Coffee Day to Wi-Fi network

If you are both a technology and a coffee buff then you will like what Coffee Day will look like beginning January 2005. The popular coffee chain is going through a transformation of sorts and is adopting Wi-Fi for its major activities.

"We are in the process of installing and working with Wi-Fi across our cafes throughout the country. This means that by December-end, the entire network of Coffee Day parlours will go Wi-Fi including our internal MIS and billing systems.

"In many ways the decision was born out of compulsion. We are spread across the country and we will expand our presence beyond the borders too. So we decided that Wi-Fi would be the best way to go since it is a more efficient form of keeping track of every coffee parlour of ours," says Naresh Malhotra, head of the coffee chain.

This means that from early next year orders in any one of the coffee parlours will be taken by waiters carrying a mobile palm device and all orders will be transmitted wirelessly to the coffee counter.

Malhotra says that during the pilot conducted in Chennai two months ago, customers were so taken with the novel idea that it increased footfalls and thereby boosted revenues of the cafe by 10 per cent. He declined to comment on the exact investment the chain has put into the Wi-Fi network.

"Apart from this, we plan to offer Wi-Fi for Internet access to our customers in 60 of our coffee parlours across the country as against the 10 that are functional at the moment," says Naresh.

However, the chain's much-publicised conversion of one of its key cafes in the city into a hot spot where customers can access the net with their laptops did not work out due to technical glitches.

The chain hopes to launch cafes outside the country during the same time period.

"We will open in two countries, at least one of them beyond Asia. We are seeking to open five to 10 cafes in each of these countries so that we are better able to assess feedback from customers. The Coffee Day International office in Cyprus, which has already been set up, will handle these operations," says Naresh.

The chain of coffee stores, started in 1996, has 175 cafes, 180 express counters, 6,000 vending machines and nearly 400 retail stores in the country to date and claims 13 million footfalls a year, is part of the Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company Ltd.

The company also recently launched its own packet coffee brand, Perfect, the pilot for which is being conducted in Chennai.

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