Post by Admin on Oct 11, 2013 12:45:01 GMT 1
IMPORTANT TIPS, TRICKS AND KNOW HOW ON CYBER CAFE MANAGEMENT
After years of providing technical support to a number of Internet cafes, we realized that many owners tend to make typical mistakes setting up their business. Hence we came out with the following tips as a guide:
Tip 1. LOCATION AND POWER SUPPLY
The two major challenges the average cyber café face is that of location and electric power supply. Ninety-nine percent of cyber café’s that fold up are as a result of these two factors.
As stated earlier, a cyber café should be set up at a location where they will get maximum patronage. Secondary schools, higher institutions and study centers where we have a very high flow of students are always a winner. Students constitute the largest market there is for this business. Also areas where we have a very high flow of human traffic will do.
The main challenge here is that these types of location do not come cheap. Even if you manage to get one, taking into consideration the average cost of one hour browsing, you will not find it easy to break even.
Secondly, with the erratic nature of electricity supply in Nigeria and the high cost of diesel, there is no gain saying it that power supply will be the greatest challenges any cyber café owner will face.
Power will constitute the single largest expenditure you will have in the running of your café. A good solution to this problems means your café will immediately become profitable.
The secret to the success of any café is to outsource these two most problematic needs, viable location and Electric power.
What I mean by this is you should go into partnership with any chain of petrol station or Fast food Company. You can reach an agreement with them to locate your cyber cafes within their premises at no cost to you.
This move immediately takes care of the issue of power and viable location. They already have a steady source of power and would have viable locations.
You can agree with them on a monthly revenue sharing formula. We recommend a 85%-15% sharing formula. 85% for you and 15% for them.
What this means is they provide you a location and electricity supply, you provide the internet access, computers, networking equipments and staff. This is a very neat arrangement and it takes the burden off you and it creates an avenue for them to make extra income with no additional expenditure. In fact it is a win win for all involved.
With this arrangement, one can run a chain of cyber cafes based on the network and outreach of which ever organization you decide to partner with.
With the above formula you cannot go wrong.
Tip 2. MAKE YOUR CAFÉ VIRTUAL
A virtual cyber café is a café without boarders. It eliminates the need for you to aggregate computers at any one spot for your café users. Users can log onto your virtual café from any where computers are connected to your network. Computers can be located anywhere you deem fit like popular hotels, fast food joints, schools, petrol stations and shopping malls.
With a virtual cyber café, you can better manage and control your bandwidth allocation since it will be centrally controlled. You can spread your reach far and wide thereby making your café profitable. You can easily establish a café brand and spread nationally in a very short while.
The two main things you will require for a virtual cafe are bulk bandwidth and a remotely controlled cyber cafe management server.
Tip 3. SOFTWARE
Never Use Windows 95/98 or Me in your Internet Café unless you are setting up a gaming center for kids.
i). Those operating systems are very difficult, if not impossible, to secure from breaking by malicious (rarely), careless (sometimes) or computer-illiterate (most of the time) customers;
ii). There’s very little you can do in terms of centralized administration of user accounts/profiles;
iii). In Windows NT , 2000 or XP you can utilize server-based (roaming) user profiles and system policies to greatly reduce administration headaches;
iv). You have to reboot the computers running those operating systems every now and then to keep them running smoothly. Couple that with customer frustration, and you have a major hassle on your hands.
Tip 4. APPS
Have at least a basic set of Office apps, plus Adobe Acrobat Reader on all workstations.
You need to keep some basic productivity applications on every computer. People take them for granted these days and will be very upset if they can’t open a Word or Excel attachment their friend sent them, or even edit their resume / cover letter before emailing. No need to make a case for being able to open PDF files.
Tip 5. IMAGING SOFTWARE
Have at least some basic Imaging applications on all workstations.
The Imaging application that comes with Windows is very limited in terms of file formats it can open and even some JPEG varieties are not supported. Microsoft Photo Editor, which is included with Microsoft Office, is a much better substitute. Also, Adobe Photo Deluxe and Paint
Tip 6. INTERNET BROWSERS
Have latest versions of Major Internet Browsers (IE, Netscape, AOL, Firefox) and their respective plug-in and helper apps installed on all workstations.This one’s absolutely essential – your Internet connection is only as good as the browser you’re viewing it through, and a lot of people may rather go home, then face an unfamiliar computing environment.
Major plug-in and helpers, such as Flash, Shockwave, Real Player, etc. are also important to have preinstalled, if only to stop people from asking, how come you don’t have them.
Tip 7. HARDWARE
Always try to have the same hardware configuration on all workstations.
This makes maintenance much easier, since you can have one “gold standard” installation saved and later transfer it to each workstation.
Tip 8. SCANNER
A decent consumer-grade scanner will cost you less than =N=20,000 (it doesn’t have to be a networked model, just install it on one of the workstations). Scanning and editing images (see “Software” section) is a lengthy, slow process, so you get paid for computer time more than enough to warrant the purchase. Choose a parallel port model for NT installations and a USB model for all others.
Tip 9. CD-RECORDER
A decent CD-Recorder will cost you only about =N=2,000 more than a regular CD-ROM drive, but will greatly improve your café’s appeal, because people will want to take things they downloaded or created on your computers with them. Some will even come specifically to copy CDs. Again, you’ll make more than enough in computer time and blank CD sales.
Tip 10. PRINTER
In our experience, an Inkjet Photo printer is OK to have, but not really necessary. More of an advertising value, than a money maker.
Very few people, if any, want to print photos or color pictures in a café, mainly because of the price. You have to charge about =N=500 per page for it to be profitable, due to the high cost of supplies (ink and special inkjet paper) and maintenance. People are not willing to pay that much.
If you are determined to install an inkjet photo printer anyway, choose one that fits your budget from the Epson Stylus Photo line. Don’t forget to run a test page every few days, so the ink doesn’t dry up and clog the print head’s nozzles.
Tip 11. LASER PRINTER
Always choose a high-volume laser printer.
This printer will take a lot of beating in the café environment, and even though you may not think it will be used a lot, getting a high-volume model will save you a lot of headaches in the long run. It is also cheaper to run, on the cost-per-page basis, than a home/home office model. HP is the clear leader in this field with their LaserJet line, and the best one all-around is LaserJet 4000.
Tip 12. MONITORS
Buy the best monitors you can afford, preferably flat-screen LCD.
Your monitors represent the face of your Internet business. While relatively expensive, flat-screen LCD monitors take up little space and look appealing. You should consider having at least a couple of those visible from the outside. This will give your café a high-tech look.
Tip 13. ISP
Use a well-established and reliable Internet Service Provider.
The livelihood of your Cyber Café business depends on your Internet Service. Make sure your ISP is dependable and reliable.
Tip 14. BANDWIDTH
The bandwidth you need is purely empirical. It depends on a lot of factors; numbers of computers you intend to use, what you want to do, what competition is doing and the browsing speed you hope to achieve. Your internet service providers will guide you appropriately on this issue.
Tip 15. MAINTENANCE
Use Norton Ghost or similar software to make a clean copy of each workstation’s setup.
Software on your computers will get badly abused on a daily basis, so it makes sense to develop an easy way to get it back to the original condition. Using Norton Ghost, Power Quest Drive Image, or other similar software, you can create an “image” for each of your hardware/software configurations, burn it on a CD, and use it to restore any computer that goes bad. The process of restoring takes no more than 15 minutes, which is certainly a lot quicker than any other system repair procedure.
Tip 16. IMAGES
When creating an “image”, don’t use the compression.
Compression will slow down the restore process and should be used only when your “image” doesn’t fit on a CD.
Tip 17. RESTORE PROCESS
Use command line switches to automate the restore process.
Norton Ghost has a command-line interface, which allows you to completely automate the restore process by using a bootable floppy with the appropriate commands in autoexec.bat file.
You can have one “image” for multiple computers, as long as the hardware configuration is standard.
This is why it makes sense (see Tip 5) to have as little deviation in hardware as possible. There are several things that you have to change, though, once you restore an image.
Tip 18. CAFE DESIGN
If possible, have at least a couple of PC workstations with flat screens in the window.
Flat screens give your place a chic and high-tech look. At the same time, don’t take up all the window-space, or you risk looking too technical and office-like.
Tip 19. SPACE
Give people enough room to sit comfortably and put down any books, magazines, papers or notebooks they might have brought.
It is safe to assume that a lot of people will come to look things up on the Web, or study, or research. Making them as comfortable as you can, will ensure that they’ll stay longer and come back.
Tip 20. COMPUTER AREA
Design the computer area, so that nobody would stand behind people using the PCs.
People feel nervous and uncomfortable using a computer when somebody stands behind them. The issue is not only privacy, but also an innate fear of predators, that’s still living in us after thousands of years. If there’s no way to get around this in your layout, put a large mirror on the wall behind the monitors, so that people can at least see what’s happening behind them.
Tip 21. PROCESSOR UNITS
Chose smaller processor units and place them under the tables, bars etc.
Do not clutter your space with big boxes, as they are heavy, look bad and repel people. Nowadays, you can get very powerful yet compact (read “cute”) CPU configurations for pretty much the same price as big boxes. If possible, hide them under the desks or behind the screens, if you have LCDs. Also, all-in-one models with built-in LCD screens work really well in any design.
Tip 22. TICKET PRICING
Work out the right pricing.
Price for the computer time can vary greatly from place to place. Some can be as cheap as =N=60 an hour, yet others can be as expensive as =N=300. Your pricing will have to be decided based on the location and type of audience you have, or count on having. We suggest you use the simple rule of thumb that will let you find the right price:
Computers should be used, on average, at 40-70% of their capacity and customers should be paying, on average, around =N=150 per hour regardless of how much time they spend at the computer. Keep in mind that you probably want to collect at least a week’s worth of statistical data before you can put it to use.
Also remember that price change affects average usage time. A couple of alterations and observations should ensure that you achieve optimal pricing. You may also want to find out best prices for different seasons or even weekdays vs. weekends and use it to your advantage. If your computers are used at less than 50% of their capacity at peak hours, you have too many computers.
Tip 23.CONTROLE
Do not overdo with trying to control everything.
We have seen many places fail because they wanted to have those sophisticated schemes where customers are restricted to some basic applications (Internet Explorer, Netscape) and have to pay for others separately (MS Office, Adobe Photoshop etc. ).
Do not do that. People get annoyed, period. You have to make your computers as friendly to the users as possible; in fact people should see an environment very similar to that of at home. Of course you want to make sure to protect critical parts of your system such as registry.
It’s fairly easy to setup that and other security restrictions using the Windows Administrative Tools. Do that while creating your customer profile, then simply map that profile to one or more of your User Types.
Tip 24. SCAMMERS
Guard against Scammers know as 419ners
They come in all sizes and shapes. Your café attendants must be very vigilant to spot and discourage them from using you cyber café for their activities.
You must endeavor to block most of the sites they use on all your work stations. Purchase a timer that enables you monitor each work station and be able to shut it down from your server.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that you can make a lot of money from them. They will make you go against the law and eventually out of business.
Tip 25. WORKERS
Ensure you employ trust worthy workers. You will not be in the café all the time and your business most of the time will be left in their hands. Get them to bring guarantors before they are employed. Also make sure they are well paid like their peers in other cafes.
Tip 26. FINANCE
You must ensure strict financial discipline at all times. All incomes from the café should be paid directly to the bank and no expenditure made directly from it.
Ensure that your staff comes out with weekly budgets and their expenditures are met from petty cash which is provided by you on a weekly or monthly basis.
This makes for good accounting. Lodging all your sales on a daily basis in the bank also enables you establish a good relationship with the bank and hence be able to borrow money from them when you need it.
Tip 27. INCOME
Use your imagination, web browsing is a tiny part of what you can do in you internet café. You can sell recharge cards and GSM phones, bulk SMS, register students for different examinations, train people on how to use the internet, sell snacks and drinks, provide secretarial services, provide telephone/fax services, provide hotspot services, website designing and hosting, games etc.
CLICK HERE For details of our Pay As You Go Internet solution for Cyber Cafe
To Your Success,
Nduka Dagbue
Getachus Nigeria Ltd,
6B Bendel Close off Bishop Aboyade Cole St,
Victoria Island, Lagos
Tel; 2348020575565,07035008707
E-mail; nduka@getachus.net
Website; www.getachus.com
After years of providing technical support to a number of Internet cafes, we realized that many owners tend to make typical mistakes setting up their business. Hence we came out with the following tips as a guide:
Tip 1. LOCATION AND POWER SUPPLY
The two major challenges the average cyber café face is that of location and electric power supply. Ninety-nine percent of cyber café’s that fold up are as a result of these two factors.
As stated earlier, a cyber café should be set up at a location where they will get maximum patronage. Secondary schools, higher institutions and study centers where we have a very high flow of students are always a winner. Students constitute the largest market there is for this business. Also areas where we have a very high flow of human traffic will do.
The main challenge here is that these types of location do not come cheap. Even if you manage to get one, taking into consideration the average cost of one hour browsing, you will not find it easy to break even.
Secondly, with the erratic nature of electricity supply in Nigeria and the high cost of diesel, there is no gain saying it that power supply will be the greatest challenges any cyber café owner will face.
Power will constitute the single largest expenditure you will have in the running of your café. A good solution to this problems means your café will immediately become profitable.
The secret to the success of any café is to outsource these two most problematic needs, viable location and Electric power.
What I mean by this is you should go into partnership with any chain of petrol station or Fast food Company. You can reach an agreement with them to locate your cyber cafes within their premises at no cost to you.
This move immediately takes care of the issue of power and viable location. They already have a steady source of power and would have viable locations.
You can agree with them on a monthly revenue sharing formula. We recommend a 85%-15% sharing formula. 85% for you and 15% for them.
What this means is they provide you a location and electricity supply, you provide the internet access, computers, networking equipments and staff. This is a very neat arrangement and it takes the burden off you and it creates an avenue for them to make extra income with no additional expenditure. In fact it is a win win for all involved.
With this arrangement, one can run a chain of cyber cafes based on the network and outreach of which ever organization you decide to partner with.
With the above formula you cannot go wrong.
Tip 2. MAKE YOUR CAFÉ VIRTUAL
A virtual cyber café is a café without boarders. It eliminates the need for you to aggregate computers at any one spot for your café users. Users can log onto your virtual café from any where computers are connected to your network. Computers can be located anywhere you deem fit like popular hotels, fast food joints, schools, petrol stations and shopping malls.
With a virtual cyber café, you can better manage and control your bandwidth allocation since it will be centrally controlled. You can spread your reach far and wide thereby making your café profitable. You can easily establish a café brand and spread nationally in a very short while.
The two main things you will require for a virtual cafe are bulk bandwidth and a remotely controlled cyber cafe management server.
Tip 3. SOFTWARE
Never Use Windows 95/98 or Me in your Internet Café unless you are setting up a gaming center for kids.
i). Those operating systems are very difficult, if not impossible, to secure from breaking by malicious (rarely), careless (sometimes) or computer-illiterate (most of the time) customers;
ii). There’s very little you can do in terms of centralized administration of user accounts/profiles;
iii). In Windows NT , 2000 or XP you can utilize server-based (roaming) user profiles and system policies to greatly reduce administration headaches;
iv). You have to reboot the computers running those operating systems every now and then to keep them running smoothly. Couple that with customer frustration, and you have a major hassle on your hands.
Tip 4. APPS
Have at least a basic set of Office apps, plus Adobe Acrobat Reader on all workstations.
You need to keep some basic productivity applications on every computer. People take them for granted these days and will be very upset if they can’t open a Word or Excel attachment their friend sent them, or even edit their resume / cover letter before emailing. No need to make a case for being able to open PDF files.
Tip 5. IMAGING SOFTWARE
Have at least some basic Imaging applications on all workstations.
The Imaging application that comes with Windows is very limited in terms of file formats it can open and even some JPEG varieties are not supported. Microsoft Photo Editor, which is included with Microsoft Office, is a much better substitute. Also, Adobe Photo Deluxe and Paint
Tip 6. INTERNET BROWSERS
Have latest versions of Major Internet Browsers (IE, Netscape, AOL, Firefox) and their respective plug-in and helper apps installed on all workstations.This one’s absolutely essential – your Internet connection is only as good as the browser you’re viewing it through, and a lot of people may rather go home, then face an unfamiliar computing environment.
Major plug-in and helpers, such as Flash, Shockwave, Real Player, etc. are also important to have preinstalled, if only to stop people from asking, how come you don’t have them.
Tip 7. HARDWARE
Always try to have the same hardware configuration on all workstations.
This makes maintenance much easier, since you can have one “gold standard” installation saved and later transfer it to each workstation.
Tip 8. SCANNER
A decent consumer-grade scanner will cost you less than =N=20,000 (it doesn’t have to be a networked model, just install it on one of the workstations). Scanning and editing images (see “Software” section) is a lengthy, slow process, so you get paid for computer time more than enough to warrant the purchase. Choose a parallel port model for NT installations and a USB model for all others.
Tip 9. CD-RECORDER
A decent CD-Recorder will cost you only about =N=2,000 more than a regular CD-ROM drive, but will greatly improve your café’s appeal, because people will want to take things they downloaded or created on your computers with them. Some will even come specifically to copy CDs. Again, you’ll make more than enough in computer time and blank CD sales.
Tip 10. PRINTER
In our experience, an Inkjet Photo printer is OK to have, but not really necessary. More of an advertising value, than a money maker.
Very few people, if any, want to print photos or color pictures in a café, mainly because of the price. You have to charge about =N=500 per page for it to be profitable, due to the high cost of supplies (ink and special inkjet paper) and maintenance. People are not willing to pay that much.
If you are determined to install an inkjet photo printer anyway, choose one that fits your budget from the Epson Stylus Photo line. Don’t forget to run a test page every few days, so the ink doesn’t dry up and clog the print head’s nozzles.
Tip 11. LASER PRINTER
Always choose a high-volume laser printer.
This printer will take a lot of beating in the café environment, and even though you may not think it will be used a lot, getting a high-volume model will save you a lot of headaches in the long run. It is also cheaper to run, on the cost-per-page basis, than a home/home office model. HP is the clear leader in this field with their LaserJet line, and the best one all-around is LaserJet 4000.
Tip 12. MONITORS
Buy the best monitors you can afford, preferably flat-screen LCD.
Your monitors represent the face of your Internet business. While relatively expensive, flat-screen LCD monitors take up little space and look appealing. You should consider having at least a couple of those visible from the outside. This will give your café a high-tech look.
Tip 13. ISP
Use a well-established and reliable Internet Service Provider.
The livelihood of your Cyber Café business depends on your Internet Service. Make sure your ISP is dependable and reliable.
Tip 14. BANDWIDTH
The bandwidth you need is purely empirical. It depends on a lot of factors; numbers of computers you intend to use, what you want to do, what competition is doing and the browsing speed you hope to achieve. Your internet service providers will guide you appropriately on this issue.
Tip 15. MAINTENANCE
Use Norton Ghost or similar software to make a clean copy of each workstation’s setup.
Software on your computers will get badly abused on a daily basis, so it makes sense to develop an easy way to get it back to the original condition. Using Norton Ghost, Power Quest Drive Image, or other similar software, you can create an “image” for each of your hardware/software configurations, burn it on a CD, and use it to restore any computer that goes bad. The process of restoring takes no more than 15 minutes, which is certainly a lot quicker than any other system repair procedure.
Tip 16. IMAGES
When creating an “image”, don’t use the compression.
Compression will slow down the restore process and should be used only when your “image” doesn’t fit on a CD.
Tip 17. RESTORE PROCESS
Use command line switches to automate the restore process.
Norton Ghost has a command-line interface, which allows you to completely automate the restore process by using a bootable floppy with the appropriate commands in autoexec.bat file.
You can have one “image” for multiple computers, as long as the hardware configuration is standard.
This is why it makes sense (see Tip 5) to have as little deviation in hardware as possible. There are several things that you have to change, though, once you restore an image.
Tip 18. CAFE DESIGN
If possible, have at least a couple of PC workstations with flat screens in the window.
Flat screens give your place a chic and high-tech look. At the same time, don’t take up all the window-space, or you risk looking too technical and office-like.
Tip 19. SPACE
Give people enough room to sit comfortably and put down any books, magazines, papers or notebooks they might have brought.
It is safe to assume that a lot of people will come to look things up on the Web, or study, or research. Making them as comfortable as you can, will ensure that they’ll stay longer and come back.
Tip 20. COMPUTER AREA
Design the computer area, so that nobody would stand behind people using the PCs.
People feel nervous and uncomfortable using a computer when somebody stands behind them. The issue is not only privacy, but also an innate fear of predators, that’s still living in us after thousands of years. If there’s no way to get around this in your layout, put a large mirror on the wall behind the monitors, so that people can at least see what’s happening behind them.
Tip 21. PROCESSOR UNITS
Chose smaller processor units and place them under the tables, bars etc.
Do not clutter your space with big boxes, as they are heavy, look bad and repel people. Nowadays, you can get very powerful yet compact (read “cute”) CPU configurations for pretty much the same price as big boxes. If possible, hide them under the desks or behind the screens, if you have LCDs. Also, all-in-one models with built-in LCD screens work really well in any design.
Tip 22. TICKET PRICING
Work out the right pricing.
Price for the computer time can vary greatly from place to place. Some can be as cheap as =N=60 an hour, yet others can be as expensive as =N=300. Your pricing will have to be decided based on the location and type of audience you have, or count on having. We suggest you use the simple rule of thumb that will let you find the right price:
Computers should be used, on average, at 40-70% of their capacity and customers should be paying, on average, around =N=150 per hour regardless of how much time they spend at the computer. Keep in mind that you probably want to collect at least a week’s worth of statistical data before you can put it to use.
Also remember that price change affects average usage time. A couple of alterations and observations should ensure that you achieve optimal pricing. You may also want to find out best prices for different seasons or even weekdays vs. weekends and use it to your advantage. If your computers are used at less than 50% of their capacity at peak hours, you have too many computers.
Tip 23.CONTROLE
Do not overdo with trying to control everything.
We have seen many places fail because they wanted to have those sophisticated schemes where customers are restricted to some basic applications (Internet Explorer, Netscape) and have to pay for others separately (MS Office, Adobe Photoshop etc. ).
Do not do that. People get annoyed, period. You have to make your computers as friendly to the users as possible; in fact people should see an environment very similar to that of at home. Of course you want to make sure to protect critical parts of your system such as registry.
It’s fairly easy to setup that and other security restrictions using the Windows Administrative Tools. Do that while creating your customer profile, then simply map that profile to one or more of your User Types.
Tip 24. SCAMMERS
Guard against Scammers know as 419ners
They come in all sizes and shapes. Your café attendants must be very vigilant to spot and discourage them from using you cyber café for their activities.
You must endeavor to block most of the sites they use on all your work stations. Purchase a timer that enables you monitor each work station and be able to shut it down from your server.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that you can make a lot of money from them. They will make you go against the law and eventually out of business.
Tip 25. WORKERS
Ensure you employ trust worthy workers. You will not be in the café all the time and your business most of the time will be left in their hands. Get them to bring guarantors before they are employed. Also make sure they are well paid like their peers in other cafes.
Tip 26. FINANCE
You must ensure strict financial discipline at all times. All incomes from the café should be paid directly to the bank and no expenditure made directly from it.
Ensure that your staff comes out with weekly budgets and their expenditures are met from petty cash which is provided by you on a weekly or monthly basis.
This makes for good accounting. Lodging all your sales on a daily basis in the bank also enables you establish a good relationship with the bank and hence be able to borrow money from them when you need it.
Tip 27. INCOME
Use your imagination, web browsing is a tiny part of what you can do in you internet café. You can sell recharge cards and GSM phones, bulk SMS, register students for different examinations, train people on how to use the internet, sell snacks and drinks, provide secretarial services, provide telephone/fax services, provide hotspot services, website designing and hosting, games etc.
CLICK HERE For details of our Pay As You Go Internet solution for Cyber Cafe
To Your Success,
Nduka Dagbue
Getachus Nigeria Ltd,
6B Bendel Close off Bishop Aboyade Cole St,
Victoria Island, Lagos
Tel; 2348020575565,07035008707
E-mail; nduka@getachus.net
Website; www.getachus.com