Every organizations from large enterprises to small businesses has its own specific needs in the workplace. Although, many businesses require different things to continue to operate, one thing is the same for all organizations, income. Did you know that poor cash management is the number one leading cause of business failure? We speak with Vik from CIMA who helps cannabis dispensaries reduce time, and increase security when it comes to managing cash. CIMA’s solutions remove almost all the manual tasks associated with cash handling, so your staff can spend more time in the store with your customers. Watch and learn more about cash management.
Video Transcription
Harry Brelsford 0:14
Hey 420 MSP Harry here and I’m with a new friend Vic. And Vik Welcome aboard and the the cannabis technology space. So Sir, it’s very simple. What is your story?
Vik Devjee 0:30
Oh, yeah, it’s a it’s an interesting one. And thanks for having me, Harry, I really appreciate it great to be connected to your group and your community. We are in an Italian company. Fundamentally, our business is a manufacturing business and we manufacture everything to do with automating the cash handling process. We’ve been around for almost 66 years now. Italian heritage family run business. So they’ve done extremely well. We supply our technology globally. And we recently about two and a half years ago, we established a local office here in the US to service the US market a lot better than what we were doing before we had had a presence in the US through partners. And we still continue to work through partners, but we wanted to invest in the market ourselves and build our own office here to support our partner community a lot better. Yeah.
Harry Brelsford 1:29
In the company is CIMA it’s just an acronym or do you actually pronounce it?
Vik Devjee 1:36
Well being being an Italian company, they actually pronounce it Chima not SEMA. But, but but it is. But it is also an acronym. And the acronym is, you know, a long story, but it has no relevance to cash and believe it or not, but nevertheless, we are now sure we’re fundamentally 100% cash handling manufacturing business, right?
Harry Brelsford 2:00
Well shout out to Italy Italians. I, many years ago, I don’t even know how I was involved, they can start up or something that had to do with the club. fitness equipment came from a manufacturer in Italy, and that somehow the people I were interacting with were looking at using their fitness equipment. And number one is expensive. But number two, it was extremely high quality, I forget the name of the fitness manufacturer. But the point is I was impressed. You know, you think a German precision maybe with your Mercedes Benz. I was impressed by Italian manufacturing. So let’s give you a thumbs up right away. So how what what’s the day in the life in the dispensary for you and your equipment? No,
Vik Devjee 2:52
it’s really interesting. You know, I’ve been fortunate enough through again, our partners and their reach in a lot of the geographies that we are represented in to be introduced into the cannabis, retail space. And I’ve been connected to that space directly with some of the retailers in the market for probably just over a year now. And the other thing that I’ve learned in just spending time with our partners, as well as the retailers themselves is that, that cash is a major problem. For the businesses. When I say problem, I mean, they love the fact that they’re generating so much cash, obviously. But having said that, managing the cache and the the load that it puts on their operational process inside of the stores is immense. And, and we were lucky enough to spend quite a bit of time architecting a solution that might help one of the retailers specifically that we work with in the Detroit area. And just helping his business streamline how they manage cash, simplify the whole process, and fundamentally automate everything they do with preparing cash. So our systems they automate the whole float preparation process so they don’t have to batch prepare floats anymore. They issue those floats out to their team. And then throughout the day, they’re able to deposit surplus money and get changed back. And then at the end of the day, they literally just dump all their money back into machines for recycling. And then they they can get they float to the next day. So we’ve really taken almost 99% of of the manual handling of cash away from the people in the store so that they can do better things which is run their store and generate revenue, right? So yep,
Harry Brelsford 4:52
yeah. Well, and I would offer and I’m on your website, kind of poking around here and you certainly do fit in what I copped. Cannabis technology or canatech. This is? Yeah, definitely a technology function. And it would seem that the steps you’re taking provide some security, for lack of a better word, right? Cash has a way of disappearing, it’s been said. So I’m assuming that’s maybe one of your pillars, right is security.
Vik Devjee 5:22
So so you know, think of think of our equipment as being being a safe in its DNA, fundamentally, our machines are safe. They just happen to have some pretty cool intelligence built on top of them to allow for the automating of the depositing and the dispensing of the cash. But fundamentally, all of the cash and all of the money whether it’s notes and coins, sit inside a safe, and those safes are accessed just like any other traditional safe would through digital and manual keypads, so on and they’re bolted into the ground to provide that that security. So yes, at the end of the day, they are safes, they just happen to have all of this mechanics, as well as intelligence built onto them to manage that in and out of money.
Harry Brelsford 6:11
And going with the same theme, what for lack of a better word, what’s the density of the siting and the the thing, so I can’t take a sledgehammer to it right, these, these are pretty sturdy.
Vik Devjee 6:24
Yeah, and you know, all of our equipment come in various grades of safe and in the safe world, safe, so typically rated. And so we have what we call it a safe, which is eight mil thick steel, we go up to, you know, ul 291, and sand three, and four and all those things, obviously, the higher the safe grade, the more the customer pays, simply because of you know, the complexity of building a unit like that, as well as you know, the logistics cost of moving ahead and the device, but yes, absolutely. We take care of all of those things. But having said that, most of the time is standard. Ul 291. Safe is typically okay for a retailer because they have all the other security measures around their back office, which, you know, cameras and you know, all those sorts of things. So they’re typically happy with a standard Ul 291. safe for our devices.
Harry Brelsford 7:18
Yeah, cool. Well, let me end on a funny little safe story. And that’s why it’s interesting, interested in talking to you and get to know you a little bit better. So I recently had the occasion to move to another part of the country. And we have the proverbial family safe back in the clothing clause. That right? And that was one heavy, dude. I mean, I had to get up, you know, the pole cart, you weren’t lifting that. It was just a modest size safe. And I didn’t think much about it, of course, I’ll take the safe. And then the other day, my son, my youngest son, reached out over his spring break in these little shocked his passport had expired, you know, college kids, their minds or other places, like so he needed a certified copy of his birth certificate. And thank goodness, his mother had gotten two of those when he was born. So I pull I open the safe, I pull out the envelope. Not only is there ones, there’s two. And it just got me thinking I mean, you know, again, timely, timely conversation to bump into you. So here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna circle back to you next time. And maybe if you have more of a pitch deck about what you do, I’d like to help educate our audience. I know that we both attend. And I always like to say this the RSPA cannabis community. I know we attend that. Hey, last question. Just curious in the mid July. I think it’s the retail now conference in Nashville for the RSPA. Is that the kind of thing you’ve exhibited at? Or will you at least be attending? Well, I see there.
Vik Devjee 9:03
I’ve had a an initial conversation with Jim Roddy over at RSPA. I’m super keen to to participate. I just haven’t locked that in. But I absolutely intend on being that. I and I certainly think that showcasing what we do for broader retail and cannabis is not just the the segment just happens to be one of those, you know, segments that really needs you know, some problems solved at the moment. But we we play in pretty much every aspect of retail, whether it’s grocery or fast food QSR Absolutely. No, I want to participate at retail. Now, I think it’d be a great opportunity to meet the community engaged
Harry Brelsford 9:46
well, and you raise a valid point we’re talking on the 420 MSP channel today and my niche is cannabis technology, but obviously you’re much bigger than that. I see that on your website. So well Vik thanks for your time and next time we’ll do a double click down into you know, my guys are geeks, so any any geeky stuff you can show us appreciate it.
Vik Devjee 10:11
As you can see behind me we’ve got a whole lot of gear that you know the in various formats are we happy to share in show at any time. Alrighty, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
