Operations Management: Market Competition in the Restaurant Industry - Essay Example

Operations Management: Market Competition in the Restaurant Industry Operations Management: Market Competition in the Restaurant Industry Introduction Owing to the fact that there is a growing need for ready-food consumption as people travel and engage in an array of activities, there is a similar growth of interest in restaurant investments. Consequently, there has been an augmenting rate or level of competition within the restaurant industry. Unless you have a novel cuisine, star chef and/or highly performing service personnel, set a perfect marketing strategy, or implement a comprehensive competitive advantage, chances are that you may confront lots of troubles in standing out from the competing crowd. Developing a competitive edge within the competing colleagues thereby requires detailed analyses of demographics of the surrounding environment, and most essentially, the nature of the existing competitors. Moreover, even if one is successful in from the onset, new competitors could intrude into the market and snatch away the existing/regular clients. Therefore, existing restaurants never hesitate adopting successful and unique competitive strategies from their competitors (Mack, 2013, p. 13). This research thereby examines and analyzes the diverse forms of competitive strategies employed by restaurants within Cardiff in order to maintain their market share within the competitive restaurant industry. In close relations, the paper drills deep into the performances or operations of the already established restaurants in Cardiff, through dependability, flexibility, speed, cost, and quality analysis. In its methodology of data collection and data analysis procedures, the paper explores several research journal databases available within the university’s system. It follows the screening for certified scholarly research articles, after which, the content analysis and taxonomy is employed in order to identify the prevailing trends within the restaurant industry. Literature Review The Cardiff’s rising need for ready food for consumption by travelers, visitors, college students, and traders who move along with goods has simultaneously upraised an equal need for restaurant establishments within strategic social areas in order to meet the growing demand for food. Consequently, the establishment and/or increasing number of restaurants and/or food stores also creates a stiff competition within the restaurant industry. Therefore, every restaurant has the obligation of attaining competitive advantage in order to cope with challenges resulting from fellow competitors within the competitive market. In order to compete positively within the highly competitive market, Cardiff restaurants form a chain or food establishments, which offers differentiated but similar products and services that attract clients of all classes and from different places. The restaurants, as well as other competing food stores thereby confront an obligation to observe their performances through various operational aspects including dependability, flexibility, speed, quality, and cost. Furthermore, the restaurants employ four major competitive strategies in order to elevate their performances. These competitive strategies include (i) branding, (ii) customer service, (iii) location, and (iv) quality and consistency. Dependability In this context, the Wales-Cardiff restaurants uniquely strive to attain competitive advantage. A competitive advantage is attainable through offering business customers, or general consumers, a greater value than that offered by the competitors, such as posing lower prices than the competitors, or providing quality services, as well as other benefits that acquiescently justify the possible or existing high prices (Linton, 2013, p. 22). Cardiff is well equipped with restaurants hotels, bars, and restaurants, which have to market their products in order to attract a noteworthy portion of the existing market for their success. As a result, in order to fight off competition perfectly (Victoria, 2014, p. 68), independent restaurants in Cardiff are jointly grouping to form a chain of outlets in a bid to raise their survival profiles. Elaborately (Milz1001, 2012, p. 33), within the competitive brand driven market, independent restaurant entries seem to be few and far apart, if to be counted within the Cardiff City center or college/university areas. This is simply due to dominations by the chain food establishments (Lauren, 2009, p. 299). The restaurants are very much brand oriented thereby replicating other indoor products and food varieties, which any other ready-food shopping center would provide. An example of the existing chain of restaurants in Cardiff is the “Giovanni’s Restaurants”. These restaurants strive to thrive their reputations by being well-known for the provision of quality, fresh, and healthy ingredients and meals (Linton, 2013, p. 24). Customers have a variety of choices from a superb-looking refrigerator display at the middle of the restaurant they wait for their preferred meal orders. In most restaurants, the food is then prepared or cooked in open kitchens, which guarantees a full view by guests. Speed and Flexibility Another vital competitive advantage employed by the established Cardiff restaurants is the speedy delivery of food. Here, there must be a method or process of maintaining the advantage through preparation of quality food, and must be an easy and simple process for all employees. Easy, simple, but fast performance with quality and certificatory outcomes should thereby remain the business focus. Most of The Cardiff restaurants thereby attain their competitive advantages either by building an appreciative nature in customers through their products and services (Victoria, 2014, p. 73), or by being passionate about certain styles or quality of foods, or by offering basic nutrition in a way that is expressly affordable and convenient. The restaurants thereby employ four major competitive strategies in order to elevate their performances. These competitive strategies include (i) branding, (ii) customer service, (iii) location, and (iv) quality and consistency (Devas, 2002. P. 106). Quality To begin with branding, whether an individual owns a fine dining restaurant or a fast food establishment, his/her restaurant opt to have a competitive advantage for the target customers to understand whom they are, and what kind of foods they provide (Lauren, 2009, p. 295). In Cardiff, opening a restaurant thereby requires the development of a thorough understanding of the restaurant’s specialty and the type of customers it intends to attract. Every restaurant has an obligation to develop its brand identity within the competitive. For many restaurants, this has been achievable through product differentiation alongside service differentiation. To meet various customer needs and/or demands, product differentiation within restaurants has been achievable through offering of valued variations for physical food products (Mack, 2013, p. 17). The ability to differentiate products greatly varies along a gamut depending on specific product. However, various products such as beef products do not lend themselves much differentiation due to their nature. On the other hand, restaurants also differentiate their services through their physical products (Woods, 2011, p. 23). For instance, two restaurants within the competing chain may be offering similar physical products but the one that offers additional services alongside the products may charge premiums for the products. Cheng (2010, p. 79) thereby affirms that when a restaurant is specialized in local and sustainable food products, it should then consider a cross marketing campaign with its neighborhood farmers’ market, and this is the exact route pursued by the Cardiff restaurants. Second, considering the customer service strategy, since eating is a personal experience, there is a vital need for the restaurant to attain competitive advantage through excellent customer services (Woods, 2011, 33). Cardiff restaurants thereby treat all their customers warmly and graciously, and go to extent of knowing the names of regular customers by name. They initiate a customer service department that asks for customers’ feedback hence showing that they care so much about the response given by implementing particular changes basing on the information and recommendations received. The third strategy for a positive competition is the business location (Michelle, 2010, p. 51). Location is often an essential element in the success of a restaurant. Cardiff restaurateurs have thereby chosen strategic locations that give their restaurants a competitive advantage within the competitive industry. They ensure the neighborhood propriety within the locations for opening their restaurants hence easily attracting their intended type of clientele. For instance (Michelle, 2010, p. 44), the Cardiff’s high end restaurants are established or located within upper income neighborhoods in order to improve on their chances of success. Quality and consistency comes as the fourth strategy for positive competition (Devas, 2002, p. 98). No matter how strategic and decent the restaurants’ location and marketing efforts may be, customers may not visit it if they do not enjoy quality meals. Cardiff restaurants thereby gain their independent competitive advantage via paying a close attention to the quality of their products, and ensuring the consistence of the quality food products, thereby making their customers eager to return repeatedly. According to Amitabh and James (2005, p. 301), this is commonly achievable through hiring of the right managers for their open kitchens hence ensuring the consistence and quality through controls of recipes, ingredients, and dishes. Cost Amongst the independent restaurants such as The Potted Pig, it increasingly gets hard to attract or draw in new customers (Milz1001, 2012, p. 38). As a result, they have to increase or reform their marketing strategies, and work extremely hard towards ensuring that their target market including residents, visitors, college students, as well as local businesses within Cardiff are aware of what they offer (their products and services). Additionally, all the restaurants compete through pricing, whereby big products own high buying power. Some of the restaurants offer trainings to their employees through seminars and workshops in order to raise their performances by offering quality services and value for money (Woods, 2011, 28). To sustain a competitive advantage, Cardiff restaurants use three approaches including differentiation, cost leadership, and focus. Cost leadership describes a scenario when a business can offer similar products and services as the other competing businesses do, but does so at a lower price compared to other competitors. Differentiation on the contrary, means that a company or business offers a superior product but does so at a similar price that other competitors offer for their inferior products. The last term- focus means that a firm or business will narrowly focus on the market segment and specialize in areas that appeal to the consumer base. These restaurants thereby set the specific competitive advantages through striving to be cost leaders by offering food at prices that are unmatchable by the competitors’ prices. Methodology This research is compiled from the research journal databases accessible from the university system through identifying and researching on research articles related to the restaurant business. The screening of certified or qualified scholarly research articles leads to several contributions, upon which, the content analysis and taxonomy is employed for the identification of the existing trends within the restaurant industrial research. This study thereby offers a systematic assessment and seeks to identify the changing direction or trends within the competitive restaurant industry. The research journal databases are utilized in tracing the restaurant related research publications, which are the chosen according to their relevance and ease-of-access criterion. The research publications come from four main databases including Business Source Premier, Academic Search Premier, ABI/INFORM, and Hospitality & Tourism Complete (Cheng, 2010, p. 82). The hospitality and tourism complete database encompasses news and academic research information from all areas of the food industry. It covers over 830,000 records and more than 500 publications with coverage dating back from 1995- both domestic and international. Altogether, the above four databases provided access to the majority of research on restaurant management knowledge (Amitabh & James, 2005, p. 297) across the entire world. Below is a tabled list of search results from the research journal databases, which are still available for data collection and any further research on the restaurant industry (see Table 1). Journal Article Databases Restaurant related Results Hospitality & Tourism Complete 202 Business Source Premier 1405 ABI/INFORM 293 Academic Search Premier 183 Total 2366 Table 1: A table showing the results for key term searches, relating to the restaurant industry, within the major article databases. Conclusion The growing need for ready food for consumption as people travel or move along with goods has simultaneously raised an equal need for restaurant establishments within strategic social areas. Consequently, the establishment and/or increasing number of restaurants also creates a stiff competition within the industry. Therefore, every restaurant has the obligation of attaining competitive advantage in order to cope with challenges resulting from fellow competitors and/or the competitive market. In order to compete positively within the highly competitive market, Cardiff restaurants form a chain or food establishments, which offers differentiated but similar products and services that attract clients of all classes and from different places. In addition, the restaurants employ four major competitive strategies in order to elevate their performances. These competitive strategies include (i) branding, (ii) customer service, (iii) location, and (iv) quality and consistency. To analyze these competitive techniques within the restaurant industry, this research utilizes the university research journal databases, which are accessible from the university system. The system can also offer an opportunity for further research on the restaurant industry. References Amitabh, S. & James, R. E. (2005). Principles of operations management. Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western. Cheng, X. (2010). Management research in the hospitality and tourism industry. Las Vegas: University of Nevada. Devas, G. (2002). How to gain competitive advantage in the restaurant business: Four methods of competitive advantage. Business and Entrepreneurship, 7(2), p. 97-106. Lauren, G. (2009). Competitive advantage in the fast food industry. Leadership Strategy Insider, 97, p. 293-304. Linton, I. (2013). Cost leadership and competitive advantage. Business and Entrepreneurship, 5(3), p. 19-24. Mack, S. (2013). How to gain competitive advantage in the restaurant business. Business Concepts, 34, p. 12-18. Michelle, A. (2010). What competitive advantages do large restaurants have over small restaurants? Business and Entrepreneurship, 6, p. 43-52. Milz1001 (2012). The battle between the chain and the independent restaurants in Cardiff City center. Business Daily, 45, p. 31-39. Victoria, O. (2014). Independent restaurants in Cardiff fight chain competition with new scheme: A new scheme to promote dining out at Cardiff’s independent restaurants. Journal of Local Business, 26(3), p. 67-74. Woods, L. (2011). How to gain a competitive advantage as a restaurant owner: Taking customer service to the next level. Business Finance, 9(2), p. 23-34. Read More