Integration: Vendman And Partners Demonstrate The Power Of Working Together.

Vendman: Once again, Vendman’s Operators’ Summit, held at the Wellcombe Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon, was exceptionally well attended.

By Ian Reynolds-Young

Integration

Vendman
A Hamby and a couple of Littles

The theme of the event was ‘Integration’, and alongside contributions from Rob Little, Daniel Hamby and Nathan Little of Vendman, an impressive role call of other suppliers to the vending industry made presentations to the industry’s key decision makers.

Mike Hadfield of Automatic Retailing was first on his feet: ‘Vending is a truly integrated industry’ he said, ‘we’re all in it together. Great service demands integration. We used to think, ‘how great would it be if all the various systems could talk to each other?’

Automatic Retailing: now customers can place orders via Vendman.

Automatic Retailing’s business is changing fast. Following considerable investment from the Kit Wave group, an ever increasing proportion of orders is being placed on-line. On-line ordering has been a game changer for the company, more so now that customers can place orders via Vendman.

Vendman
Mike Hadfield

Not a ‘techy’ himself, Mike freely admitted, (to warm applause), that he had no idea what an FTP is; but it’s a File Transfer Protocol that makes ordering from Automatic Retailing via Vendman possible. It was proof that you don’t have to know how something works to use it! ‘It’s really simple’, Mike said. ‘A lot of our customers are using it already and it’s further proof to the industry that we are the forward thinking wholesaler.’

Cash is no longer king…

Vianet MD Matt Lane continued the theme. The former Nestlé man told the audience, ‘cash is no longer king’. It was a hell of a claim, but the figures he provided proved the point. Cashless payments, long considered as ‘the future’ of purchasing, is now with us, like it or not. One staggering statistic was this: 92.1m wave and pay transactions made in the past year. That says it all… Consumers like cashless – the message to the operators in the audience was definitely, ‘don’t miss out’.

‘The average consumer is now more likely to carry a smart phone that’s equipped with cashless payment technology than to carry more that £1 or so in cash’, Matt said. It was just 18 months ago that Vianet got together with Vendman to discuss integrating their systems and now, it’s done.

Technological progress isn’t slowing down, or topping out: it’s accelerating, and when it comes to cashless, the government encourages up-take. Fraud – fake notes and coins – is a pressing problem that will only be solved for good when people just don’t use cash any more… And for those who reckon that the transaction costs of going cashless are prohibitive, Matt shot down that perception with a convincing arsenal of facts and statistics.

A ‘light bulb’ moment…

Vendman
Matt Lane

Scott Pickavance, of Fusion Mobile, spoke compellingly about ‘Generation Y’, the 16-25 age group that has been brought up surrounded by technology. However, he began his comments by admitting that it was witnessing an octogenarian using an app on his iPhone 6 to pay for his Costa coffee that really made him believe that the time for cashless technology was not ‘tomorrow’, but ‘now’. He described that as his ‘light bulb’ moment.

‘Creating great experiences creates loyalty’, Scott said, recalling his two experiences of visiting Disneyland. ‘The first visit was a nightmare’, he said, describing queuing for rides and restaurants, ‘but the next time we went, we used Disney’s app and booked a lot of what we wanted to do in advance.

‘You guys are at the forefront of this new technology’ Scott, alluding to telemetry and other advances, ‘but the trouble is, you don’t appear to realise that.’ That may be true, but one thing’s for sure: after Scott’s presentation, you could almost hear the sound of pennies dropping…

The final guest speaker was Parcel Holders’ MD Ed Fraser. He spoke about how, thanks to an API (and the brains of Vendman’s back-of-house team), it’s now possible to order a spare part using Parcel Holders’ PUDO network without even having to log-on to the company’s web site. ‘Now, you can use our service direct from your Vendman software’, he said.

A wonderful afternoon…

It was an exceptionally worthwhile afternoon of presentations that held the audience rapt from first to last.

‘It’s been a wonderful afternoon’, Rob Little told me as the meeting broke up. ‘We’ve been in the business for 23 years now and we have 25 staff who are dedicated to serving our customers. We’re not perfect and I never said we were, but we are listening to our customers and trying hard to anticipate their needs as the marketplace changes from cash to cashless.

‘Every day, 2,200 operators, 600 plus engineers and almost 1,500 computer users log on to Vendman’ Rob said. ‘So, the more we can integrate with businesses that also provide services to vending operators, the better; and not just for us, but for our customers here in the UK and in mainland Europe.’

 

 

 

About the author

The Editor

Planet Vending’s Editor is Ian Reynolds-Young and it’s Ian’s unique writing talent that has made PV what it is today – the best read (red) vending blog in the world, and vending’s best read (reed). Ian ‘tripped and fell into vending’, in the capacity of PR executive, before launching a specialist agency, ‘reynoldscopy’, dedicated to the UK Vending business. The company continues to represent the interests of many of the sector’s leading brands.

‘It’s all about telling stories’, he says. ‘We want to make every visit to PV a rewarding experience. By celebrating the achievements of the UK’s operating companies, we’re on a mission to debunk the idea that vending is retailing’s poor relation.’

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