Business View Magazine Jan-Feb 2019

53 stores. Marketing sort of overlays the brand and reinforces what Cha Time is about from a po- sitioning perspective. But for us, employee en- gagement has been a big focus over the last few months”, according to Ben and Carlos. Satisfied franchisees means satisfied customers The Cha Time team believes that happy and productive staff are crucial to the expansion of the Cha Time brand as a whole but also to indi- vidual stores. Obviously, profits are also impor- tant but creating a strong presence all around Australia is perhaps even more important. If a customer had a bad experience in a Cha Time T-Brewery, it would reflect badly on everyone involved with the brand. As such, every measure is taken not just to avoid that from happening but to cause an inverse reaction instead. The Australian Cha Time outlets also follow the same supply chain model as the original Tai- wanese franchise. Everything is delivered di- rectly to the stores from the same company as a hands-on approach was deemed best. After all, the company originally made a name for itself due to the sheer quality of its drinks which in- cluded all kinds of fresh ingredients and great tea. Changes, of course, are to be expected. “We’re a vertically integrated business. At this stage we distribute directly through to indi- vidual stores. We are, however, currently un- dertaking a logistics review to potentially see our business, while still maintaining a verti- cally integrated structure, move to a third-party, outsourced logistics function to provide our T-breweries with improved delivery options, to assist them with stock control, cash flow, etc. That’s something that we are working on at the