With Inpulse, Columbus Café & Co automates stock and order management.

With more than 220 stores, Columbus Café & Co, like many franchises, is faced with the challenge of centralizing data, which impacts both purchasing strategy at head office and operational excellence in the field.

Nicolas Riché, CEO of Columbus Café & Co, explains: "The choice of Inpulse is part of our digital transformation process. More than just an ordering tool, we're offering our franchisees inventory management software that also forecasts activity, and optimizes purchasing and margins. Franchisees will have better control over their food costs, and as a franchisor we'll have a global view of recipe sheets, price lists, orders... to accelerate the go-to-market of new products and optimize purchasing at network level."

Enabling franchisees to place the right orders

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Guillaume Tirquit, Columbus Café & Co franchisee in Rouen, reports on the problems encountered in the field: "Before Inpulse, we had stock-outs and losses due to the lack of precise data on our stocks and our raw food requirements. We hope to optimise our stock management and therefore our margin. Order recommendations and automated credit requests via Inpulse will also save us time.

Brice Konda, co-founder and CEO of Inpulse, explains how the platform works: "We designed Inpulse to allow the operational staff at the point of sale to order what they need, no more and no less, and to improve their margin. Automation through artificial intelligence is also a real opportunity for franchisors like Columbus Café to accelerate the roll-out of their network. Inpulse makes just-in-time procurement possible and supports the network head by providing reliable purchasing data. Our goal is for our clients to gain up to 5 margin points by reducing waste, shortages and unnecessary capital expenditure."

After a few weeks of use, franchisees are already seeing the first benefits:

Sébastien Polo, operator of 4 Columbus Café franchises (Montpellier, Béziers, 2 in Nimes) tells us about the onboarding of his teams: "I tested Inpulse on my 4 stores. The tool is easy to learn. It's simple and intuitive. I'm amazed at the accuracy of the sales forecasts." Augustin Anandout, Columbus Café & Co franchisee in Bourges, adds: "My manager was quickly trained, and as for me, I can track my margin from the analyses, so I don't have to wait until the end of the month to see how my establishment is performing." 

Manage stores performance with reliable, centralized data

Reconciling franchisees' orders with the quantities and prices negotiated by the purchasing department is essential to improve the network's purchasing strategy. This problem is even more acute in this context of scarcity and soaring raw food prices, as Anne Jacquinod-Carry, Director of Functional and Digital Transformation at Columbus Café & Co :

"We needed access to reliable data both at headquarters and in the field to act more quickly in this turbulent environment. Thanks to Inpulse, we can centralise key data for analysing financial performance at head office: turnover, purchase volume by reference, by supplier and for each sales outlet: food cost, turnover, difference between theoretical and actual consumption."

Structuring and digitising the entire process "from product creation to sales".

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The implementation of Inpulse has allowed us to accelerate the change process at Columbus," adds Anne Jacquinod-Carry, Director of Functional and Digital Transformation at Columbus Café & Co:

"We wanted to provide our franchisees with an intelligent tool to optimise their supplies and stocks and better manage their margins. We took advantage of the implementation of Inpulse to review a whole set of internal processes, rationalise our methods and professionalise our teams. More than a "purchasing" project, it has become a real cross-functional project to improve coordination between marketing, the central purchasing office, the franchisees and the suppliers.

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ABOUT INPULSE

Inpulse.ai revolutionises stock management and supplier orders: assisted by AI, your points of sale gain up to 5 points of margin on food costs. You pilot the performance of your network in real time to act quickly. Created in 2018, Inpulse is a platform designed for restaurant chains, dark kitchens, bakeries and themed corners such as Columbus Café, Côté Sushi, Blend, Ofc, Franks Hot Dog, Wasabi Corner or Laura Todd.

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ABOUT COLUMBUS CAFE & CO

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Founded in 1994, Columbus Café & Co was the first coffee-shop chain to open in France. Above all, it's a human adventure. Behind our Anglo-Saxon allure, we cultivate above all the spirit of the French neighborhood café, the love of good taste and authenticity. Our network now includes over 220 coffee-shops in France and abroad, and we continue to expand, opening around thirty new stores every year.

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