MISSION STATEMENT “[Our name]’s priority is to provide & maintain a strong commitment to healthy quality food, excellent customer service, and a relaxing ambiance. At [our name], we strive to provide Canada with a first-rate dining experience. We believe guests who dine at [our name] should leave enthused and sated, while making immediate plans to return. ” “We are passionate about food! We prepare the finest cuts of meats, obtain the freshest local produce, and we have impeccable service with a cheerful environment.
With award winning culinary artists, there is nowhere else you would rather be. ” [Our name] has the ambition to become the fastest growing restaurant chain in Canada. We encourage strong work ethics, innovation and reward staff for goals accomplished. With continued support and development for our employees, we mold [our name] as an attractive atmosphere for talented and unique individuals. “Whether you are looking for a career or a part time job, [our name] is the place for you. We recognize hard work through benefits and incentives for staff.
We are also a strong supporter for the local culinary college; we offer internships and scholarships with a long-term -commitment of support for our current and future generations as they make their way into the culinary world. ” GOALS Expansion * Our goal is to expand from our current locations in Calgary and Edmonton Alberta, and open three new restaurants in British Columbia. The new restaurants will be located in Vancouver, Whistler and Victoria. Our aim is to have the three new establishments operating in two years, in time to benefit from the 2010 Winter Olympics. Our name] goal is to have one restaurant fully functional after 8 months of construction and training. Each new establishment will follow consecutively to maintain the firm timeline set forth by our organization. Quality products & fair pricing * [our name] will ensure that the three new locations provide quality products at fair pricing. To achieve this, we will purchase local organic meat products and seasonal fruits and vegetables from the local community. Maintaining this level of food quality will ensure our commitment to healthy ood choices and above standard fare. Using local produce for our supplies will cut down on transportation costs. This initiative will be reflected in our prices and at the same support local business and increase our visibility in the communities. Quality Service * As with [our name]’s current locations, quality service will be achieved and maintained. To attain this goal, we will invest in employee development through internal as well as external trainings. This will enhance employee knowledge and expertise which will be reflected in how they perform their duties.
A good benefit package and incentive plan will be given and is intended to keep employee satisfaction high, and translate into superior quality service. Another important aspect of providing quality service is to perform regular internal audits and employee evaluations. The evaluations will help employees grow and audits will ensure that the restaurant operates above industry and business standards. STRATEGIC PLAN Our overall strategy will be based on a Customer Service Strategy and providing customers with a unique product and unique experience. It takes giving customers what they want, communicating effectively with them, and providing employees with customer service training. ” (Robbins, Coulter, & Langton, 2009). While developing and implementing these strategies from all levels, managers will base all strategies and decisions made on this concept. Corporate Strategy – Growth & Concentration – Top Level Management At [our name], our corporate strategy for expansion will be growth through concentration. We would like to increase our market share by increasing the number of markets served from Alberta to British Columbia.
From our two successful restaurants located in Edmonton and Calgary [our name] plans to expand three additional restaurants west into the province of British Columbia. We plan to be operational just in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics. It will be a great time and opportunity to exploit the revenue generating potential of the games to kick start our successful expansion into the west coast province. Target cities for expansion will be Vancouver, Victoria, and Whistler the epicenters for the games. Business Strategy – Middle Management With the corporate strategy in place, once middle managers have assessed the five forces and determined what threats and opportunities exist they will be ready to select an appropriate competitive strategy” (Robbins, Coulter, & Langton, 2009). Middle management will be responsible for meeting goals set out in the corporate strategy by using a competitive strategy. A competitive strategy is simply a strategy that tells us how our business will compete in its market. Our team has decided to use the differentiation strategy in order to have a competitive advantage over our competition in order to acquire more market share.
By supporting our local farmers and maintaining our impeccable commitment to quality food, excellent customer service, and a relaxing atmosphere we should be able to separate over selves from the competition. By supporting our local farmers and creating good relationships we can offer our clients the freshest produce and meats available. Not only will the customers enjoy the quality and freshness it will demonstrate our commitment to the community and hopefully bring together support for our business.
In order to maintain “our impeccable commitment to healthy quality food, excellent customer service, and a relaxing atmosphere” standard we need to address methods of controls. We need to set up internal controls to manage quality and external controls to evaluate customer feedback. Internal controls such as internal audits will be set up to uphold [our name]’s standards. There will be two components for an internal audit. First of those components will be a “secret shop”. A secret shop will consist of friends of the company who will be required to do a comprehensive survey in exchange for a free meal.
Secret shops will be done monthly at a random location. The second component will be “location to location audits” done by top management and executives to assess and score each restaurant’s food quality, customer service and atmosphere. Actions and recommendations will follow if necessary. The final method to monitor our position would be online surveys available on our company website for customers and employees to voice their opinions and ideas. These steps should address our issue of consistency, maintain our reputation for quality and service, and separate us from our competition.
Functional Strategy – Frontline Management “Functional strategies are the strategies used by an organization’s various functional departments to support the business strategy. ” (Robbins, Coulter, & Langton, 2009). Some examples of functional departments that traditional organizations have include manufacturing, marketing, human resources, research and development, and finance. In our restaurant scenario we will be exploring the following functional departments that are responsible in supporting the overall business strategy; sales and marketing, materials management and human resource management.
Our sales and marketing department will be responsible for marketing our grand opening event, promoting brand-name awareness, and loyalty. A billboard will be established at the site during construction, flyers will be distributed accordingly, and some local television advertising will be some of their responsibilities. Our materials management department will establish relationships with local farmers in the community in order to control the cost and quality of inputs. Contracts for supplies of produce will be arranged with local BC farmers and contracts for meat will be arranged with local farmers in Alberta.
Our customers can experience the freshest produce from British Columbia and the best quality Alberta beef from Alberta. The human resource management department will oversee the people side of the business. They will address the company’s weakness to retain highly skilled and quality employees by offering competitive benefits and achievement-based incentives. Incentives will be available to all employees who demonstrate a strong work ethic and initiative. Health and dental benefits will be available for employees working +20 hours a week.
Employees employed for over six months will receive matched RRSP contributions from the company. Management can enjoy in the success of the company by receiving profit sharing across all levels of management. They will address employee development by developing and offering innovative in house training and college scholarships to their most promising chefs and managers. They will also look into pre-hiring employees for the new locations and provide a centralized training facility in Vancouver. The best of the best staff will be sent to this location to train the new staff in British Columbia.
In summary there are three types of organizational strategy; corporate strategy, business strategy, and functional strategy. Each relates to the particular level of management that introduces the strategy. At the top level of management a corporate strategy of growth-concentration is introduced. At the business level , differentiation looks at how [our name] offers products and services that customers perceive as value and what sets us apart from the competition. At the functional level, strategies support the business strategy. CONTROLS Feedforward * Our business is able to correct potential problems by anticipating and correcting them.
These problems are identified by rules, standards, and procedures that we employ in all aspects of our business, ranging from the kitchen to the service staff and corrected by directing non managerial employees by frontline managers. Our extensive pre-employment screening process is also a type of feedforward control as potential problem employees are weeded out by this. We are able to correct anticipated problems by maintaining quality control standards of inputs with our suppliers and thus prevent complaints from guests regarding our output quality.
Government regulated health inspections are also a type of feedforward control as these prevent certain food borne illness by having unannounced inspections to maintain high levels of cleanliness and safe food handling procedures. Concurrent * Our business is able to also correct issues while the activity is in progress. This is predominantly done with direct supervision of non managerial employees by various managerial staff that identifies problems and consequently directing solutions to the employees. Feedback In addition to the previous forms of controls, our business also has feedback controls that take place after the work activity is completed. These include online surveys for our guests, in which they can comment on their dining experience, secret shops where our staff’s performance is evaluated and location audits, where managerial staff members, from all other locations, perform an internal audit of one location. SWOT Strengths * Award winning culinary food excellence and customer-driven service for the last 3 years. * Reputation for providing a unique and enjoyable dining experience. Quality Product * History Our strengths as an organization stem from our award winning culinary food excellence and customer service for the last three years. Strength is our reputation for providing a unique and enjoyable dining experience. Our quality (of product) is a strength of our business as the quality of our end product is unequalled. Our final strength is our history of achievement of excellence that is recognized by the general public. Weaknesses * High employee turnover * Cost of goods – profitability consequences (perishable goods/inventory shortages) * Lack of consistency No discounts Our organizational weaknesses are common to all hospitality businesses. The high turnover of our staff can be seen as a weakness, because of the transient nature of our staff creates a high turnover of staff and therefore creates increased expenses needed for training. Inventory shortages can be seen as a weakness as well as loss of perishable items and the loss of these inventory items have profitability consequences as the mark-up for most food inputs is nearly insufficient to offset the cost of the losses; losses over an optimum percentage are directly reduced from the bottom line.
For these reasons, our business does not provide coupons for other such discounts – which also can be seen as a weakness as competitors usually provide guests some discounts or coupons, putting us at a disadvantage. Opportunity * Property prices are at a plateau. Commercial real estate prices in Vancouver, Victoria and Whistler have leveled off over the past year, curbing the steep increases seen in the market in the early to middle part of the decade; (Vancouver Real Estate Market Trends, News and Outlook, p. 1) this creates an opportunity for our business to expand to these areas when the cost is at an opportune time. Interest rates are at the lowest point. therefore the cost of borrowing is affordable and appealing. The interest rates had an average of 4. 61%, and recently have dropped to an all time low of 2. 25% (Canadian economic accounts, p. 1). This creates an opportunity to borrow capital, which can be used for expansion. At the lowest interest rate in years and therefore has the potential to increase the profitability of our business as we will be paying less interest on our loan(s) as years prior. * Labor contracting is once again abundant and much more affordable than 2 years ago. In the current labor market in B. C. there has been a drastic decrease in the demand for construction and trade labor , for electrical, plumbing, etc. (Canada lost 45,000 more jobs in July, p. 1) which will decrease the cost for restaurant construction, creating an opportune time to expand to B. C. * The unemployment rate in B. C. is the largest it’s been in the last 13 years at a 11. 1%, when back in 1996 it was a 6. 3%(B. C Census Profile, p. 13) along both sex’s creating an opportunity for our business to screen massive amounts of potential employees for consideration for employment and therefore hire and train the most capable and driven employees possible. Expanding to B. C. prior to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games creates an excellent opportunity for our business to receive exposure from and as well serve hundreds of thousands of people, Athletes and spectators both, who will be mostly staying in temporary living quarters and depending on outside sources for meals. “The Beijing Olympics and Paralympics helped fuel the Chinese capital’s economic growth last year despite a global slowdown, the municipal bureau of statistics said Saturday.
The bureau said Beijing’s gross domestic product (GDP) totaled 1,048. 8 billion Yuan (about 153 billion U. S. dollars) last year, up 9 percent over 2007. ” (Olympics help fuel Beijing’s economic growth, p. 1), this prove that then Olympics will beneficial to us as well. * Health movement; we serve healthy food. The recent societal shift to be more health conscious in making meal decisions is opportunity for our business to thrive as an integral part of our concept is providing very healthy while tasty menu options (Canadian Food Trends to 2020, p. 1).
Our healthy menu concept will likely be a selling feature of our restaurant to especially athletes of the games as most restaurants are not concerned with this. * Our concept of using local products wherever and whenever possible creates a great opportunity for our business when considering the quality and quantity of agricultural products grown in B. C. as well as the close proximity to a number of vineyards (B. C Farm Products A-Z, p. 1). Threats * Due to economic concerns, the populous in general has started a saving trend that in effect reduces their disposable income.
This is a threat to our business as the restaurant industry survives of disposable income as eating at restaurants is a luxury and not a necessity (Canadian economic accounts, p. 1). * People are eating at home more now to balance their budget. “According to the latest Eating Patterns In Canada (EPIC) report from The NPD Group, a full 88 per cent of respondents revealed their intentions to decrease the amount of time spent dining out in restaurants, choosing the comforts of home instead”(There’s No Place Like Home: Majority of Canadians to Reduce Restaurant Visits, p. 1). Despite the perceived idea that the recession is over and the recovery stage is well on its way, there is still a lot of uncertainty and volatility amidst fears that recent market gains are speculative and therefore can’t sustain themselves (Pittis, “Surviving uncertainty: a business tool for life’s unexpected moments,” 2009, p. 1). * Competitors (The Keg, Earl’s, Joey’s, Ricki’s Grill, Cactus Club);The amount of these restaurants in the proposed cities and areas poses a threat to our business as they target the same demographic and are direct competitors in the casual and trendy niche market.
IMPLEMENTATION Organizational Structure – Traditional Mechanistic: Simple Structure Functional Structure When [our name]’s first started, it was a traditional-simple structured organization, with lower departmentalization, wider span of control and less formalization. It was fast, flexible, inexpensive to maintain and employees had clear accountability. With recent success and plans for expansion, [our name]’s has had to introduce new rules, regulations, specialized work, and creation of additional management levels – in essence becoming more bureaucratic.
Ultimately once our plan of expansion to British Columbia is complete, [our name]’s will have gone through an organizational restructuring to a functional structure. “Functional structure is an organizational structure that groups similar or related specialties together. ” (Robbins, Coulter, & Langton, 2009). The determining factor on our organizational design was based on examining the six key elements of: work specialization, departmentalization, chain of command, span of control, centralization and decentralization, and formalization.
Work specialization is known as the degree to which activities are divided into separate job tasks – alternately also known as division of labor. [Our name] uses a moderate to high level of specialization to efficiently prepare meals and to deliver prompt service to our customers. In order to avoid the negatives of extremely high specialization such as: boredom, fatigue, stress, quality, and high employee turnover, our management team carefully separates job tasks for the organization. “Departmentalization is known as the basis on which jobs are grouped together” (Robbins, Coulter, & Langton, 2009).
The approach of process departmentalization is rigid and tightly controlled at [our name]’s. There is not much flexibility. There is front-of-house staff and there is kitchen staff, they are two independent departments that are interdependent on each other in different processes to deliver a quality dining experience to our customers. In our traditional style organization the chain of command is clear and unambiguous. Staff report to their department managers who intern report to middle managers who in turn report to a higher positioned manager such as top level managers.
There is a clear line of authority that extends from the top of the organization to the bottom level and clarifies who reports to whom. A narrow span of control is exercised at [our name]. The extra management expense is worth the trade-off for efficiency and effectiveness. Our team feels that employee performance is important therefore a narrow span of control will provide the time necessary for leadership and support in order to be more effective. Wider span of control face the problems of a manager’s inability to efficiently and effectively manage employees. Our name] takes the more centralized position in decision making. Although recommendations can come from below top managers ultimately make organizational decisions. The same principle would apply to middle management also. Recommendations can be made from below but middle managers also ultimately make decisions with little input from below and so on and so forth. “Formalization refers to the degree to which jobs within the organization are standardized and the extent to which employee behavior is guided by rules and procedures. ” (Robbins, Coulter, & Langton, 2009). our name] uses medium to high level approach of formalization. There are various organizational rules, plainly defined procedures, and unambiguous job descriptions to cover different processes. There is not a lot guess work involved. Most actions are systemized for consistent results and uniform output. These six elements are consistent with a traditional mechanistic-functional structured organization. Step 1: Task| Step 2: Dependant on Which| 1. Find Lease/Property| Independent| 2. Preconstruction| 1| – Hire Demolition| | – Hire Designer| | 3. Construction| 1 and 2| – Electrical| | – Plumbing| | Hire Millwork| | 4. Staffing| 7, 1, 2 and 3| – Hire| | – Train| | 5. Supplies| 6, 1, 2 and 3| – Food| | – Liquor| | – Small Wares| | 6. Licenses| 1, 2, 3, 7 and 4| – Liquor| | – Operational (Food)| | – Health Inspections| | 7. Equipment| 1, 2 and 3| – Kitchen| | – Electronics| | 8. Advertisement| 1, 2 and 3| – Press Release| | – Grand Opening| | STEP 3: Planning Tools – Gantt Chart – System in Opening New Locations In order to efficiently and effectively open a restaurant, a system had to be developed that could be used over and over or in the event of future expansion plans.
The following is a Gantt chart of the system we have designed specifically for making the process of opening a new restaurant an easy to follow process. Our time frame for this expansion will be the opening of three restaurants, one after the other in a period of two years. The system is based off an eight month mini-time frame. Future expansions will be effective and efficient using this system. It will also eliminate a lot of uncertainty and confusion during the process. Works Cited Robbins, S. P. , Coulter, M. , & Langton, N. (2009).
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Cactus Club Cafe, Retrieved November 28th, 2009 from the website: http://www. cactusclubcafe. com/locations/bc/victoria Canada lost 45,000 more jobs in July. (August 7, 2009), Retrieved November 28th, 2009 from the website: HYPERLINK “http://www. cbc. ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/08/07/unemployment-july. html” http://www. cbc. ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/08/07/unemployment-july. html Canadian economic accounts (June 4th 2009), Retrieved November 28th, 2009 from the website: HYPERLINK “http://www. statcan. gc. ca/daily-quotidien/090302/dq090302a-eng. htm” http://www. tatcan. gc. ca/daily-quotidien/090302/dq090302a-eng. htm Canadian Food Trends to 2020. (February 24th, 2009), Retrieved November 28th, 2009 from the website: HYPERLINK “http://www4. agr. gc. ca/AAFC-AAC/display-afficher. do? id=1170944121865=eng” http://www4. agr. gc. ca/AAFC-AAC/display-afficher. do? id=1170944121865&lang=eng Earls, Retrieved November 28th, 2009 from the website: http://www. earls. ca/locations Joey Tomatoes, Retrieved November 28th, 2009 from the website: http://www. joeysrestaurants. com/joeysexperience/locations Olympics help fuel Beijing’s economic growth. January 25th, 2009), Retrieved November 28th, 2009 from the website: HYPERLINK “http://en. ce. cn/Business/Macro-economic/200901/25/t20090125_18057455. shtml” http://en. ce. cn/Business/Macro-economic/200901/25/t20090125_18057455. shtml Pittis, Don (June 5th, 2009) Surviving Uncertainty: a business tool for life’s unexpected moments , Retrieved November 28th, 2009 from the website: http://www. cbc. ca/money/story/2009/06/05/f-pittis-economic-uncertainty-making-decisions. html Ric’s Grill, Retrieved November 28th, 2009 from the website: http://www. ricsgrill. om/ There’s No Place Like Home: Majority of Canadians to Reduce Restaurant Visits. (Toronto, ON. Dec. 15, 2008) Retrieved November 28th, 2009 from the website: HYPERLINK “http://www. npd. com/press/releases/press_081215. html” http://www. npd. com/press/releases/press_081215. html The Keg Steak House, Retrieved November 28th, 2009 from the website: http://www. kegsteakhouse. com/en/ Vancouver Real Estate Market Trends, News and Outlook (November 2008), Retrieved November 28th, 2009 from the website: http://www. realestatevancouver2010. com/market. html#Turmoil
