Question

Case Study: Le Chic Restaurant

The Le Chic is a restaurant located on a busy street in the centre of a major city. It attracts a steady flow of customers who like its commitment to quick service with good food. As such the management pride themselves on offering a standard menu, which includes a good range of affordable yet delicious dishes – from starters and appetizers, through main courses and specials to pastries and desserts. While Le Chic seats around 80 customers, its layout is basic restaurant style and customers have often said that it has a ‘fast-food’ feel to it which fits with its current business objectives but may not be ideal for the future. A major concern for management has always been to maximise efficiency and reduce turnaround times: orders must be swiftly relayed to the kitchen and the food brought to the table within 15 minutes, even during ‘peak hours’ – the intended outcomes being consistency in both customer service and daily sales targets.

Le Chic employs 35 people, 50% of whom have permanent contracts, working either day or evening shifts. The other half is split between part-timers and relief workers who are usually the ones to do double shifts over busy weekends. All terms and conditions of employment are negotiated on an individual basis.

Over the past few months staff have found it increasingly hard to maintain the desired levels of customer service. There seems to be a lack of coordination between waiting and kitchen staff. Once seated, customers often have to wait for as long as one and a half hours before being served while a large number of those queuing up outside usually just give up on the long waits and walk away in search of other eating options, which in the city centre are plentiful. More alarmingly, profit margins have remained ‘thin’ in the recent years and, for the first time in 10 years losses were registered on the restaurant’s balance sheet. Le Chic’s current manager attributes this particularly poor performance to the economic crisis and to the fact that the competition has all of a sudden tightened up with the opening of a pub and two new restaurants on the main street and a growing cluster of similar businesses within a mile radius.

Dispirited, the current manager has decided to step down to make way for a new manager, John, who has just completed his Masters in Business Administration but also has experience of working in another similar type of restaurant. John’s remit is to deliver a new business strategy that can effectively reverse Le Chic’s current performance and ensure its survival and growth in the longer term. Whilst recognizing that these are indeed difficult times, John believes that there is need, more than ever, for businesses demonstrate an ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ if they are to have any chance of success. He has therefore formulated a proactive and quite aggressive change strategy containing the following key components, which are to come on stream almost at the same time:

• Le Chic is to be turned into a chain restaurant. A total of £1.5 million is to be spent on the refurbishment of the existing site and on the set up of two new restaurants in different cities.

• The chain restaurant will differentiate its offerings in the form of a revamped more upmarket menu, a sumptuous décor and a new bar area, for which a select clientele would be more than willing to pay a premium.

• Around 60 new employees are to be recruited and deployed across the three restaurants. While all members of staff will have to attend induction training to meet the new standards of service, some of the more experienced staff will be transferred to the newly opened restaurants to help out with on-the-job training for new recruits.
• A new information system will be set up to link up Le Chic with its suppliers and standardize ordering, payment and accounting processes across restaurants. Also, a multimedia website will enable customers to access menus, make reservations, post feedback, download discount vouchers, benefit from promotional events or simply keep abreast of any development at Le Chic.

• Le Chic will seek opportunities for joint promotional alliances with potential partners especially those operating in the same areas of the chosen cities. A good example might be cinemas and local bowling alleys.

• Finally, Le Chic will demonstrate social responsibility by sponsoring community projects, which can contribute to the development of a strong brand image and a self-reinforcing cycle of social value, employee engagement, customer loyalty and enhanced return on investment.

All the owners of Le Chic think that John’s business strategy is very creative and the promise of bringing profit margins to 15% within 5 years. However, some have expressed their concerns with regards to the considerable capital outlay that John’s new strategy will require, which, if unsuccessful, will leave the business potentially bankrupt. To allay these concerns, John has asked to hire the services of a consultant to help him out with the execution of his new business strategy.

Coursework Assignment

You are required to step into the shoes of the consultant hired by Le Chic. Your task is to write a report addressing the key change issues that can have a significant impact on the implementation of its new business strategy. While practically oriented, your report should draw on appropriate change theories and models to include the following:

Q. Recommendations as to how management should plan and execute the proposed change so as to ensure its successful implementation using a one of the change models covered in the lectures. Please also note that this section using the theory should be context specific (700 words).

Answer 1

Answer - Le Chic restaurant is continually encountering change. Whether or not realized by new advancement executions, process invigorates, consistency exercises, improvement, or customer care upgrades, change is consistent and central for advancement and efficiency. A reliable change the executive’s procedure will help in limiting the effect it has on your association and staff.

Underneath you will discover 8 basic strides to guarantee your change activity is fruitful.

1. Distinguish What Will Be Improved

Since most change happens to improve a procedure, an item, or a result, it is basic to distinguish the concentration and to explain objectives. This additionally includes recognizing the assets and people that will encourage the procedure and lead the undertaking. Most change frameworks recognize that realizing what to improve makes a strong establishment for clearness, ease, and effective usage.

2. Present a Solid Business Case to Stakeholders

There are a few layers of partners that incorporate upper administration who both direct and fund the undertaking, bosses of the procedure, and the individuals who are legitimately accused of establishing the new ordinary. All have various desires and encounters and there must be an elevated level of "purchase in" from over the range. The procedure of onboarding the various constituents shifts with each change structure, yet all give designs that call to the time, tolerance, and correspondence.

3. Plan for the Change

This is the "guide" that distinguishes the start, the course to be taken, and the goal. You will likewise coordinate assets to be utilized, the degree or target, and expenses into the arrangement. A basic component of arranging is giving a multi-step process instead of abrupt, impromptu "clearing" changes. This includes sketching out the task with clear strides with quantifiable targets, motivators, estimations, and examination. For instance, an all-around planned and controlled change the boarding procedure for IT administrations will drastically diminish the effect of IT foundation changes on the business. There is likewise an all-inclusive alert to rehearse tolerance all through this procedure and maintain a strategic distance from alternate routes.

4. Give Resources and Use Data to Evaluation

As a component of the arranging procedure, asset recognizable proof and subsidizing are pivotal components. These can incorporate framework, hardware, and programming frameworks. Additionally consider the devices required for re-instruction, retraining, and reexamining needs and practices. Numerous models recognize information social affair and examination as an underutilized component. The clearness of clear giving an account of progress considers better correspondence, legitimate and convenient conveyance of motivating forces, and estimating triumphs and achievements.

5. Correspondence

This is the "brilliant string" that goes through the whole act of progress the board. Distinguishing, arranging, onboarding, and executing a decent change the executive's plan is reliant on acceptable correspondence. There are mental and sociological real factors innate in bunch societies. Those effectively included have built up ranges of abilities, information, and encounters. However, they additionally have hierarchies, region, and corporate traditions that should be tended to. The techniques advocate straightforwardness and two-way correspondence structures that give roads to vent dissatisfactions, praise what is working, and consistently change what doesn't work.

6. Viewing and Managing Resistance, Dependencies, and Budgeting Risks

The opposition is a typical piece of progress the board, however, it can compromise the accomplishment of a task. Most opposition happens because of a dread of the obscure. It additionally happens in light of the fact that there is a decent measure of hazard related with change – the danger of affecting conditions, quantifiable profit dangers, and dangers related with distributing spending plan to something new. Foreseeing and planning for obstruction by furnishing authority with instruments to oversee it will help in a smooth change lifecycle.

7. Observe Success

Perceiving achievement accomplishments is a fundamental piece of any venture. While dealing with a change through its lifecycle, it's critical to perceive the accomplishment of groups and people included. This will help in the selection of both your change the board procedure just as reception of the change itself.

8. Audit, Revise and Continuously Improve

As much as change is irksome and even troublesome, it is furthermore a constant methodology. Indeed, even change the board methodologies are normally balanced all through a venture. Like correspondence, this ought to be woven through all means to distinguish and evacuate barriers. What's more, similar to the requirement for assets and information, this procedure is just on a par with the duty to estimation and examination.