It’s Not About Coffee. How ZUS Beat Starbucks.

From a single kiosk to beating Starbucks and becoming Malaysia’s largest coffee chain in just 6 years.

The journey began just months before the pandemic in 2019. Today, ZUS Coffee has cemented the "App-to-Cup" model as the new industry standard, overtaking the legacy giant by outlet count.

Venon Tian, Group COO of ZUS Coffee, joins BFM Open For Business to decode the strategy behind the disruption. Unlike competitors that focused on the "Third Place" experience, ZUS treated coffee more like an e-commerce product, leveraging data to convert frappuccino drinkers into espresso loyalists.

But the disruptor is now facing its own disruption. With the "Second China Shock" bringing aggressive tech-native competitors like Luckin Coffee into the scene and giants like Mixue crowding the RM10 price bracket, Venon explains how ZUS plans to defend its dominance while expanding into new markets, including Pakistan.

We discuss:

• The "Fun Drink" Funnel: How Zus uses flavoured drinks (like Watermelon Lattes) as a customer acquisition tool to bridge the gap for non-coffee drinkers.

• Data over Delivery: Why Zus insisted on building its own app rather than relying solely on Grab or Foodpanda, allowing them to track exactly when users drop off or increase consumption.

• The "Avengers" Structure: How the company navigated the potential chaos of having eight co-founders by professionalising management and adopting Amazon’s "Humble is Cool" culture.

• Hyper-Localisation: From selling curry puffs in Malaysia to launching Ube Lattes in the Philippines and Tom Yum Americanos in Thailand.

• The Global Ambition: Why Zus is expanding into Pakistan and how they balance owned-and-operated stores with master franchising for rapid regional scale.

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