Multi-brand Concept’s Development, Management & Growth

The journey of a multi-brand, diverse-cuisines, development & management exercise, became the stepping stone into Dubai's evolving F&B scene and established high benchmarks to follow.

Scope of Work

  • Launch of a large, high-end, licensed lounge & Thai fusion restaurant
  • Launch of a Japanese Sushi & Teppanyaki concept restaurant
  • Concept development, concept build, launch & management of cafes
  • Overall operations management, team building and performance management
  • Marketing campaigns, customer & partner relationships management

Challenges

  • Learning & re-learning F&B from a Dubai perspective
  • Understanding to work with multi-national, multi-cultural team members
  • Adapting to a new-world & international working methodology
  • Making in-roads and establishing relationships in a new environment

Approach

The Critical Part

It was the first professional experience in an international environment in Dubai and learning the ropes of working with a cross section of different nationalities as team members as also customers.

One had to quickly adopt & adapt in doing the following within a very short time-frame :

  • Immerse into understanding all operations
  • Involve & engage with all team members to understand them, their profiles, their personalities, capabilities and draw up individual job roles
  • Understand individual concepts for development, launch, recruitment, training, marketing, finance, menu’s and target customers
  • Preparing schedules for each concept for further implementation of all key tasks and seeing them through

Launch of an iconic, large, licensed venue comprising a very stylish lounge & dining area focused on a Thai fusion theme & menu.

  • This venue created multiple benchmarks for many an outlet to imbibe, copy & follow in Dubai
  • The venue had customers queueing up in its days of prime & glory

Launch of a contemporary Sushi & Teppanyaki concept restaurant establishing a cuisine frontier with its menu.

Launch of diverse café concepts across town.

Establishing relationships with suppliers, partners, media, marketing agencies & internal associations.

The Important Part

With the launch of different venues, styles, concepts & managing diverse teams, it was extremely important to stay involved in day-to-day operations.

Getting your hands dirty is the best way to lead and there was no other way it could be done.

With such commitment & focus, the overall operations across all venues were managed with a clear direction on the following:

  • Educating, training & building key team leaders & members
  • Implementing & supervising daily SOP’s
  • Checking daily inventory, purchases, key perishables & beverage stocks
  • Maintaining daily audits, attendance systems & discipline protocols
  • Coordinating marketing & customer out-reach initiatives in a non-digital era
  • Negotiating with key partners for beverage deals, key food supplies & ongoing pricing mechanisms
  • Coordinating menu revisions, trials, promotions & customer experiences

This phase was not only very exhausting but enriching as well, thus leading to great performance, high revenues & supreme reputation for all concepts & brands being established in the market-place.

The Fun Part

All hard work done, late nights & extra hours later, the fun began.

Routine is not considered fun, but after what was such a roller-coaster ride,
regular operations actually did seem like a lot of fun.

The teams were trained and set into their mode of operations, audits were aligned, marketing campaigns being implemented well, customer experiences on the rise, revenues increasing & inching higher, it was a fun ride, to be enjoyed.

Learnings

  • New territory, new country, new cultures, new ways of working.
  • Settling into working with multi-national colleagues.
  • Embracing international working styles & mechanisms.

Awards & Recognition

  • Great recognition in the form of excellent customer experiences, their feedback, media accolades, rave reviews were the hallmarks & awards won by the entire team of all the concepts.