With its Innovative Omni-channel Business Model, ChaiPoint has won hearts of people all over India
With its Innovative Omni-channel Business Model, ChaiPoint has won hearts of people all over India
India is a place where Chai is 'the drink people can't live without'. A freshly brewed cup of tea spiced up with flavors of ginger or elaichi makes the day for millions of Indians.
Few years back, you could see streets loaded with coffee shops that promised a rejuvenating experience but it was impossible to find a spot that could bless you with an authentic cup of Chai. This dearth appealed to the entrepreneurial spirit of one man, a tea lover himself.
The CEO Magazine, in its attempt towards presenting inspiring entrepreneurial success stories, chooses to write about 'ChaiPoint', India's largest tea retail chain that brings an exclusively refreshing glass of Chai made with fresh, natural ingredients to people around the country.
With its Omni-channel business model, the company has achieved success in winning the market and revolutionizing the ways of Chai consumption in India. The company operates one hundred fast-casual stores across eight cities.
ChaiPoint was established in 2010 by Amuleek Singh Bijral, an MBA from Harvard Business School. With his innovative ideas and remarkable efforts, he endeavored to win the hearts of people and make their day.
Speaking about what inspired him to set up this organization, he says, "In country which literally runs on Chai, the last mile experience of Chai has been broken; either completely debilitated or far too exclusive in the confines of fine dine places and therefore removed from the reality of this vast and fast progressing nation.
We are on a journey to fix this a symmetry by building multiple channels of serving Chai."
A cup of Chai is not only the starter of a day but is also a ritual for people of India; ChaiPoint is all about that. ChaiPoint's simplicity is its fundamental strength.
Keeping its commitment to offer an unbeatable chai experience, Chai Point leaves no stone unturned to make sure that every cup of chai is made using finest ingredients which promise best taste and quality; perfectly brewed, every cup contains tea leaves garnered from the best plantations of India, completely natural ingredients and no artificial flavors.
Chai Point's offerings include variants in milk based as well as non-milk Chai. The company's diversified product portfolio also envelops a range of cold beverages that include juice based Iced Chais and pulp based shakes.
To add more delight, the company has a special menu,'Made for Chai' to offer a varietyof delicious packaged food that go great with Chai.
Simple, yet, healthy and an amazingly fresh cup of tea is what team Chai Point attempts to deliver through multiple channels innovated specially to serve people anywhere anytime. In addition to fast casual stores, the chain was the first entity globally to introduce a doorstep delivery service branded as 'Chai-on-call'.
With an attempt to deliver the most refreshing experience at doorstep, the company launched the Iconic (heat retaining) Flask, which promises hot Chai without compromising on taste and quality and retains heat for an hour.
The chain also runs a vending kiosk based solution, 'boxC.in', which is India's first IoT enabled automatic dispenser of beverages that ensure highest quality of freshly-brewed Chai and Filter Coffee to corporate companies.
It also has a mobile driven reward program, PrioriTea, which has been developed with a focus on building long term relationship with customers and make it more meaningful through several rewards and cash backs.
Besides implementation of such unparalleled inventive ideas, the company created SHARK, a cloud-based platform for fast and seamless integration of billing and tracking across all Chai Point outlets, through mobile payment and Wi-Fi based setups.
ChaiPoint has achieved several milestones striding on its journey towards developing unique and technology integrated experiences to please more and more people.Today, ChaiPoint serves nearly three lakh cups of Chai every day.
Through PrioriTea, the firm has successfully registered more than five lakh customers. Also, more than one lakh customers enjoy the privilege of having hot tea with a variety of snacks at their doorstep through Chai-on-call.
In order to own the ritual of Chai across India, the company constantly strives to solve the issues of accessibility and convenience leveraging technology.
As a technology-based beverage pioneer, it has introduced best and innovative practices in the industry that now appear to be quintessential to unfold new opportunities for growth in this sector.
With an absolute blend of technology and innovation, Chai Point has been successful in taking the customer delight a notch higher and making a winning formula.
For its noteworthy contribution towards changing the face of chai market in India, the company has received numerous accolades from prestigious organizations.
ChaiPoint has won retail services awards at Bangalore International Airport twice. It also bagged 'Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award' for innovation in technology in F&B services sector. Whereas, HT Media listed ChaiPoint in top ten consumer brands in Bangalore.
As known, success in business comes from taking risks; Amuleek also witnessed many risks and decided to tackle them with careful planning. In a conversation with The CEO Magazine, he speaks about the biggest risk taken by the company, "Chai is a necessity in our country and available across the length and breadth of it.
To make it a brand that is based on a ritual, it needs to be available at an accessible price at hygienic contemporary stores. To balance this with the overall profitability goal was always a tough fundamental task.
Further extending our beverage offerings through an Omni channel route wherein we invested very aggressively on software and hardware technology was also a notion that came naturally to the Chai sector. This was a big leap for us even though we are always driven by objective business reasons."
For now, ChaiPoint has directed all its efforts towards expansion of its existing services as well as towards investing more on technology integrated innovative ideas to enhance customer experience.
The company is all geared up to position itself in the elite club of startups, who have already reached a turnover of INR one hundred crore, and expects to achieve this ambition within two years.
An MBA from Harvard Business School, Amuleek Singh Bijral has worked with Microsoft Corporation and EMC (now a part of Dell) in developer, consulting, strategy and sales roles.
Before starting Mountain Trail Foods Private Limited (Chai Point is a brand under it), he was the country manager for RSA (a world leading Information Security Company).
He is passionate about building brands and strongly believes that businesses should also be making a positive impact in the societies in which they operate. Technology, product design and incentive structures have a critical role to play towards this.
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