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Case Studies – Chapter 5

Case Study: SWOT analysis at the Shipwreck Café

The Shipwreck Café is located in a small, tourist community near the seaside of Southend-on-Sea, UK. It has been in business for just two years and has developed a solid, local customer based made up mostly of pensioners. During the tourist season, the restaurant gets many referrals from various resorts in the area. The owner of the restaurant wants to set some goals so that the Shipwreck Café can move closer to its vision and mission statements: “To keep our customers coming back for locally sourced food, attentive service, and a comfortable welcome atmosphere” and “Our mission is to provide customers quality, healthy, organic cuisine with excellent service that exemplifies our heritage in Southend-on-Sea.” The following information provides additional background on this establishment:

• The chef was educated at Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, and has been chef at several luxury resorts.
• The local council encourages local businesses to expand.
• Because of housing development in the area, more restaurants are opening in the community.
• There is uncertainty regarding how an increasing housing market will affect things.
• A small influx of popular chain and fast food restaurants could wipe out the market.
• The Shipwreck Café has a small staff.
• The Shipwreck Café can create customised menu selections upon request.
• The Shipwreck Café does not have a lot of information about their competitors.
• The Shipwreck Café has a small, select menu of healthy food, including fish and game.
• Cash flow can be unreliable at times.
• Several pensioners have asked if the restaurant does catering.

Identify and list the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that the Shipwreck Café may have. Upon identification of the factors, select three to focus on and develop further.

Case Study – Chapter 9

Case Study: Disappearing liquor

You are the general manager of a trendy pub restaurant in an upscale area of a large metropolitan area. You have local musicians that perform regularly. You have a great staff that gets along well and enjoys working together. Strong customer volume includes regular locals and new guests. The customers enjoy their interaction with the staff and bartenders and thus will often buy them a drink. When the staff get off work before closing they will often become customers with the establishment. This increases the positive interaction between staff and customers. Sales are good and all costs are in line except the bar cost, which is one or two percent high. You are not too worried about it because your strong sales give you a good profit and the owners are happy.

On a tip from an employee, you learn that a lead bartender is stealing alcohol from the storeroom. You set up a hidden video surveillance camera. After a few nights, you catch the bartender on tape taking product from the liquor storeroom and going out the back door.

Lead bartenders are issued keys to the storeroom, as the bar often runs out of product during busy nights when management is busy with other operational issues. Inventory is taken weekly.

You do not know what to do. The lead bartender is very popular with your customers and the rest of the crew. Firing her would prove to be unpopular and could hurt sales, customer volume and morale, but ignoring the problem would open the door to other employees taking product. Since you were tipped off, you know that at least some of the employees know what is going on.

• Should you terminate the lead bartender? Why or why not?
• What are the ethics of setting up a hidden surveillance camera?
• Is the cycle for inventory a problem? Why or why not?
• Determine a method to solve the problem by tightening the policies and procedures of   purchasing and storage of beverages?
• Identify several alternatives you have to solving the problem.
• Select the best solution.
• Determine how you would implement the solution.

Case Study – Chapter 11

Case Study: Centenary Hotels

Centenary Hotels a small hotel chain in London, UK enjoyed a healthy room occupancy throughout the year. The board of directors were more than happy with the hotel performance in terms of room revenue. However, the same could not be said for the F&B dept. The hotel restaurants seemed to be doing poorly in terms of customer attendance and it seemed that only 15% of the hotel residents would eat in the restaurant and a very small number of external customers would ever give their restaurants a try. They decided to revamp all of their five restaurants and spend a considerable amount of money ensuring that a new contemporary design was implemented in all of the restaurants and a new executive chef had redesigned all of their menus. All the restaurants now had separate entrances to the high street so that potential external customers were not intimidated by having to enter the hotel and pass the foyer before entering the restaurant. The board of directors has decided to hire a marketing firm to reintroduce their ‘new’ restaurants in the market.

Your company is bidding for this contract and you are expected to prepare a power point presentation illustrating how your company is going to approach the marketing campaign and what tools you are going to use to ensure the restaurants are a success. Consider internal marketing techniques as well as external ones when pitching your ideas to the board.

Case Study: Maintaining profit and quality in a turbulent economy

It is suggested that the current turbulence in the global market is forcing patrons to reduce their restaurant dining and spending in all sectors ranging from luxury through the casual sectors.

Now search online for information on Beefeater Restaurants

What marketing ideas do you have for the chain of Beefeater Restaurants in this turbulent economy where consumers are cutting back on restaurant spending?

What ideas do you have to continue to drive traffic for the Beefeater Restaurants in this turbulent economy?

What methods can the Beefeater Restaurants use to drive traffic in this turbulent economy with special offers that do not become expected in the long-term or that do not hinder profit in the long-run?

What methods of cost cutting can the Beefeater Restaurants pursue without reducing quality or service?

Case Study – Chapter 12

Case Study: Using and observing the SERVQUAL concepts

In small groups, find a restaurant or foodservice operation in your area or have one determined by your instructor. Get permission from the restaurant manager to interview him/her, as well as some front of the house and back of the house employees, and to utilise the establishment to attempt to observe the SERVQUAL concepts as listed below.

The SERVQUAL instrument is made up of 22 statements for evaluating consumer perceptions and expectations regarding the quality of a service. Respondents are asked to rate their level of agreement or disagreement with the given statements on a 7-point Likert scale. Customers’ perceptions are based on the actual service they receive, while customers’ expectations are based on past experiences and information received. The statements represent the elements of service quality. Refinement of this work reduced the original service dimensions used by customers to judge the quality of a service from ten to five. The five key dimensions (Parasuraman el al., 1991) that were identified are as follows:

• Reliability - the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.
• Tangibles - the appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communications materials.
• Responsiveness - the willingness to help the customers and to provide prompt service.
• Assurance - the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence.
• Empathy - the provision of caring and individualised attention to customers.

One of the purposes of the SERVQUAL instrument is to ascertain the level of service quality based on the above five key dimensions and to identify where gaps in service exist and to what extent. The gaps are generally defined as:

• Positioning gap – this is the managers' perception of customers’ expectations and the importance customers attach to the quality dimensions.
• Specification gap - is concerned with the difference between what management believes the customer wants and what he/she expects the restaurant to provide.
• Delivery gap - is concerned with the difference between the service provided by the employee of the business and the specifications set by management.
• Communication gap - exists when the promises communicated by the business to the customers do not match the customers’ expectations of those external promises.
• Perception gap - is the difference between the customers’ internal perception and expectation of the services (Zeithaml et al., 1990).

Using the SERVQUAL concepts, create a list of questions to ask the manager and employees and create a checklist of tangibles and intangibles to detect in order to discover the five key dimensions.

Conduct your interviews and observations, summarise your findings, and then present your findings to the manager and the class.

After determining the key dimensions above, see if you can determine where the gaps in service exist.

References:

Parasuraman, A., Berry L. L. and Zeithaml V. A. , 1991, Refinement and Reassessment of the SERVQUAL Scale. Journal of Retailing, Vol. 67 (Winter), pp. 420-450.

Zeithaml, A, Pasuraman, A., Berry, L. (1990). Delivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations. New York: The Free Press Division of Macmillan, Inc.

Case Study – Chapter 13

Case Study: Sourcing eco-friendly and sustainable products

Wagamama restaurants are discussed several times throughout the book.

Download their menu from file:///C:/Users/mss1al/Downloads/wagamamaUK_main_menu.pdf and make the following recommendations that would make this establishment more environmentally friendly:

• Recommend at least five eco-friendly and sustainable food products
• Recommend at least three eco-friendly and sustainable pieces of equipment or processes to be used in the restaurant
• Recommend at least three regional sourcing options
• Recommend the marketing ideas you would pursue to share your eco-friendly and sustainable products with your customers and potential customers
• Identify the impacts and ramifications that changing the menu, restaurant and equipment processes might have