Craving made this entrepreneur from INSEAD the King of Coffee

What if we tell you that now you can grab your hands onto the high-quality branded coffee curated by World Latte Art Champions right at your doorstep, while you still work from home? You heard that right!

This distant dream had been made possible by an MBA graduate from INSEAD, Sebastian Hannecker, a German entrepreneur who transformed his coffee addiction into a full-fledged tech-enabled coffee chain Flash Coffee.

Building the Coffee Empire

Flash Coffee has become the well-loved growing coffee chain in Southeast Asia despite being launched in the pandemic year. Currently operating in 50 locations across Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia, the coffee chain aims to spread the wings of its coffee empire. “Our dream is to have a Flash Coffee every 500 meters in all major Asian cities,” founder and CEO David Brunier remarked. Backed by Rocket Internet - a Berlin-based tech incubator, Flash Coffee has raised $20 million to tap the potential coffee market in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia to become one of Asia’s largest coffee chains.

The beverage chain has established its strong customer base by offering premium coffee at its yellow-and-pink-themed unique localized shops at a price much lower than US giant Starbucks and China’s Luckin Coffee. The best part is that Flash Coffee is in the process of growing by competing with these big giants by having an edge in technology.

Behind the Flash Coffee

Sebastian Hannecker being an MBA graduate from the world's top business school INSEAD opened the door to this remarkable entrepreneurial journey of Flash Coffee. While pursuing graduation, he noticed well-known coffee brands selling mediocre coffee at premium prices, leaving incredible tech opportunities in the coffee industry.

Also Read: What kind of people INSEAD intakes for its MBA program?

Being a coffee lover himself, he decided to solve this problem and left his job at Bain & Company to capture the tremendous potential to create a fully re-imagined tech-enabled coffee chain. Hence, he met David Brunier, an entrepreneur to start this exciting coffee empire Flash Coffee in Asia.

Blend Coffee and Tech well!

Flash Coffee dominates the offline coffee industry through technology by offering incentives to coffee lovers. When the pandemic took a toll on the offline coffee industry, Flash Coffee came with its Barista application to allow customers to pre-order its beverage from its various stores to pick it up from nearby iconic yellow stores or get it delivered to the doorstep. Additionally, it offered loyalty rewards to customers for trying out different varieties of coffee from its stores. This business model well-suited the pandemic-driven world.

Besides the app, the flash coffee menu was curated by World Latte Art Champion Arnon Thitiprasert and Indonesian Latte Art Champion Robby Firlian at highly affordable prices without compromising the quality to provide an unparalleled customer experience. Hence, this blending mixture of coffee and tech together enabled Flash Coffee to achieve operational efficiency, growth, store productivity, and give unmatched customer experience in the entire coffee industry.

To conclude, the entire game of the coffee chain has changed due to this tech-enabled Flash Coffee. The success owes to e-commerce strategies they acquired to retain customers proactively with maintaining a strong presence in social media through an influencer marketing strategy that resonates with the coffee generation people in Asia. Sebastian Hannecker from INSEAD reinvented the way to grow the coffee business while applying the same old theories of microeconomics, accounting, finance, and the art of negotiation he learned during his MBA journey.

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