Costa’s Story

With over 1,800 coffee shops in the UK and more than 1,100 overseas, Costa is the fastest growing coffee shop business in the UK. Founded in London by Italian brothers Bruno and Sergio Costa in 1971, Costa has been voted the UK’s favourite coffee shop for five years running.

Like any major retail organisation, Costa relies upon computerised systems for stock control, payroll and other daily in-store administration. However, with no dedicated back-office processing capability in the UK estate, store managers had to use the countertop EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale) units for these routine tasks and this created operational inefficiencies.

The Goal

"We didn’t have any back-office processing capability, other than the EPOS units,” explains Peter Corbett, Information Systems Project Manager at Costa. “Managers had to put the tills into admin mode to perform things like stock control, which was inconvenient, since it took place in front of the customer and prevented staff from processing sales."

To avoid delays for customers, store managers were obliged to either hurriedly perform their admin during quiet periods in the day, or work longer hours to complete it when the shop was closed — neither of which was ideal.

So Costa needed to shift its admin away from the counter and the customers, leaving the EPOS unit free to perform its intended function at all times. That meant using a dedicated computer system away from the shop floor.

The Solution

Costa needed a portable computer that wouldn’t take up valuable desk space and that could be carried around to perform administrative tasks.

A number of different portable computers and tablets were trialled in UK stores for three months in 2014. The one that store managers favoured by a wide margin was the ASUS Transformer Book T100TA.

"Following research with a selection of store managers, we chose the ASUS Transformer Book because it was the most robust and easiest to use, all traits we need in a fast-paced retail environment. Since rolling them out across the equity estate, the response has been extremely positive and it has increased our in-store operational efficiency and time management."

– Peter Corbett, Information Systems Project Manager at Costa

Impressed by its compact design and its ability to transform into a 10.1-inch tablet simply by detaching the keyboard, Costa issued Transformer Book T100 computers to managers across their equity estate earlier this year.

Products Used

ASUS Transformer Book T100TA

Costa's Success

Stores managers were delighted with the ASUS Transformer Book T100TA due to its portable design and 11 hour battery life - freeing store managers from power sockets for maximum flexibility.

"Costa store managers were very receptive to the ASUS Transformer Book — it’s changed their working day,” says Peter Corbett. “They can now carry out their daily admin when and where they need to, which means they can better organise their time."