Uncle Betty Diner Analysis - Case Study Example

Uncle Betty’s Case Study Issues An analysis is simply a detailed examination of the elements or structure of something, typically as a basis for discussion or interpretation. It is an important exercise in a business since businesses take a cycle that tends to lower profitability when various dynamic factors that shape the business environment are not checked from time to time. Looking at the case of Uncle Betty’s, the business has taken on various ideas, making it get termed as the most innovative and finest set entity to meet the clientele needs. Various factors and consideration have helped it to establish itself that include the following: how the kitchen operations are conducted, the menu items offered, the suppliers of the business, employees, and most importantly, the front office staff, the marketing efforts and strategies, customer relationship management, the understanding of competitors and its growth over the years relative to other industry competitors. Analysis of Uncle Betty’s Diner PESTEL Analysis Political The high growth rate of uncle bettys dinner meant an increase in profits, which comes with high economic responsibilities. These responsibilities include taxes to the overment and linceses of running the business legally. Just like any other diner in the country uncle bettys was required to provide clear indications of a number of nutritional factors for each of their meals, ensure it passes all health tests including salt and sugar levels, calorie content, saturated and unsaturated fat levels. This was to ensure an overall level of healthiness of the meals they offered. Economical The suppliers give an input to the business by providing capital goods that can be used to generate products for sale. The restaurant at Uncle Betty’s chooses one of the best suppliers in which they have good relationships with one another. This is because as the supplier becomes timely and top notch by providing quality products on time, this increases the customer satisfaction from the side of the diner. This mutual relationship is what helped the diner to maintain its operations by strengthening the trademark. The Nathan for example, which is North America’s finest and most unique supplier would lead to maintaining a taste of quality across all platforms which could not be altered since it would come from the same supplier of a maintained quality (Uncle Betty’s, 2015). Social The kitchen of any restaurant is the working area that would determine the experiences of the customers that would come to the establishment. It is the point that determines the ultimate customer experience apart from the décor and the ambiance of the restaurant. For Uncle Betty’s, the working philosophy gave them an edge over the other competitors to win customer loyalty in many ways. They wanted to create a friendly environment for all their customers regardless of their age, race and gender. The recruitment of the kitchen staff, for example, took on the approach of allowing them to exercise their creative ideas (Uncle Betty’s, 2015). This led to the establishment of trademarks for the diner in many respects. The normal menu items that were being offered by many other restaurants would be augmented by adding a new look on the way they would be prepared. Foods like Poutine for example would be served as bacon and eggs poutine instead of the normal way that they would be served. This led to the increment of customer satisfaction. Technological The kitchen of any restaurant is the working area that would determine the experiences of the customers that would come to the establishment The menu items that would be offered in this establishment included foods that were tailored according to the customer needs. The customer would go ahead and market the establishment by word of mouth, which increased the sales of the diner through increased awareness. A good example is the You Gotta Eat Here promotion by one of the clients who had enjoyed a meal at the diner and was wishing to invite other people to the same experience. He aired this banner on a reality television show in which he was the host that led to the restaurant being re-known. With this came the other requests like the need for help with outside catering which led to increased business opportunity for the diner that increased the customer base and revenues that would ultimately be generated (Uncle Betty’s, 2015). Environmental Uncle Betty’s was located in a place where it was surrounded by many other diners, but none were able to match their competition. The menu items that were offered were just unique and could not be classified on the same platform with what other restaurants would offer. This led to customer terming Uncle Betty’s in words like “Our second home”. Home-made mac and cheese for example, is a trademarked product that would only be prepared for the creative nature of the workers and in the instance that the customers enjoyed would lead to the diner being the only stop shop that would offer that (Uncle Betty’s, 2015). Internal analysis Strategy VRINE Model Value The strategy of the business was simply based on the fact that new ideas would be created to avoid competition from competitors who would try to offer the same products. The diversification of the menu and selection of a loyal and committed supplier would help the business to access quality inventory (Uncle Betty’s, 2015). In the event that the establishment ran out of inventory due to increased demand from customers, the suppliers would bring supplier and get the invoices get paid later. Rarity Scarcity relative to demand; tis is to have a rare resource that the competitors cannot access.Uncle Betty’s had a reliable kitcen staff that had high skills and creativity which enable the attract customers by providing them with a variety of menu and rcipies. This made their working environment friendly and fun. Inimitability and Non-substitutability This is a valuable resource that is anavilable to the competitors and is valuable as long as the competitors have no access to it. In Uncle Betty’s diner for example; the kitchen staff are a valuable asset as they were all natured there and are the diners creation thus they are unique. Exploitability The firm must be able to nature and raise its own resources and be able to take advantage of them. This is to maximize profits and minimize the cost of exploitability. Financials The diner started with most of its start-up capital from Lewocz and Melanson. Later on however, the other sources of financial support like banks would chip in due to the demonstrated ability of the restaurant to grow. The money that was gotten from the start-up level would be ploughed back into the business leading to continued growth from 2013 to date. The diner has managed to raise the capital enough to open other outlets that have expanded the business to a multibillion company (Uncle Betty’s, 2015). The average income of the restaurant stands at 750 in the number of cheques that are cashed per day in all the outlets. The owners of the business Melanson and Lewocz have managed to be there in terms of supervising the business right from the time when it was a startup to this point when it has now become full blown and can support itself through the many revenue sources that are existent. VRINE The VRINE model purports that any business will have to follow the phases of the industry life cycle. These phases include; embryonic, growth, mature and decline. In the embryonic stage, the business still operates in a local environment and it is not well developed missing some inputs along the distribution channel as it were. The target is always to cater for the basic commodities that customers would need and the economic logic held at this point is to use a pricing strategy that uses high prices in order to gain additional capital that would fund the growth phase. The case of Uncle Betty’s was leveraged on this principle and this led to the comfortable setting of the initial footholds for the business (Uncle Betty’s, 2015). The growing stage is characterized by alliances that determine the corporations for use in penetrating target markets. The strategy of Uncle Betty’s was to collaborate with the best supplier typically outsourcing outside the country all the way from the USA. That would be used as a way to avoid competition that would emanate from competitors that would want to outsource from the same supplier (Uncle Betty’s, 2015). The use of workers without much and only fresh from school who would finally get on-job training and acquired standards of the restaurant was a way of ensuring employ loyalty and gauging how much the employees have improved in terms of performance. This way the customer relationship management grew in an equal measure and this led to repeat customers that translated to increased sales. The business can now be said to be at this stage and is tending towards maturity. Summary Uncle Betty’s dinner was supposed to be opened three years before as by Rob Lewocz’s wife Samara Melanson advice to him. The couple had lived in New York, which is the capital of dinners in the world; they therefore had experienced and had a little knowhow on how to run a dinner. Upon moving from New York to Yonge and Elington, the couple felt a drastic change as they could not experience the feel they had in New York as their new home town did not offer the same eateries as in New York. Rob, his wife, Samara and their two children were staying in the vibrant city center of Toronto and they have never found a nearby dinner with a child-friendly atmosphere and chef-quality food (Uncle Betty’s, 2015). The family decided instead of waiting for someone else to open the ideal dinner to fill the gap in this part of Toronto they decided to open their own dinner and name it Uncle Betty’s. It had taken them three years to implement the ideas that they had in Toronto about the dinner. After running the dinner successfully the family decided to improve it and take it to another level. Melanson came up with the proposal of the diner to her husband. She herself had no experience in working in a diner as she was in the firm business and she was an executive producer of visual effect in movies. She decided on venturing into a business of her own. Basing on her experience in New York she decided to venture into the diner business despite of her brothers discouragement (Uncle Betty’s, 2015). Melanson’s idea is to create a diner with a family friendly environment to appeal to the parents and kids. The first six months of the business were to familiarize themselves with the operations of the business, its working environment and tendering. The kitchen staff of Uncle Betty’s were skilled and professional, three main chefs came from reputable high school and better working environment. The condition at Uncle Betty’s made them work even better as they were allowed to experiment with the menu. This is one of the strategies that propelled them to success. Betty’s gave its staff equal opportunity to use their abilities in order to achieve the financial goals of the diner. This brought about freedom at work place and motivation to the staff moving them to work even better (Uncle Betty’s, 2015). Besides the dinner they also offered outside catering services to their customers. This was also a big breakthrough as their customers were impressed by the services they offered. The menu was not fixed as the clients were free to create their own menu of which it could be followed to their satisfaction. Melanson’s goal was to create an environment that would be appealing to both adults and kids. This was a success as fifty percent of their clients were families with kids and young families. Uncle Betty’s had no big competitors in their environment as there were no other New York diners around. They managed to be the most frequented dinner around Toronto despite of many other diners running in the same environment (Uncle Betty’s, 2015). Melanson was now faced with opportunities to grow, but there is great worry on a slow growth rate, which may enable competitors to copy from them and bring a stiff competition. Criteria The criterion employed by Uncle Betty’s was to come up with a new brand that would be used to create their own sub-niche for a healthy competitive advantage. The outsourcing of cheap labor from fresh graduates would lead them in establishing a low wage bill that would increase the margins. Salaries would be increased with time in order to make employees appreciate the presence of upward mobility in the establishment. Options The diner had many options regarding the location of the restaurant relative to the location of the suppliers. The founders, however, sort the option of establishing the restaurant location in Toronto their hometown in order to capture the market and the business opportunity they had seen there. Recommendations The best recommendation for the restaurant would be to have more paid reality television shows that would create more publicity. The fact that Melanson had been in the entertainment industry, hiring the best marketers would be the best option available to go about this. Sharing the Canadian culture in the USA, and other markets would lead to creating a huge customer base that would want such a traditional cuisine. Implementation The managers of Uncle Betty’s would have the option of seeking funds from venture capitalists to whom they would demonstrate their ability to reciprocate their efforts. They would do this by establishment of calculated timelines that would show them how to achieve the set goals both long-term and short-term. Contingency plans on making the establishment a franchise and an international trademark would also be very important in growth the business to full maturity. Reference Uncle Betty’s. (2015). Uncle Betty’s: Toronto’s most Innovative chef-quality Diner. London, Ontario: Ivey Publishing. Read More