Dio: "Composite" coffee

Starbucks was founded in 1971 and Dio Coffee was founded in 2001. From a historical point of view, the two are obviously not in the same heavyweight, but the media always love to compare Dio and Starbucks. Even in 2005, Reuters and the BBC (British National Broadcasting Corporation) did a coffee special in China, only DIO and Starbucks were used as examples.

So intentionally or unintentionally, Dio seems to always be at odds with Starbucks. Starbucks is a single coffee shop that only sells coffee, beverages and pastries; DIOUS positions itself as a "complex operation", in addition to coffee, hot and cold beverages, and Chinese and Western light meals. In terms of joining methods, DIOUS also seems to be more "complex" - according to Yang Xiaolan, vice president of Suzhou DIOUS Catering Management Co., Ltd., DIOUS currently has three franchise methods: franchise, franchise trusteeship and direct franchise.

DIO has won numerous franchise awards. As of May this year, it had nearly 280 stores. It can be seen that DIOUS conquered the appetite of consumers with a composite product strategy, and attracted the attention of investors with a composite franchise method.

Falling in love with coffee

In a country where tea culture is prevalent, Dio wants to make people fall in love with coffee. From the opening of the first store in Shanghai in 2001, DIOUS has become very different: the storefront is over a thousand meters wide and spacious; Picasso murals, warm-colored wood and metal materials, and fabric tassels are connected... Continental-style decoration With a touch of nostalgic temperament, subtle but not public. It is said that just for the "Picasso" style murals hanging in each store, Dio specially hired three painters to create various works for the company every day and place them in the store for guests to enjoy. It's not a pure cafe, besides the bar, it also has its own kitchen to serve delicious meals to its guests.

In Yang Xiaolan's view, DIOUS, a latecomer in the coffee chain field, can compete with international bigwigs like Starbucks, largely thanks to this differentiated operation. "In this way, we can enter different markets more easily, and allow more consumers to first fall in love with the atmosphere, environment, and culture and lifestyle it creates, and then slowly fall in love with coffee."

Although drinking coffee is far from becoming a consumption habit of Chinese people, some data show that: in China, per capita coffee consumption is increasing at a rate of 30%, and this increase will become larger and larger, which provides a huge amount of coffee to the coffee industry. of upside. Yang Xiaolan believes that in high-end consumption places like DIOUS, consumers may not only pay attention to eating and drinking, but a kind of spiritual quality and spiritual pursuit. Therefore, DIOUS advocates "service before the customer speaks", using a low-pitched greeting or a gentle gesture to create a noble and intimate feeling for customers to taste coffee and enjoy meals.

Compared to some cafes opening their stores in popular locations, DIOUS's store location is relatively remote, which is actually due to DIOUS' unique consideration. Dio Coffee's customers are mostly from the middle and upper classes of society, mostly white-collar workers and business people over the age of 30. They usually have a solid career foundation and good economic ability. For them, driving to a place not too far to enjoy the quiet is far more emotional than drinking a quick-service coffee in the middle of the city. Therefore, from the decoration style to the furniture design, from the choice of location to the signboard on the big glass, from the smile of the waitress to the style of food, all of them cater to the tastes of these people. "Our customer loyalty is very high." Yang Xiaolan is not without pride.

For the perpetual problem of standardization in the restaurant chain industry, DIOUS can easily see it. At DIO, the taste of the meal does not vary from store to store. This is because DIOUS has strict requirements in the management manual from raw materials to product production process, from decoration layout to service mode, and even has teaching video tapes as teaching aids. For example, a simple door-pulling action, when the customer leaves the door a few meters or so, pulls the door, even the standing position and which hand to use to pull, there are rules and regulations in the management manual.

Joining considerations

Relying on differentiated management, it avoided the edge of American coffee such as Starbucks, and Dio met Chinese coffee such as Shangdao at the corner. In fact, DIOUS founder Wang Yangfa was one of the founding shareholders of Shangdao Coffee. Yang Xiaolan said: "Diou comes from the island, and the starting point must be above it. In terms of scale, decoration, service, products and management, it must be upgraded to a higher level in order to highlight its characteristics and advantages."

From the very beginning, DIOUS has been envisioning and building a franchise system in the future, but it did not rush to implement it, but first cooperated with European professional franchise consulting agencies, introduced a more advanced franchise chain management model, and implemented it in a In early 2003, it took the lead in passing the ISO9001 international quality management system certification. These rational plans have laid a solid foundation for the franchise business that DIOUS will carry out. After successively opening 14 self-operated stores, DIOUS finally authorized the first franchise store. "We realize that the long-term development of the brand and the successful franchise and replication of the business model require the exploration, verification and accumulation of experience in our direct sales system, and the company also needs to establish a store operation and chain management system that can be well replicated and controlled. ."

Having established a franchise model, the next step is to choose a franchisee. DIOUS's first consideration is of course economic strength. In the case of not including the rent, the investment of a franchise store is 1.6-2 million yuan. In the catering industry, this is not a very large investment, but it is also a large amount. Without sufficient financial strength, franchisees' expectations of wealth creation may become unreasonable, and operating in debt can make them less risk-tolerant. Therefore, Yang Xiaolan once issued a sincere advice to some franchisees: "If you can't afford the smallest initial investment, please don't continue."

Of course, this does not mean that the economic advantages of franchisees are the most important consideration. DIOUS will also investigate the personality characteristics of the franchisee. Yang Xiaolan's selection criteria are: only those franchisees who can accurately locate, trust the system, are willing to cooperate with the system, and can invest and undertake can become qualified franchisees and synergize with DIOUS. The over-reliance on "employee" tendencies to franchisees, and the over-emphasis on independent "entrepreneurial" tendencies of franchisees are not the best choices. In addition, whether the franchisee's family supports his investment, the proportion of shares held by the partner, the coordination ability between shareholders, whether the franchisee has the necessary professional skills and experience, or personal connections will also become reference conditions.

And franchisees must also accept the supervision of the headquarters. DIOUS headquarters has a special supervision team, and each quarter has 3 to 5 days to inspect and guide each store. The headquarters will also use statistical tools to analyze the data of the stores to give franchisees relevant information, trend judgments and suggestions. Yang Xiaolan believes that the essence of supervision is service, which is a support mechanism and one of the means to help stores continue to improve and improve their operations.

The palm of the hand and the back of the hand

At present, DIOUS has three franchise programs: franchise franchise, franchise trust franchise, and direct franchise. Those with sufficient funds can choose the first two methods, and all the funds of their stores are invested by the franchisees. The third option is undoubtedly a timely help for those investors who have insufficient funds but want to join DIOUS. In this option, the head office holds at least 20%-30% of the shares, and the rest are open to join, and the head office directly leads the operation and management , The franchisee cooperates with the operation and management, the franchise store operates independently financially and accepts the regular supervision of the headquarters.

For franchisees who adopt different schemes, DIOUS will also provide unremitting support. Zhang Guojun, a franchisee of the Pinghu store in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, experienced a story of "emergency support".

Zhang was still inexperienced when opening a cafe, and he was not professional enough in site selection, nor was he familiar with the preliminary work such as decoration and preparation. After repeated investigations, the DIOUS franchise finally helped him choose one. After the start of construction, the decoration of the project was also entrusted to the agent of DIOUS. There were some small problems, Zhang himself felt that it was irrelevant, but DIOUS insisted on rectification in place. Afterwards, Zhang said with emotion, in the eyes of the company, we are the same as the directly-operated stores, and the palms and backs of our hands are full of meat.

As soon as the Pinghu store opened, the business was full, and both personnel and technology were faced with challenges. Zhang was not mentally prepared for this. To his surprise, the headquarters urgently dispatched several senior chefs to support the Pinghu store within 24 hours after receiving the "call for help", which solved the urgent need. Shortly after the opening, Zhang discovered that the store manager he recruited was still incompetent despite having received systematic training from the company. In this regard, the DIOUS personnel department asked it to conduct selection training among the supervisors of the three existing departments in the Pinghu store, and selected a management cadre to fill the gap of the store manager.

In the franchised store, all the grass-roots personnel have to undergo the systematic training of DIOUS, and even the management team is a mature team trained and experienced through the DIOUS direct management system. This kind of management support mechanism provides a higher starting point for the newly opened franchise stores, and many DIOUS franchisees have therefore become "happy pie" among investors, treating the store as their own living room and enjoying the fun of operating. DIOUS has also established a multi-level and multi-channel communication mechanism to communicate with franchisees, including the franchisee section of the website forum, displaying excellent franchisee demeanor in DIOUS publications every two months, and regularly publishing letters and experiences from franchisees. The national franchisee conference and annual franchisee survey, etc.

DIOUS has maintained a high rate of secondary franchisees and renewals, and Yang Xiaolan's goal is to share DIOUS coffee with 800 stores within five years.

The author writes and edits for CEConline Magazine.