In Conversation with Habib, Head, Machine Delivery

Vendekin Technologies is reshaping the unattended retail industry with its smart vending machine software. Taking its contribution one step ahead is its new Machine Delivery department. This In Conversation series explores this new wing of Vendekin with Habib Rajbar, Head of Machine Delivery.

Previously heading the R&D Electronic department at Vendekin, Habib and his team of 6 were responsible for designing, developing and testing smart vending machine management and softwares to suit the best needs of businesses and vending machine operators. With the same motivation, Habib now takes over as the head of the newest branch at Vendekin, the Machine Delivery department, as shared in excerpts from our conversation below.

What exactly is Machine Delivery in smart vending technology?

As the name goes, the Machine Delivery department ensures that the smart vending machines are 'delivered' to the customer as per their requirements, customisations and in the perfect condition. And to execute this to perfection, we identify the various requirements, abilities, capacities and limits of different types of vending machines, and help the customers in strategising more specific, more efficient, and more holistic smart touchless vending solutions for their products.

Our goal is that of transforming the Indian vending landscape by converting traditional vending machines into smart and automated vending machines alongside providing smart vending machine management software like vNetra and solutions like the Retrobox. This will enable existing and upcoming businesses to look at Vendekin as their one stop destination to identify and acquire unmanned vending machines customised as per their product requirements, and powered by Vendekin's smart, touchless and cashless vending solutions.

What gave rise to the creation of this department?

Heading the Research and Development wing at Vendekin for around 6 years made it clear how many of our clients had some very specific requirements to vend their products and even faced minor hiccups in their everyday operations because of some or the other technical difficulties with the machine they acquired directly from other manufacturers.

Though Vendekin’s vending machine management software ran efficiently, improper machines can sometimes cause unwanted hiccups. On several occasions the team has to brainstorm effective solutions even with limited information about the vending machines brought in by the client.

With all this in mind, we felt a need to widen the understanding of smart and touchless vending machines.

Which departments does Machine Delivery work with at Vendekin?

Currently Machine Delivery collaborates with the Research and Development department, the Operations team and the Consumer Success wing at Vendekin. From researching to sourcing the machine and from defining its requirements to testing, every task is carried out by Machine Delivery to help these departments.

Since the Machine Delivery department is fairly new it does not directly interact or deal with clients yet. All the client-communication is currently taken care of by the Consumer Success at Vendekin.

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Smart Vending For A Sustainable Planet - Can Vending Machines Help Reduce Carbon Footprint?

Global decarbonisation is an uphill battle, a fact that was underlined and discussed by major economies from around the world as they made commitments during the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) in 2021. And industries, including retail, will have to play an important role in building a lasting solution for a sustainable planet.

Smart Vending Technology can be one the harbingers of this change in the retail industry, with smart unmanned retail helping the FMCG sector reduce their carbon footprint while becoming more accessible to end users.

Read on to learn how.

Reduce food wastage with vNetra

Studies have shown that if food waste was a country, it would be the third-highest emitter of greenhouse gases on the list of countries with high carbon footprints. With smart solutions for vending products, especially food items, businesses can play a crucial role in sustainability.

vNetra, Vendekin's Google Cloud powered, GDPR compliant, AI/ML driven back office vending management software, is a step forward in smart vending technology by digitising the supply chain or backend vending operations. Through the vNetra software, inventory of all active machines can be tracked on a single platform. This means knowing in advance, which machines have perishable goods close to their sell-by date. Knowing in advance can help plan the sales of these items with a shorter shelf-life. At the same time, on restocking rounds only items with a sell-by date need to be refilled. This helps reduce product wastage.

Reduce fuel emissions with digital inventory management

Having a centralised system to track the inventory of all vending machines, retailers or vending machine operators can be aware of their exact inventory at all times. No matter where the vending machines are or where the vending operators are.

Machines have to be restocked based on product inventory and expiration date. The frequency of refilling vending machines depends on the frequency of consumption by consumers and the perishable nature of the products. If certain machines require frequent refilling trips, restocking them can be optimised by planning more refills in a single restocking trip, to ensure less fuel is burned and fewer emissions released into the environment.

vNetra provides a centralised inventory management feature to operators and businesses, which helps them effectively save time and money by taking appropriate decisions in regards to restocking.

Saving on energy usage

Departmental stores, supermarkets, showrooms and restaurants require a lot of energy, in the form of air conditioning, refrigeration, lighting, maintenance etc, to run their operations. Each of these devices could be run for an upward of 10 hours each day on average.

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