How Effective and Efficient Is Taco Bell - Case Study Example

Taco Bell Instrutor Introduction Taco Bell is based in California and mainly deals in fast food with a focus on Mexican delicacies. The Corporation today is considered to control the largest market share when it comes to the Mexican-style fast food in the United States. Today, over 35million customers prefer visiting Taco Bell and its locations approximated to be around 6,500 are franchised. Apart from the United States, Taco Bell has restuarants in different regions that include Canada, countries in central America and Europe. In addition, Taco Bell Corporation also is a branch of YUM which, is a brand Inc.Brands Inc. regarded as a leader in the restaurant business world wide. With regard to the organizational structure, Taco Bell has a food service director at the helm charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the company meets its objective of providing better services for customers who visit its locations. Further, the director has an assistant who helps the director to implement the necessary plans to ensure that the franchises the firm deals with provide quality services. Other than the food service director and his or her assistant at the top of the management and for purposes of dealing with the paperwork, the Corporation has an Office manager. The office manager is responsible for record keeping and ensuring that any paper work process such as reservations by customers are done in appropriate manner (Ordonez, 2001). In addition, the officer manager is in charge of ensuring the administrative staff in the Corporation do their work in an efficient manner. To ensure that the food offered to customers is of high quality, the Corporation in its organizational structure, enlists the services of catering directory. His or her responsibility involves ensuring that the type of food in the restaurant is what the customers prefer. In this organizational structure, both the office manager and the catering manager are supposed to report to the food service director which is important in improving the quality of service at Taco Bell. The other staff in the lower cadre of the corporation incude the chef and the support staff. Their role in the organizational structure is crucial in ensuring efficient delivery of services to customers (Dunford, 1997). The goods/ services provided by Taco Bell As a company dealing in fast food services, Taco Bell products include Burritos, Nachos,Quesadillas, Taquitos and salads. This is a rich menu for clients who appreciate a Mexican-style food to choose for quenching their appetite. Other than the aforementioned products, the company also offer customers a creative menu with regard to fast food services. For instance, the company has an intricate system for items that include Waffie Taco. In the innovation team, the brand has approximately 40 employees who spend most of their time in the grocery stores, on social media platforms and in other restuarants dealing in similar products to gain some level of inspiration. The company further engages in reviewing numerous ideas regarding the development of new products and this is often done in the firm’s test kitchen and it is the employees who normally test the quality of the newly introduced products. This helps to ensure that customers get quality service for their money spent at Tacobell. On another note, Doritos Locos Taco that is found is in the menu, is considered to attract huge sales for the company (Ordonez, 2001). How effective and efficient is Taco Bell Effectiveness and efficiency in restaturant services require a strategy that ensure a quick delivery of services to the customers. This helps the firm to improve the population of customers and increase the sales volumens. In terms of effectiveness and efficiency, Taco bell as developed a number of strategy that are geared at improving the services it provides to customers attracted to the firm’s products. For instance, the company has embraced new technology as a way of improviing its services delivery. The existence of the Drive –thru at order stations and also pick-up windows is vital in meeting customer’s demand. This ensures that Tacobell can serve many customers in an efficient manner. Efficiency in the company is also realised through team work. This allows Taco bell to improve on its creativity with regard to the delicacies in its menu and this contributes to the increase of customers to its restuarants in different locations. The company also has a strategy of ensuring it deals in unique products that provides the company with an advantage over competitors such as Del Taco, MacDonald’s and Doctor’s Associates. The effectiveness of the company is also evident from the fact that , the company has adopted the use of a cash register. Cash register or an electronic POS ( point of sale) is necessary for purposes of ensuring that all tasks are done in one counter. Such task involves verifying transactions, delivering sales reports, and the coordination of inventory data (Jennings, 2005). In a fast food chan the efficiency in the delivery of services is critical and the introduction of electronic POS plays an important role in improving service delivery at Taco bell. In essence, this system improves customer’s convinciency since they do not have to wait for a longer period to be served. Further, Taco bell has also adopted service-line extensions which involves an extension the services line that already exist. This ensures that the firm can use co-branded units. At a location, Taco Bell has the capability of offering different menu choices which is essential for customer’s convenience. On another note, improvement in technological innovation is important for the company in that, it helps to reduce the losses suffered by the company. For instance, Taco Bell has a storage facility that help to preserve perishable products. This ensures that the food remain fresh prior to being sold. For example, perishable food such as the vegetables or meat require this technology to ensure that they can be stored for a longer period before consumption by the customers (Jennings, 2005). The company also embraces integrated(LMS) labor-management system which allows the firm to capitalize on the use of technology in the field. The use of LMS contributes in the delivery of efficient service, improves client satisfaction and also brand equity. The LMS further assist the mangers to develop a plan on how employees are supposed to work in the restaurant. Through the use of labor management system, the management of Taco Bell is able to save time in terms of organizing work shifts. In order to improve efficiency, Taco bell has also created safety nets such as toll-free number that workers can use secretely to report the abuses that take place in the firm’s restaurants. At the workplace, there are abuses that often occur and there is need for an avenue to mitigate such abuses. Further, the existence of the toll-free number planys a role in ensuring that employees take their work seriously. This is important in tems of improving operations at the company (Jennings, 2005). The stakeholders of Taco bell and the challenges that the company face The stakeholders of the company include Pepsico, shareholders, the Bell family and customers respectiviely. While the company has realized success with the products that it offers in the fast food market. There are also challenges for the company and example of the challenges that the company experiences involves having to deal with weak sales, rising debts from the franchises and high prices of cheese. In the year 2000, Taco Bell had to resque the franchises with a bail out of approximately $ 26million to clear debts. In ddition, the company had to recall its products after claims of their products containing GMO corn and had not been approved for consumption by humans. This resulted in significant losses for the company as a result of the negative image created for Taco Bell products. The recall means that the company had a problem with quality assurance for its products. This is a challenge for firms in the food industry since, the quality of food products is critical in ensuring they are approved for human consumption. This is a challenge that require the company to come up with a remedy such as coming up with menu that offers improved quality to customers. In addition, Taco Bell can also introduce upscale menu items such as steak tacos or quesadillas that are considered to be of quality compared to items such as ground beef or refried beans. The strategy of changing the menu items is important in improving the sales that had already been dented as a result of poor quality food products. Other challenges evident in the company involves how to maintain its financial records and under the leadership of Brolick, the firm has focused on reforming its financial records to ensure that Taco Bell realize a sustaine growth. The company has also managed to overcome its challenges by for instance, reaching a consensus with CIW(Coalition of Immokalee Workers) to resolve the the boycott by the tomato farm workers in Florida. This is critical in ensuring that the company positioned itself for success in the subsequent years as a result of mitigating the existing challenges for the company (Jennings, 2005). The culture of the organization The fast food industry has mainly risen as a result of an increase in the working population who do not have time to prepare meals. As such, fast food provides convinienc for the working class who are tend to be time conscious. While there are a number of companies that deal in fast food, Taco Bell is unique in the sense that it offers a Mexican-style fast food and mainly target customers of the Mexican orgin. To improve its service delivery, the company emphasises efficiency which is achieveable through team work. The workers of the firm embraces group work in terms of coming up with ideas necessary to improve its food prouducts and quality. This is crucial in giving the company a competitive advantage ove other companies such as Macdonalds. As a practice in the company, the employees engage in innovation of new products and test them in their kitchen before introducing such products to customers. This serve to ensure that the products served to customers are of the best quality. Further, a way of reaching the over growing customer base, Taco Base also has franchises in various region to ensure customers can access Taco Bell products in the regions where they reside (Ordonez, 2001). References Dunford, T. (1997). Refefining value: For whom the Taco Bell tolls. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quartely, Vol. 38(3), 74-80. Jennings, L. (2005). Taco Bell bounces back thanks to Bold Choice. Nation’s Restaurant News, Vol. 39(33), 68-69. Ordonez, J. (2001). Taco Bell Chief Has New Tactic: Be Like Wendy. New York: Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition. Read More