Open Table System in Blackshop Restaurant - Coursework Example

Blackshop Restaurant Table of Contents Introduction 2 What should Cerny do about Open Table, and why? 2 What sort of operational strategy should he consider for the restaurant (come up with a plan of what he should do and in what order)? 5 Conclusion 8 Reference 9 Bibliography 9 Introduction The project explores the present conditions of the Blackshop restaurant which was established by the Cerny bothers’ father John Cerny in the year 1983. The restaurant aimed to provide a casual dining environment which had a European flair. The flavours of dished were inspired by German, Czech and French cuisines. The most notable feature of the restaurant is that all its operations and activities were done manually without the use of technology or any electronic devices. The Cerny brother emphasised on the concept of human tough and considers the tremendous success of the restaurant for the same. However, it is seen that extensive work done manually gives rise to mistakes which consequently affects the quality of services and impacts on the revenue too. The project makes an analysis of the present conditions of operations for the restaurant. Based on the above it puts forth reasons why an online reservation system called Open Table must be incorporated. The relative advantages of doing the same are presented in the project. Finally, a suitable operational strategy has been recommended in the project. This includes the market analysis, marketing and advertising plan, reservation system and operations for the restaurant. The quality of services and the role of the front office staff have also been highlighted in this regard. What should Cerny do about Open Table, and why? In order to know whether the Open Table system should be incorporated in the organization, it is important to understand the functions of the system and its relevance in the organization. Open Table was established in the year 1998 and operated a website which connected numerous reservation taking restaurants and customers who dined at the restaurants (Huber, Larmaraud, Li & Williams, 2009, p.1). Open System is a reservation, guest management and table management software designed for the restaurants. The software and hardware systems of smoothened the process of automation of reservations, table management by replacing the conventional methods of reservations by restaurant hosts and hostesses using pen and paper. The system is used by users for the construction of customer databases which fosters guest recognition and allows targeted e-mail marketing. Moreover the open system also helps the restaurants to save cost and time, improve their services, attract businesses, and increase revenue in terms of the numbers of diners and also improve efficiencies with tools of table management. The system was primarily aimed at the independent restaurant groups, restaurants, hotels and resorts. The system has been adopted by numerous customers across different nations like Canada, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan and Spain. The main advantage offered by the system is that it allows its users to allow electronic reservations using their website. Adopting the system would prove to be beneficial for Blackshop due to a number of reasons. The restaurant would serve numerous guests every night during the week which would go up to 200 guests during Friday and Saturday nights. In addition to this during the busiest nights the number of visitors would rise to 300. The restaurant was required to use the system of flexible sitting to accommodate the high rate of turnover during the busy nights. The reservations were usually done manually. However, walk-ins proved to be a challenging job for manual work and created difficulty in managing the reservations and keeping track of what was going on. Thus the use of the open system could be adopted by the restaurant as the estimated number of lunch customers were walk-ins. The present reservation system was operated completely manually. The main reason behind this was to maintain a human touch in all the services and activities. The mangers were involved in taking care of the reservations. They were also involved in receiving reservation calls, taking down details of the caller, namely, name of the caller, number of people in the party, the expected time of arrival and other relevant information. However, the accommodation of date manually might give rise to mistakes or miscalculations. Thus implementing software would always prove to be beneficial for avoiding mistakes in taking down data. It would also ease the process of making calculations as manual calculations are always subjected to errors and mistakes. Moreover, managers were also involved in managing and greeting guests in the restaurant. During such times, it would be difficult for them to take or receive calls over the phone. Thus if a software can be installed which would take the reservations from guests online this would reduce manual work to a substantial extent and release the managers’ work substantially. However, it is not recommended that the entire system should be automated. The human touch, which Cerny wanted to maintain, was an effective way of attracting guests and visitors in the restaurant. The quality of service which employees provided was excellent and accounted for one of the main factors for satisfying the guests. It also helped in strengthening the restaurant’s relationship with its guests. Thus only the system processes should be maintained using Open Table, while the other activities like guest relations and managing their entry time and departure time should be managed by the managers. This would be effective in striking a balance between the human relationships and system software. The decision of whether to entertain a visitor must not be done by the software. Rather it should be left to the managers and their relationships with the guests to decide the management of walk-ins. As per the conditions of the restaurants at that point of time, the restaurants must accept, or reject or negotiate the seating arrangements and timings with them. The idea should be to balance between the concepts of human touch with information and technology. But complete dependence on human touch would be risky. This is because the efficiency of human skills varies between individuals. It was possible that all the hostesses might not be equally efficient and this was likely to have a detrimental effect on the restaurant. Thus while the reservations would be done using the systems software it was to be ensured that the concept of personal touch was maintained. What sort of operational strategy should he consider for the restaurant (come up with a plan of what he should do and in what order)? The practice of online reservation must be implemented in the restaurant. The first step would be to develop a website for the restaurant through consumers would be able reserve their seats online. The Open Table is recommended in this regard which has a table management and guest management software. It is a highly advanced computer specific setup which is also widely used in the United States of America. The main advantage of the system is that it can be automated and customized as per the requirements of customers. It acts as a handy tool for the front line staff and managers. It also offers the advantage of storing the special requests of guests, their likes and dislikes. The functioning of the restaurants must be based on the demographics of place where they were located. It is important to understand the cultures and habitats of the place where they were located. Based on the location, the cuisines would be decided. It is important to make a study the changes and trends of the place and the customer base. The next step would be to develop a marketing and advertising plan for the restaurant. In this phase it is important to ensure being creative and not follow the steps of the competitors. The marketing plan would include making an analysis of the market conditions and their impact on the restaurant profitability. The strengths of the local markets would decide the numbers of customers that the restaurant would serve and the menu prices that it would charge. The close market analysis would reveal the potential of the restaurant against its competitors, on which would depend the proposed operations. The future investments decisions would also be dependent on the market conditions (Ryan, 2002). The restaurant could develop different promotional strategies to attract customers from different locations. Depending on the culture of the place and the consumers’ preferences for food, the cuisines would be developed and advertised. The promotional strategies could include discount coupons for those taking its services within a stipulated period of time. It could arrange for special gifts for customers who avails its services beyond a stipulated amount and other privileges for subsequent purchases. However, whatever be its marketing strategy it must be ensured that the qualities of customers are taken into account and their tastes and preferences are considered. It is important to understand what customers during their visit to the restaurant. Marketing strategies must not be developed on the footsteps of the competitors. The strategies must be unique, creative and innovative. The product and services offerings must also be different from that of its competitors. It could also promote for its products and services through its website. Using its website it could collect the suggestions of customers on how they could improve on their product offerings and qualities. The restaurant must also identify its loyal customers, or the ones who have been using their services on a regular basis. This would also trigger the process of word-of-mouth advertising for the restaurant (Wallace, 2009, p.20). It would be important to ensure that there was consistency in the services that were provided. The immense popularity of the restaurant is apparent from the large customer base that it enjoyed. Very often the restaurant was unable to accommodate the numerous people who tried to avail its services at the same time. In those peak hours, it had to reject customers as adequate place was not available to accommodate them. It was important to ensure a smooth flow of activities so that all customers could be accommodated and no one would be rejected. This would require skilled staff would be responsible for the smooth flow of activities and avoid hurdles in the work processes. Staff would be required to provide prompt services in terms of the dishes. The cooks would have an important role to play in this regard. An efficient staff would be required, which would be responsible for fast movement of plates and dishes across the table. They must also be skilled in making the billing activities fast and smooth and ensure that guests are not kept waiting. The front office staffs have the most important role in the hospitality sector. They would be required to greet guests and would be responsible for providing them with a warm experience. In this context the concept of human touch plays an important role. Cerny believes that the immense success of the restaurant so far has been because of the personal touch that it has been able to provide to its customers. The personal touch included keeping the special requests of guests, apologising for cancellations of services or providing special for important guests. The high quality of customer service has been responsible for its success so far and it is recommended that it continues to do so in spite of implementing a computerized reservation system. Conclusion While doing the project it was found that the success of the Blackshop restaurant can be attributed to the special human touch present in all its services. So far all the operations of the restaurant were performed manually. However, with the growth of the restaurant and the consequent increase in the number of customers consuming its services the manual activities are likely to generate mistakes and errors. Therefore here comes the requirement of a computerized reservation system, called Open Table which makes the work faster and easier. However, it is recommended that the human touch must not be completely replaced by machine activities. Rather a greater emphasis must be given to the corporate relationships which would help to build and strengthen the restaurants’ relationship with its customers. Reference Huber, F., Larmaraud, A., Li, J. & Williams, B. (2009). MS&E270: Initial Company Paper – OpenTable. Retrieved on June 13, 2011 from https://ccnet.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/course.cgi?cc=msande270f&action=handout_download&handout_id=ID1287160061457. Ryan, W. (2002). Restaurant Market Analysis. Retrieved on June 13, 2011 from http://web1.msue.msu.edu/imp/modtd/33702004.html. Wallace, R. (2009). Goat’s Head Pub Marketing Plan. Retrieved on June 13, 2011 from http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-121909-212418/unrestricted/Goats_Head_IQP.pdf. Bibliography Haksever, C., Render, B., Russell, R.S. & Murdick, R.G. (2000). Service Management & Operations, 2nd edn, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey. Markland, R.E., Shawnee, K.V. & Davis, R.A. (1998). Operations Management Concepts in Manufacturing & Services, 2nd edn. South-Western College Publishing, USA. Murdick, R.G., Render, B. & Russell, R.S. (1990). Service Operations Management, Allyn & Bacon, Boston. Read More