Scope of Work
- Merging operations of the acquired entities into a unified mechanism
- Creating & implementing SOP’s across the business
- Manpower management, selection, training & development
- Development of performance metrics, monitoring & enhancement
- Revenue focus, setting targets, developing revenue enhancement methodologies
- Marketing partnerships, campaigns planning, implementation & measurement
- Continuous audits across the business, financial planning & supervision
- Growth strategy, business development and expansion planning
- Menu revamp & enhancement, recipes development, standardization procedures
- Setting up & supervising the Central purchase & production unit
- Establishing an in-house CRM, Call Centre & Fullfilment Unit
- Ensuring superior customer experience & ongoing improvements with enhanced engagement
Challenges
- Manpower mindset overhaul towards working as one
- Cross training team members for different functions, adaptability & agility
- Establishing a customer-centric culture
- Inculcating innate values of strong organizational culture amongst team members
- Retaining old & lost customers while winning new ones & converting loyalty
- Menu revamp process implementation across all outlets & maintaining standards
- Setting system-wide SOP’s and monitoring compliance
- Brand re-invigoration & resurgence; Re-modeling old guard thinking
Approach
The Critical Part
- Merging operations, companies, values & people are much more difficult than just acquiring a business
- It was this most critical aspect of the post-acquisition process that had to be executed to seamless perfection
- The exercise was done by bringing many outlets, their teams, recipes, processes, branding, uniforms, personality, attitudes, service levels, technology, SOP’s and culture under one brand, one company
- The journey was a long one, which transcended over many months and rolled over into an on-going process till the borders diminished & virtually became invisible
- The spirit achieved was neither Ours or Yours, it was all about US
The Fun Part
- With the house coming under some sense of order, it was time to get into the best part : menu revamp or shall we say, a new menu identity
- With such a known legacy brand and having served multiple customers over the years, it was indeed a challenging & exciting process eliminating dishes while trying to add new ones
- Many detailed data analysis, customer reviews, personal checks later, the list of dishes making the cut was finalized
- Detailed recipe tests & trials, formulations, ingredient selections, sauces & bases preparations were done to ensure each recipe came out sharper & richer
- Professional photo-shoots were organized thus giving new & real images to the dishes on the menu
- A full introduction of the menu was done with the BOH teams with rigorous training for each member to standardize the recipes across all outlets
- The FOH teams were trained as well on all recipes, their descriptions, selling points, ingredients, up-selling tactics, customer experiences to represent the menu & the brand perfectly well
- A full manual was prepared for all team members at all outlets including the CRM & Call Centre teams to ensure familiarity & knowledge sharing amongst everyone
- The CPU (Central Production Unit) was developed to create & distribute the main sauces and bases to all the outlets on a daily basis to maintain consistency, freshness and standardization of all recipes
- A fully integrated in-house CRM & Call Centre was set-up to manage customer experiences, enhance customer engagement, maintain uniformity of communication with everyone as also supervise & manage overall delivery logistics for the entire business
The Important Part
- Operations merged, new menu done, CRM & Call Centre implemented, teams trained, branding unified, marketing partnerships & campaigns underway, it now came down to managing overall operations
- This phase involved a huge surge in marketing, supervising each outlet’s operations, team management, delivery logistics upscaling to meet demand, FOH & BOH re-trainings & capacity building, customer handling & engagement enhancements and keeping a pulse on everything, everyday
- New promotions, marketing ideas, technology integrations, branded online ordering website & app development, learning from customer reviews, peer benchmarking, all led the brand towards a greater earning and doubling of revenues in the months to follow
- The brand saw a resurgence in the market & industry as a force to reckon with, winning awards along the way and new customers increasing their loyalty thereby turning the business profitable and with a clear focus on expansion via opening of new outlets
Learnings
- A lot of financial structuring & re-structuring
- Scaling up of business activities based on capacity & capability utilizations
- Cost focused approach while growing revenues & profitability
Awards & Recognition
Awarded as the “Best Chinese Cuisine” by the MEA Markets UAE Business Awards for three years in a row : 2017, 2018 and 2019
