December 2021 - 32

markets all over. And there are mobile
and point-of-sale checkout systems,
along with unattended shopping powered
by computer vision technology.
So, the vending industry probably
represents a small share of the selfcheckout
market universe. "
The vending industry coined the
term " micro market " and positioned
it around the workplace convenience
services, 365's founder explained.
PRESERVING MICRO MARKET
BRANDS FOR OPERATORS
The Avanti and 365 product lines are
expected to remain whole. " We're
not going to change too much on
future products. An Avanti operator
is an 'Avanti operator.' They have an
Avanti backend system, kiosk and
add-on products that revolve around
those. Operators build their processes
around those technologies, and they
don't like change. These rules apply to
365's products, too. "
How do 365 and Avanti differ and
what is the strength of each? 365 is
more of an enterprise solution used
by large operations in need of a selfcheckout
technology that focuses on
the entire organization. A 365 solution
is ideally suited for organizations with
thousands of devices. In contrast,
To make it better, we intend to remove some of the friction
between the LightSpeed system and the Avanti, 365 and
Company Kitchen systems - to make a single product,
something even more than integration.
Joe Hessling, 365 Retail Markets founder and CEO
Avanti is designed for small and midsize
businesses (SMBs).
" The combination will now allow
all operators to have the professionalism,
security, compliance and
assurance levels of an enterprise
relationship, coupled with the thought
process of an operator-led business,
which Avanti was. By rolling up the
two we hope to bring the best of both
worlds to an operator, " Hessling said.
" At the same time, the products will
definitely be on the forward path from
a technology perspective for an operation
of any size. "
Hessling pointed out that operators
want less complexity, but many are
still administering different equipment
assets and locations with a vending
management system (VMS). Sometimes
a particular product may not
be a good fit for a VMS brand, which
makes it difficult for the operator to
manage. To reduce these complications,
the merged company's plan is
to develop technology that will enable
365, Avanti or Company Kitchen
kiosks to feed to LightSpeed and a
combined VMS. According to Hessling,
most operators are looking for
this cleaner solution.
" VMS is really a holdover from
when vending machines ruled the
roost, " Hessling said. " Operators
relied on those systems to manage
a bunch of different systems to run
their business. As micro markets are
now taking over the vending space,
in terms of revenue, operators rely on
the Avanti, 365 and Company Kitchen
backends to manage the larger parts of
their businesses; but they still require
another system to manage their vending
machines. Over time, I think VMS
will become less important because
more people are moving toward micro
markets than they are vending. It's no
secret that that's what's taking place in
the marketplace. "
Large enterprise-level operators,
however, usually build proprietary
systems rather than use a VMS. " They
might use pieces of a VMS, route management
software or some little pieces
of modules, " Hessling noted, " but they
moved beyond VMS. "
Moreover, supersized route operaAvanti/365
Avanti
Markets founder Jim Brinton (r.) welcomes 365 Retail Markets founder Joe
Hessling to Avanti's Seattle office.
32 Automatic Merchandiser * December 2021
tions have created enterprise resource
planning (ERP) systems that can
integrate directly with 365's backend.
ERP applications are designed to automate
business processes, and provide
December 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of December 2021
