CIO's Shopping Guide

Company

Cafe Coffee Day, Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company, Bangalore

Profile

Café Coffee Day (CCD) is a division of India's largest coffee conglomerate,
Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Company Ltd (ABCTCL). Popularly known as CCD, it
is part of a Rs 300 crore ISO 9002 certified company. The company sources coffee
from 5,000 acres of coffee estates, owned by a sister concern and from 11,000
small growers.

CCD pioneered the café concept in India in 1996 by opening
its first café at Brigade Road in Bangalore. From a handful of cafés in six
cites in the first five years, it has become India's largest retail chain of
cafes with 292 cafes in 63 cities around the country. CCD has opened a Café in
Vienna, Austria and is planning to open other Cafes in the Middle East, Eastern
Europe, Eurasia, Egypt and South East Asia in the coming months.

SHIVAPRASAD IT-HEAD, CAFÉ COFFEE DAY

Current IT infrastructure in the company 

With a IT team of about 45 employees all over India, CCD is one of the few
FMCG companies that has actively engaged in-house support services, R&D,
data warehousing, analytics and business modeling. 400 state-of-art handheld
terminals are currently deployed for online billing, loyalty management, credit
card processing, and manpower attendance. It has complete integration between
Point Of Sale (PoS) and backend activities while implementing SAP Enterprise
Business Suite for financial accounting and materials management. It has
developed in-house a module for attendance management and integration between
kitchen and local vendors, etc. It manages four SAP servers and one DRS for
online PoS data with a four-member 24x7 technical help desk.

Proposed IT infrastructure in 2006

This fiscal, CCD is doubling the number of employees in its IT team. It also
plans to deploy of 1,500 handheld terminals across 500 outlets. On the agenda is
the introduction of webcams and online digital video transfers from outlet to
web server. It will also introduce biometric readers for attendance, besides
providing for 24x7 customer care.

Proposed investments for IT infrastructure in 2006

CCD will invest in hardware and accessories worth Rs 70 lakh for expanding its
current IT infrastructure. It will increase its existing bandwidth and
connectivity with another investment of Rs 40.68 lakh. Also on the itinerary are
plans for investing Rs 2.43 crore for service, Rs 16 lakh for software and yet
another Rs 14 lakh for networking and security upgradation.

Current systems suppliers

Most of its IT products are sourced directly from vendors like Compaq,
Zenith and Benq in addition to TVS, Gemplus and SMC.

Qualities they look for in a supplier

The first thing that CCD looks for in a supplier is proven market
credentials followed by high-quality product, which they can customize for CCD.
Aggressive pricing is another criteria for selection followed by superior
support infrastructure with a widespread geographic presence. It should also be
able to deliver products and services at short notice.

SUBBALAKSHMI BM