The Story of Combi Cafe

Small business to Top Chain

Combi Cafe, a small business that began in South Australia, has been using Futrli to forecast and manage the company's future since 2014. They use Futrli with Oreon Partners - a small accounting firm based in Adelaide.

Combi began as a small business

Back in 1977, combi began as a small business and has since grown from a small company café to being one of the top coffee chains in Australia. They grew at an average rate of 39% per year over that period; this is significantly faster than their peers who averaged growth rates closer to 18%. The companies success can be partly attributed to the small businesses' decision to expand into different areas.

Combi had a hand in starting the franchising business, as well as opening up their own training and development office. These developments helped the company to grow from its humble beginnings of one café in 1977 to over 70 cafes across Australia by 2014, therefore, gaining an incredible amount of customers through technology and word of mouth. They have partnered with suppliers that allow them access to raw materials and ingredients from all over the world. This aids the increase in the number of sales.        

The company also takes advantage of its competitive edge when it comes to pricing and value, as well as trying to maintain a high quality of both food and service across its cafes. They've been using Futrli since 2014 in order to manage and predict their future better; they use this with Oreon Partners, their accountants based in Adelaide, South Australia.

Challenge with Business Growth within the company

Combi Cafe was going through extreme business growth and needed to gain insight and confidence for the business's decision-making. The company wanted to expand but wanted to know it was the right choice. They needed real-time data and an advisor who knew what to do with it.    

Oreon Partners, accountants, and business advisors based in Adelaide, South Australia have been using Futrli since 2014 to manage their expanding business.

Combi Cafe contacted Oreon Partners for help with analyzing the data from its fast-growing company so that it can have confidence when making decisions about future growth such as opening a new location.        

The business plan

Combi is a business that sells coffee, tea, and cold drinks on the menu all around Australia. The company had been experiencing exponential growth over the past few years of more stores opening in different locations and gaining so many customers with which made it difficult to make decisions about future plans for expansion without an understanding of how well they were doing financially on an ongoing basis given their recent rapid rate of expansion.

In this case, Oreon Partners worked with the company to analyze the data from its company and provide insights about business performance based on economic indicators such as gross profit margin, return on assets, and liquidity ratios so that they are able to make informed decisions about their future growth strategy.    

Solution

The team started working with Oreon Partners, who are dedicated cloud advisors. They introduced the Combi team to Xero and Futrli. Now, owner Anthony Baker can see the impact of his decisions – big and small.

Result

The team’s permanent company is going from strength to strength. As a result, the real-time data has made all the difference to the business, as busy and quiet spells can be forecasted. Anthony can also run various outcomes to his decisions, and to seasonal changes, etc, through the Futrli scenario planner. He’s gained true insight from working with Futrli.

We were lucky enough to their journey on video. We are really grateful to Oreon for capturing their amazing story on camera, so we can share it here with you. Take a look at this youtube video that gives you an insight into the business itself: