Creating a Better Cup of Tea in Taiwan

Posted By Alan Lee
Windows Embedded Business Lead for Taiwan

These days, people are not just using the Internet for “people” communications; increasingly, the Internet is used to power “things” for business. The hot new trend in intelligent systems is IoT, the Internet of Things. In Taiwan, as elsewhere, we are seeing more and more connected devices, generating and transmitting huge amounts of data, creating the new question of how to use this “big data;” how to make it valuable and useful.

A very typical industry we are seeing this transformation in Taiwan is retail stores. From cash registers, to point of sales and point of service devices, to cloud services, retailers are using end-to-end systems to collect sales data, and then analyze the data to create business intelligence

In Asia, especially in Taiwan and China, many food or drink chain stores in big cities are looking for new and better ways to: improve operation efficiency during rush hours, better manage cooking and dining areas, manage material inventory and deliveries, manage thousands of stores in different cities, and manage multiple enterprise devices including POS, handheld devices and digital signage, integrating with CRM systems to manage memberships, and more.

More and more retailers are seeing the value in using intelligent systems to solve those challenges and help their business. Our Windows Embedded partners in China and Taiwan are helping those stores deploy intelligent retail systems, connecting stores and HQ in fast-food restaurants, bakeries—and especially tea shops.


 
The intelligent system and cloud-service solutions our partners developed for those stores are utilizing Microsoft products like Windows Server, SQL server and Windows Embedded POSReady 7, and really helping those retailers to solve their challenges and increase their business.

At tea shops like Come Buy and Mr. Wish, shown in these photos, employees probably have to produce a couple hundred or even a thousand cups a day in a store with around 100 customized favorites. Our partner ONK helps to optimize that processes, with a POSReady 7 system that allows for the fast printing of a label that shows ingredients, drink temperature, size, etc. to help the cashier easily remember how to make each custom drink and make sure the customer gets his favorite drink faster, without mistakes. And data about ingredients used links to an inventory Windows Embedded Server database running Microsoft SQL Server for embedded systems, so that cashiers and HQ will know the inventory status, and make sure stores have enough materials.

These intelligent systems really help retailers to better control all steps of the process, saving on costs and increase customer satisfaction, which, of course, increases their profits.