After two years of the pandemic, our industry has finally turned a corner. Early stats suggest that 2022 could be a year of growth and positive changes. With new trends, new consumer habits, and software advancements happening, Tea Meštrović, Televend’s Director of Product shares her views of the future and outlines Televend’s plans for 2022.
‘We’re focussing on revolutionizing the vending, coffee, and automated retail industry through AI and cloud technology’, Tea said. ‘AI and cloud are gaining more and more traction and Televend is leading that trend in vending. Predicting future demand purely by guesswork is eliminated with AI and smart algorithms, which remove human error. Understanding who, when, and how often consumers are using your machines will lead to providing better service and more profitable operations.’
On the other hand, there is an ever-growing trend towards contactless payment. Operators planning to deploy cashless and contactless payments on a large scale will need a single all-in-one solution with an excellent value for money. ‘Televend’s solution is the best combination of price and functionality, including RFID payment, mobile app, and bank card payments, as well as a powerful vending management system’, Tea said.
In addition to this, Televend is developing new products at pace. ‘We’re developing several new products that will serve consumers in a couple of vending verticals’ Tea said. ‘We are proud to say that Televend is the first smart vending platform to adopt AI technology and implement it into a solution that optimises the routes taken by machine fillers and technicians in our dispatching solution. Our new Technical Centre is connecting machines directly to a call centre and provides optimal technician dispatching capabilities, taking SLA rules and maps into consideration.
‘There’s also Televend Insights, our BI solution’, Tea added. ‘It’s a powerful tool that gives real-time insight into operations and sales performance. The route efficiency analytics tracks how successful your merchandiser route planning was. The coffee insights show the levels of each ingredient: coffee beans, milk, water, and sugar. On top of that, our planogram improvement suggests which products could be replaced to drive more sales per visit.
‘In recognition of the rising importance of cashless and contactless payments we are continually improve our payment solution – Televend Pay. It’s a plug-and-play solution that enables vending businesses to earn more profit while offering the consumer’s choice of payment options at their machines. Vendors can implement one of our payment readers to serve open-loop or closed-loop environments. We also support all the major credit card schemes, mobile payment apps, RFID payments, and our own digital wallet, Televend Wallet, which vending companies can use to boost consumer loyalty.’
The impact of unattended retail outlets, such as micromarkets, have also come under Televend’s expert scrutiny. ‘Televend Nutrico is a self-service, micromarket solution seamlessly integrated into Televend Cloud, Tea said. ‘Not only is this product going to be more convenient than a standard brick-and-mortar grocery store, but it also supports the concepts of healthy food trends and office wellness.’
So, in which areas does Televend see development potential in the industry for the coming year? What advice can Tea give to operators seeking to improve their businesses?
‘The fluctuation of people in workplaces during the pandemic gave a push to the digitalization of the vending industry’ she said. ‘We’re seeing a growing demand for real-time vending management solutions because they enable a faster reaction to the dynamic changes that are happening on a daily basis at workplaces, helping operators to predict when to restock machines and which products to offer in their machines to boost profits. 
‘Our advice to operators is simple: now is the time to invest in new technologies that will enable them to be more flexible in meeting consumer demands. Like many other businesses that ditched static systems and historical data analysis, vending companies really should digitalize their operations and start working with real-time data. In the wake of the pandemic, many vending companies find themselves understaffed, so it’s more important than ever that operators ensure their machines are connected and using the real-time data to the max. It means operators can serve their customers effectively despite the fact that there are fewer people in the field.
Televend proudly holds pole position in the race to modernise vending and unattended retail. The company is the biggest provider of Smart Vending in Europe, with over 275 000 machines connected through its platform, optimizing daily vending operations and making operators more profitable – in a very short time.
‘We’re more than just a telemetry tool’, Tea said. ‘Telemetry itself is not enough if you don’t have a set of tools capable of interpreting the collected data. And this is exactly what our solution is. Televend’s cloud applications cover vending daily operations from morning to evening. From planogram management, cash management, fillers routing, technical routes and maintenance, and cashless payments, all the way to customer engagement, marketing campaigns, and loyalty incentives that increase sales for vending providers. Not a single solution does this end-to-end approach the way Televend does.
‘What’s more, our solution works regardless of how old the machine is or to which vertical in automated retail it belongs. In our customer portfolio, we have national and international vending operators, big bottlers, strong coffee brands, water companies, and many more.
‘We are proud to be part of the industry as one of the leaders in the big transformation from vending to automated retail, working alongside future-oriented vending companies’ Tea concluded. ‘We’d like to give our customers hope and encourage them to take every available opportunity. Digitalization is helping improve the vending industry and simplify the daily work of the operators. Staying up to date with the latest trends in the industry will enable operators to survive and to be even better in the future. Televend is a reliable partner and friend in these challenges.
Meet Televend…
At Venditalia in May and Eu’Vend in October. The company has also booked stands at all three Vendex shows: Milton Keynes (April), Glasgow (September), and Leeds (November).
Find out more about Televend on Planet Vending & OCS, HERE
