Evening Entertainment - Sylvias Bar - Essay Example

?Sylvia’s Bar Introduction Sylvia’s Bar is a bar and night club, situated in High Street in Birmingham. It was established by Sylvia Jones in 1986 asa fashionable wine and cocktail bar targeting mainly at the customer segment who working in local banks. It did good business, attracting high volume of customers and earning sizable profits from its beginning in the late 1980s till the mid-2000s. From the late of 2000s, its profits started to decline, as the flow of customers reduced to abysmal levels, even close the bar for few days of the week. The response from the customers dwindled because of Sylvia’s long-standing strategies of offering products and services at high cost, playing outdated music and also due to the advent of more modern bars in the neighbourhood. This report will focus on the Sylvia’s Bar and will discuss its current situation or problems, coming up with recommendations for it to manage those problems. Cost and menu High cost in the sense, Sylvia’s was established as a high class wine and cocktail bar, aimed at the customers, who constitute the top end of the market. Because of this focus on a particular target segment, the price of the drinks and the food was on the higher side. Although Sylvia’s Bar wanted to focus more on these high segment, who are able to pay the high prices. In the fact, with this pricing restrict its customer base. Due to these high pricing, other segments of the wide prospective customer base look for other options that the bar has to throw ingredients by the reduction of the customers, and this was validated by Sylvia’s waitress, Kate. “We throw too much food away, I’m not sure that the customers in town are looking for this kind of fancy stuff”. In addition, when a firm particularly in the service or hospitality sector, showcases itself as a high-class, then the targeted high-end customers would expect high class service, without any mediocrity. If those customer segments find anything below-average, they look for other options, which offer the same quality service at a far more competitive price. (Dale 2003). The strategy of keeping it ‘exclusive’ may not work all the time, because when the targeted particular segment of the customer base find other options, the firm may not have other customer segments to fall on. (Piron 2000). (Vickers and Renand 2003). So, by setting price on the basis of industry standards, and equal or less than its competitors, Sylvia’s Bar can expand its customer segment. Even while bringing in more customers, care should be taken not to compromise on the quality. Staffing The insistence of using only classically trained cocktail bar staff, who have completed a course in bar work at South Birmingham College, negatively impacts the finances of the Sylvia’s Bar. As these particular staff demand payment, which are double the ones paid to the casual bar workers, Sylvia has to allocate a sizable financial resources for the salary of these staffs, which further eats into their income. As the customers do not particularly insist on qualified employees from a particular academic institution and may not even know that fact, it is not compulsory for Sylvia’s Bar to recruit only them. Instead, they can recruit skilled and enterprising casual employees and importantly train them according to the job needs. (Mattila 1999). Training programs may not cost sizably, and on the other hand, the trained casual labourers can be paid only half of the salary paid to the other set of employees, thus saving crucial finances for the firm. (Kerfoot, Davies & Ward 2003). Sylvia’s bar also faced certain employee centric problems. Firstly, the employees had to wear a particular set of uniforms, and that according to certain employees was also very outdated. Barman Paul, 32 had this to say about it, “These uniforms are so dated and formal. I feel like I’m working in a church not a bar!” Importantly, this outdated feel of the uniforms would also negatively reflect among the customers, who might want to see employees clad in modern and enticing uniforms. (Aslam 2006). Visual imagery particularly colours has potentially powerful effects on human psychology, affecting ideas, perceptions, beliefs, feelings, behaviour and health (Branthwaite 2002). Speaking about staffing centric issues, the issue of Sylvia’s friends, Antonio and Jack, who are working as assistant managers claiming ?20.00 per hour is not a major issue, and the status quo can be continued. As Sylvia’s Bar has lack of leadership or managerial personnel, they can be aptly used. Evening entertainment The other service of Sylvia’s Bar which is viewed critically from the quality perspective is its cabaret evening entertainment with the music band, Razzle Dazzle, which played the covers of hits from the 1960s to the 1990s quite successfully. However, in the recent years, the crowds to their performances dwindled sizably. The main reasons for this particular problem, is that the band has lost its popularity and many customers feel that the songs from 1960s till 1990s is pretty outdated. This was pointed out by one of the customers, Jason, 24, who stated “The weekend entertainment is so naff and cheesy! Who wants to go and listen to a load of boring old naff songs!” In the hospitality sector, sizable number of customers would want all aspects of the firm to reflect ‘contemporary-ness’ which means only minimal customers favouring antique or classic aspects. As the old band played old hits, which would have been heard by the customers many times, instead of playing the current ones, the customers were not interested. So, instead of persisting with a single band, Sylvia’s Bar can give opportunities to newer, multiple bands. As these bands could create more energy and vibrancy inside the bar, it can bring in new customers as well as retain the existing customers. (O’Shaughnessy & O’Shaughnessy 2003). With new band playing every day, there will be repeat crowd. Another perspective is, selecting young bands from the same locality could give more chances to the local talent, and importantly those band members could have an extensive circle of family and friends. When the band plays, those circles could also visit the bar to see their performance, and if they are impressed with the quality of the products and service, they will become long-term customers. Competition To these issues in its internal environment, Sylvia also faces problems in its external environment with the advent of more competitors. That is, when Sylvia’s opened in 1986 it was the only establishment on the street which opened after 11pm, however, in recent times, many late bars and clubs have sprung up and this has caused heavy competition to it. In addition, new competition has also arisen from the neighbouring district of Canal. That is, with many modern bars and clubs opening up in the fashionable Canal district, sizable number of customers are going there, depriving business to not only Sylvia, but to other bars in the high street. This aspect was validated by a local government survey, which showed that the High Street has fallen from 35% of all night time trade to around 23% since 1995. Thus, it is clear that Sylvia’s Bar is facing problems and losses due to many factors in its internal as well as external environment. Conclusion From the above analysis of the current situation, it is clear that Sylvia’s Bar is facing issues regarding food prices, staff management and evening entertainment. Although, heightened competition is an issue, it is not a major issue and is a by-product of all the above issues. These three issues are crucial for any bars, as it will impact the customers directly. If the customers did not favour these three issues, then they will abhor the bar, leading to losses. To solve or manage these three issues, the management can implement three key recommendations. Recommendations The first recommendation is, Sylvia’s Bar can reduce the prices of cocktail drinks, wines and foods to feasible levels. As the customers favour firms that provide products and services at competitive prices, this change in strategy could work favourably for the Sylvia’s Bar. The second recommendation is, the employees can be given colourful and trendy uniforms. These uniforms can elevate the employees’ mood, and can motivate them to provide better output. The customers who enter the Sylvia’s bar will be refreshed to see colourful uniforms, instead of the bland black and whites. The final recommendation is, it can audition new and upcoming music bands in their locality, and select a pool of 8-12 impressive bands. Then, it can give each of them chance to play at the bar on rotational basis and importantly based on customers’ response. As these young bands can play the covers of latest hits, more customers can be enticed. These bands should be asked to play mix of everything good, starting from current hits, to few classic hits and even their own compositions. When all these recommendations are implemented, the Sylvia’s bar can entice new customers, as well as retain the existing customers References Aslam, M 2006, ‘Are You Selling the Right Colour? A Cross-cultural Review of Colour as a Marketing Cue’, Journal of Marketing Communications, vol. 12, no. 1, pp.15–30. Branthwaite, A 2002, ‘Market Research’, Qualitative Market Research, vol. 5, no. 3, pp.164-171. Dale, BG 2003, Managing Quality, Wiley-Blackwell, New York. Kerfoot, S., Davies, B. & Ward, P 2003, ‘Visual merchandising and the creation of discernible retail brands’, International Journal of Distribution and Retail Management, vol. 31, no.3, pp. 143–152. Mattila, AS 1999, ‘Do emotional appeals work for services?’ International Journal of Service Industry Management, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 292-307. O’Shaughnessy, J & O’Shaughnessy, N J 2003, The Marketing Power of Emotion, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Piron, F 2000, ‘Consumers’ Perceptions Of The Country Of Origin Effect On Purchasing Intentions Of (In) Conspicuous Products’, Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 17, no. 4. Vickers, JS and Renand F 2003, ‘The Marketing of Luxury Goods: An exploratory study- three conceptual dimensions’, The Marketing Review, Westburns Publishers Limited. Read More