Does your office run on coffee? For many, coffee is analogous to the gasoline of the workplace, always necessary to keep moving forward. Whether you are a coffee drinker yourself, or your colleagues or employees are avid coffee drinkers, you probably want to have a coffee machine handy around the office.

Even if in the rare case that you have a staff totally free of coffee drinkers, it might prove useful to be able to demonstrate your hospitality to a guest by serving them their favorite beverage.

There are plenty of coffee machines available on the market, so there is surely one to suit the needs of your office. But which one?

How many cups of coffee you will drink per day at work? Or do you and your colleagues prefer tea? And – also important: do you receive many guests in your company? Map how many cups of coffee your employees and guests drink on average. This is an important first step and determines the type of machine you choose.

Do your employees and your guests prefer fresh bean coffee? Or do you prefer convenience? An important question. Because with five different brewing types there is a lot of choice:

• Fresh coffee beans – An espresso machine brings barista-quality coffee.
• Roast and ground – With a filter coffee machine, you can enjoy coffee from ground fresh beans.
• Instant – Hot water, mixed with instant coffee.
• Capsule coffee – with a capsule coffee machine you can easily and quickly drink a nice cup of coffee.

No matter which kind of office coffee machine you choose, they need to be cleaned, milk replenished and beans replaced in time. They need to be cared for and maintained to ensure an excellent coffee experience.

Let’s tackle the price first, because this is normally the main deciding factor – as well as the first thought when making any kind of decision.

The decision-maker needs to be clear about the budget for the machinery. Once this is decided – you can start looking for a commercial coffee machine solution that can fit well into the allocated budget.

This can be somewhat of mixed opinion; some argue that buying is always the better option – because you then have a tangible item to show for those monthly repayments. Others will argue that rentals offer the flexibility to change your coffee machine solution to adapt to your changing business requirements.

Which type of contract suits you best depends not only on the type, but also on having a rental or buying machine. For example, with a rental contract, the service is included, but not with a purchase contract. Find out which service contract suits you best.