Management and Marketing Principles

CASE ANALYSIS: A MANAGER’S DILEMMA

Restaurant managers work in some of the most glamorous, exciting environment you
can imagine. Being a restaurant manager is a lifestyle, not a job, but many successful
managers work up to 80 hours per week, in highly stressful environment.
Andy’s Chicken restaurant in Petaling, Jaya, Malaysia is one of the many fast-food
chains in Malaysia that serve fried chicken, sandwiches, salads, drinks, and side orders.
The prices are reasonable and affordable.
For the past few weeks, Wong Loh, the manager of the restaurant, has received several
complaints from customers about slow service. Although Loh did not want to
compromise the quality of the food, he needed to increase service speed, particularly
during the busy lunch hour. Moreover, competition from nearby restaurants has
intensified. Loh realized that he was facing a serious problem when he found out that
the customer numbers were decreasing. How could he run the restaurant better?
Put yourself in Loh’s place. What would you do? Prepare a case analysis. In your
recommendation, use the four basic functions of management.
I. Main Problem
 Slow service
II. Secondary Problem
 Decreasing customer numbers
 Competition intensified
III. Objectives
 Improve customer service speed to win customers back and top the
competition

IV. SWOT Analysis

 Strengths- prices of food offered are reasonable and affordable; no
complaints on food quality; no mentioned budget restraints if manpower
adjustment is needed; manpower available
 Weaknesses- poor service speed; manpower issue; many competitors
 Opportunities- complaints and competition are motivations to improve;
 Threats- decreasing customer numbers due to complaints and
competition will eventually result to loss of profit and restaurant closure
V. Alternative Course of Action
 ACA 1: ACA 2: ACA 3: ACA 4:
additional staff Review labor system/machine
manpower motivation distribution and upgrade for
/rewards/team strong faster
building implementation production
of performance
metrics
Pros Immediate Immediate Sustainable; less Can take effect
effect; but effect but cost immediately;
sustainable at sustainable at sustainable at
extra cost extra cost extra cost
Cons Additional cost Additional Effect not Additional cost;
cost; immediate but
benefit is sure

Decision Criteria
criteria ACA1 ACA2 ACA3 ACA4
Cost no no yes no
efficient
immediacy yes yes no yes
sustainabilit With With extra yes With extra
y extra cost cost cost

VI. Recommendation: (using 4 managerial functions)

Chosen solution: Review Labor Distribution and Strong Implementation of
Performance Metrics
 Planning- set the goal aligned with the chosen solution. Set a quota. Set
the timeline in achieving it. Example below:
Plan of Action (Time Line)
No of Days Start End
1) Manpower Count 1 9/9/2019 9/10/2019
2) Labour Distribution 1 9/10/2019 9/11/2019
3) Identification Pain Points 1 9/11/2019 9/12/2019
4) Define Performance Metrics 3 9/12/2019 9/14/2019
5) boost sales by 30% by end of October

 Organizing- make sure all resources are available (staff, system);

delegate task among staff or teams (like a team leader for each shift to
 supervise and an assistant to monitor progress for each division); direct
tasks to eomployees.
 Leading- motivate employees by setting a kickoff meeting emphasizing on
the importance of the project and give incentives for metrics and quota
achieved in steps to achieving the goal.
 Controlling- measure performance against predetermined goal. This is
done on a regular basis like having a weekly meeting for progress update.
See if desired timeline is achieved. Identify deviations and apply changes
and improvements or go to plan B as needed.
VII. Conclusion
In solving this case it is important to take note of all the possible variables that
could cause the slowness of service (Main Problem). Manpower count is one of
the integral factors that can contribute to the dilemma. But adding personnel will
not always be the solution as this may incur cost, and there might be other
problems like employee efficiency, inconsistency on the speed of task delivery
(timeliness), machines, unfavorable/unhealthy working environment, demotivated
staff etc.
We have chosen to address the problem by reviewing the labor distribution to
see efficiency of the staff along with strong implementation of performance
metrics, as this is less costly and if problem is resolved, sustainability is not hard
to achieve. By doing the stated Plan of Action religiously we are expecting
positive result on business economy. My role as the Manager, as the lead of the
business is vital. My involvement is very important in the execution of the Plan
specially the starting stage and for a small business like this. Consistency on
monitoring the implementation of Performance Metrics is the key to solve this
case. Furthermore, continuous meeting intended for Business (restaurant)
Improvement is encouraged in order to maintain competitiveness and
acceleration of business growth. Customer feedback/survey is an important
catalyst in order to improve customer service and to win back the customers that
had transferred to competitors.