In a recent episode of Mumbition The Podcast (brought to you by DWEN the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network), we chatted with two business owners who have used technology in surprising and interesting ways to improve their businesses. Renata Taylor, founder of Grouch and Co coffee, and a member of DWEN, the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network. She is joined by Jillian Kilby, CEO and founder of The Exchange, a social impact organisation supporting a diverse and geographically isolated, community of founders with coworking desks, private offices, meeting rooms and event space, as well as a vast community network that gives people in regional Australia the best chance at commercial success in their own business.

At Mums & Co we’ve heard recently that every business is going to be a technology business. Here’s what Renata, one of the winners of the DWEN Dream Tech competition, and Jillian had to say about the role technology has played in their businesses.

Renata Taylor:

Well, it's interesting that you should say every business will become a technology business. I think mine is a great example of how that happens. We're hospitality based and e-commerce based. Winning the DW Dream Tech competition has been a game changer for us. It's helped us in several ways. We've gone a hundred percent digital in our cafe space, so that means no more writing on leads, having to remember shorthand. Basically it comes in, it goes into a computer and then it gets displayed on touch monitors supplied by Dell and it's really streamlined the process.

Our customers can also see a monitor that faces into the cafe space so they know how long they're going to wait for their coffee. So it really helps with the whole user experience. It's also helped us in our e-commerce fulfilment area. We now are now able to have multiple locations for fulfilment and it's actually helped us double our volume of sales. So we are really excited to have partnered with Dell.

Jillian Kilby :

As you were talking, it was going through my head, the things we could change in the co-working space if we had that level of technology.

Renata Taylor :

Oh my gosh. The touch monitors are my best friends. I don't know what to say that, but they're really great and I wouldn't open a cafe without them. Now I have them and I know what the technology does for us, I wouldn't do it without it.

Jillian Kilby:

But that's the barrier that you now know. But the other business is like, well, do I want to invest, say 20 K in monitors and apps and tech? Is it going to double my sales volumes? But with you sort of leading the way with this pilot project, saying this is how we've changed our business, it's going to be other business owners looking at you, including me saying, "Well, what would it look like if we had a touchscreen monitor in The Exchange?" So you'll arrive for your day for your meetings, or you are coworking and you are like, okay, where am I? All right, I'm through there, rather than the old-fashioned wayfinding or-

Renata Taylor:

And I think that's the best thing about the DWEN Dream Tech competition. It allowed us to innovate without risk. They provided the resources and we just had to tell them how we wanted to do it.

Jillian Kilby :

Amazing.

Renata Taylor :

It's been a great partnership. We feel really fortunate.

Lucy Kippist :

I need to know about the little element that tells the customer how long till their coffee's ready. Please explain that.

Renata Taylor :

Oh my gosh, it's wonderful.

Carrie Kwan :

 Yeah.

Renata Taylor :

So we have a point of sale system and it drives everything. It has a bump screen and that means it displays on the barista side. We've got two barista stations, and then we have turned one of the Dell monitors around so that now our bump screen displays a customer face screen. So they see whose order is next, how big the order is. So we always tell people when they come at the till, it's going to be a 10-minute wait, it's going to be a 15-minute wait, et cetera, just so that we've got expectations set.

But now with this Dell monitor screen, they can see that there's a really large order before them and not to stress, or if there's anything extra on their order that may have been missed, they can actually read the order. It's improved our wait times. We've knocked two minutes off per order. And for us, when we do about 600 coffees a day, two minutes per order wait time is huge, and the customer experience improves. So yeah, look, technology is something that everyone needs to invest in and you'll love it.

I think it technology is now part of every business including hospitality, and it makes our life easier, not harder.

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This episode is brought to you by DWEN the Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network.

For more than a decade, DWEN has brought women entrepreneurs together from around the world to help them connect, scale their businesses, and ultimately succeed. 

Entries for the 2023 DWEN Dream Tech Competition are now open! This is your chance to win up to $40,000 in Dell technology to help your business grow*. Sign up and enter the competition at www.dwen.com today.

*Terms & Conditions apply

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