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every retail channel has proven that consumer promotions drive incremental sales and profts. As such, every micro market operator needs to embrace the opportunity to promote products in a manner simply not available in vending. Broad variety merchandising and managing consumer promotions are completely new functionalities associated with micro market opera- tions, which require organizational resources to be effectively managed. Simply put, micro markets and vending are very different businesses with distinctly different support, operational and management func- tions. As our businesses change to include both, our organizations need to evolve as well, assigning specifc resources to best handle the unique and very different functions of each. When, Where To Add With a need to provide different functional support in the areas of merchandising, operations and data administration, how should we structure our organizations to most effectively support both vending and micro market operations? Where can we leverage vending operations into micro markets and where do the busi- nesses beneft from separation? To answer this question, we must assume a couple of key perspectives. First, we want to be professional and effectively perform all services and activities necessary at every vending and micro market installation. Sec- ond, the organizational changes for individual operators will vary based upon their company size, geographical operating area (urban or rural), num- ber of micro market installations and other key individual company factors. In general, a vending organiza- tion normally includes six functional areas: 1) accounting and administra- tion, 2) new account sales, 3) pur- chasing, 4) warehouse operations, 5) route delivery and 6) feld service, all focused exclusively on vending. With the differences in micro market operations and the need to manage the signifcant increase in product variety, a vending/micro market organization with perhaps 30 active micro markets will require a number of changes: • Additional data entry and man- agement resources added to administration. • Separated vending and micro market warehouse areas with dedicated micro market order picking areas and personnel. • Dedicated and separated vending and micro market routes. • Committed merchandising resources focused on new prod- uct identifcation and acquisition and promotional program selec- tion and implementation. • Independent departmental man- agement for both vending and micro markets focused on the nuances of each business. The evolution for a vend operator from a traditional vending organiza- tion to one with both vending and micro market operations will be grad- ual but has to occur with increasing micro market installations. For opera- tors with less than fve micro mar- kets and just beginning their micro market operations, existing vending personnel can usually be leveraged and used to support the frst micro market operations. Above ten installations, however, benefts begin to become signifcant from establishing a separation of the businesses and focus of resources. Most importantly, the division of vending and micro markets into side-by-side business units benefts signifcantly from independent man- agement and supervision. Each busi- ness needs focus and attention on its specifc operational and management needs, and only through separation can both grow, thrive and be as suc- cessful as possible. INDEPENDENT management will beneft the two divisions most. 30 Automatic Merchandiser VendingMarketWatch.com October 2014 M I C R O M A R K E T S O P E R A T I O N S ABOUT THE AUTHOR Brad Bachtelle is president of Bachtelle and Associates, a national consulting and research frm dedicated to driving increased product sales volumes and market share positions for its clients within the at-work and other specialty segments of the larger foodservice in- dustry. Contact Bachtelle at bbachtelle@ bachtelle.com or 714-731-5830.