the functionality of coffee machines remote monitoring and introduced  them the Center for filling stations’ process equipment remote monitoring. 

BMS Coffee Control System is designed for remote management of an unlimited number of coffee machines’ configuration, on-line monitoring of their technical condition, remote collection of all operational and statistical data in order to avoid risks of abuse and/or unskilled actions by gas stations personnel and service engineers.

Coffee machines remote monitoring allows doubling the sales of coffee drinks. In monetary terms, it turns out that the lack of a reliable accounting of coffee sales filling stations’ "gives away" to the employees some 2-3 billion rubles a year, meanwhile the overall "generosity" of  all Russian public catering establishments in this respect is not less than 25 billion rubles a year.

In addition, remote monitoring helps to achieve major savings on machines’ servicing. Downtime is 3 times shorter as compared to the "traditional" system of service and the number of service technicians’ visits paid by the chain of filling stations is reduced by 50%. Monitoring Center: first results.

"Selecting a quality service is a test of entrepreneurial skills of business owners”, said Alexander Kuzmin, RusHOLTS CEO. - Losses of an "average" in terms of traffic coffee selling point due to the idle coffee machine could amount to some 6000-7000 rubles per day, the busier places could record losses 2-3 times more. Lack of service costs the owner much more than proper and timely maintenance of the equipment".

 

04.11.2015

Since October 1, 2015 the unit of Center for filling stations process equipment remote monitoring started its operations as coffee machines control group. Company RusHOLTS sums up the first thirty days of the unit’s work.

The starting phase of the project involved the commissioning of coffee machines remote monitoring units located at our customers’ gas stations. After the month of work we have full statistics on 321 stations.

 

Project’s economy 

During thirty days of work of these stations the Center received 215 applications, 72 of which were closed by means of remote monitoring. Each remote closing means savings for the customer in the tune of 4200 to 4800 rubles just because the absence of necessity to pay for service technicians’ travel at the gas station. 

In addition to that, the customer does not bear any losses from idle hours during the day (90% of daily coffee sales). With average sales of 96 cups a day such downtime may cost to the customer not less than 6 500 rubles of lost profits.

The economic effect of remote applications’ closing for coffee machines’ repair without technicians coming to the station alone amounted to not less than 770 thousand rubles.

Another 40 applications for customers’ coffee machines have been corrected for future closing by service technicians. Before going to the gas station technicians were provided with recommendations on the equipment necessary to be included into repair kit. Thus, we managed to reduce the number of additional visits by 20%.

In all gas station there’s been an increase in sales of coffee. 

At the stage of the installation of monitoring devices, service mechanics found the gas stations which were absent from customer’s federal office register. There were incorrectly specified geographic coordinates of the stations. 20% of contact information for served gas stations was incorrect.

The company is gaining a positive experience of operating the remote monitoring of coffee machines. The staff at the stations is grateful for the help and happily  cooperates with service technicians and operators of our Centre.

 

Extra bonus

At the end of the project, there was yet another IT-solution provided to the customer in the form of a free extra bonus. RusHOLTS implemented selling of coffee using usual office-passes at customer’s premises.

Remote monitoring according to the plan has been set on the coffee machine located at the building Khersonskaya st. 12-14. This is a major business center, which employs about 2 000 people. When customer’s top-managers saw how many cups of coffee their staff drink they were seriously worried about their health. At the request of the customer, sales of coffee were linked to the standard office passes by limiting the number of coffee available daily to 3 cups for one pass. In the first week coffee consumption was reduced by a third, primarily due to the exclusion of "coffee dead-heads" - employees of other offices and business center visitors.

Savings arose where it was not expected. The order of accounting and transparency are important in any business, especially since free benefits for employees are not free for the company that produces them.