REPORT WRITING SKILLS

SEMESTER PROJECT

Report Title:
“Pandemics and the restaurant businesses”

Prepared For:
Saba Ameer

Prepared By:
Muhammad Muneeb Zaidi FA21-BCS-036
M. Aliyan ul Haq Hassani FA21-BCS-105
Ayesha Gull FA21-BCS-081
Syed Ajlal Haider FA21-BCS-054

Batch/Section:
FA21-BCS (C)

Date of Submission:
25th May, 2022

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Executive Summary:
The following report highlights the urgent need of a home delivery service for the
restaurant because of a rapid decrease in dine-in customers due to the recent pandemic.
The restaurant has been in loss ever since lockdown was imposed. Many surveys were
conducted in the West which showed that the restaurants which transitioned to online
food delivery platforms escaped this decline in business and are very happy with the
results. A 3rd party food delivery service is a good solution to this problem as its
affordable and time efficient. By partnering with one of such services can lead to
significant growth in this food business.

Table of Contents
Report Title: ................................................................................................................................................ 1
Executive Summary: ................................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction: ............................................................................................................................................... 3
 Background Information: ....................................................................................................................... 3
 Statement of problem: ............................................................................................................................ 3
 Significance of study:............................................................................................................................. 3
 Scope of the study: ................................................................................................................................. 4
 Limitation of the study: .......................................................................................................................... 4
Review of Related Literature:.................................................................................................................... 4
Methods of study:........................................................................................................................................ 4
Results: ......................................................................................................................................................... 5
 Take-out Operations and Home Delivery: ............................................................................................. 5
 Online ordering and third-party delivery: .............................................................................................. 5
Discussion: ................................................................................................................................................... 6
Conclusion: .................................................................................................................................................. 6
Recommendation: ....................................................................................................................................... 7
References:................................................................................................................................................... 7

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 NORMALIZED ORDER VOLUMES, BY DELIVERY TYPE .................................... 3
Figure 2 STUDY OF CHALLENGES FACED BY RESTAURANTS ........................................ 5
Figure 3 TACTICS USED TO ADAPT TO COVID-19 ............................................................... 6

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Introduction:

 Background Information: With COVID-19 having altered – and still in the process
of altering – the definition of “normal” across the world. Pandemics that cause business
disruption have a severe impact on service design and delivery, with negative
consequences for the operation of service industries. Most industries are still struggling to
adapt the environmental and economic changes.
 Statement of problem: The impact is particularly significant on the restaurant
industry. Due to the lockdown orders of the government, many of the low standard
restaurants faced a lot of issues as most of the people decided to stay quarantined during
these pandemic situation. So the quantity of people visiting restaurants decreased on a
great scale. Low standard restaurants which do not had any means of delivering their
food to the doorstep faced a great loss.
 Significance of study: With restaurants closed for seating, many establishments are
struggling to keep their heads above the water. Restaurants rely more on contactless
pickup or delivery to serve customers. As a result, they must make tactical planning
decisions, such as partnering with online platforms, forming their own delivery team, or
both.
Restaurant traffic and online bookings may have dropped to zero, but in the US, UK, and
Canada, online ordering for pickup and delivery is booming, with a consistent increase of
45 days past, especially for casual and fast service/fast food restaurants where website
visits and purchases have increased. As orders grow, the ratio of takeout to delivery
orders has remained fairly flat, even though people are traveling shorter distances to
restaurants to take those orders.

Figure 1 NORMALIZED ORDER VOLUMES, BY DELIVERY TYPE

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  Scope of the study: This report will cover the impacts of COVID-19 faced by
restaurants during this pandemics period, its detailed discussion and the results concluded
from the gathered information. The details were gathered from the researches made by
professionals.
 Limitation of the study: The study showed us how much the whole world’s
economy was disturbed due to this critical situation. It showed us how different
organizations managed to hold themselves to face these crises and the how they acted
upon different situations they faced.

Review of Related Literature:

Several studies have been conducted in the US, China and some European countries that
focus on the effect of Covid-19 on restaurant business and what different strategies
restaurants have adopted in different countries.
In USA, many restaurants who were slow to adapt went out of business while those who
were quick in adopting strategies such as home-delivery, take-out and drive-thru survived
and showed financial growth (Cortney L. Norris & Scott Taylor Jr & D. Christopher Taylor,
2021). In China, Restaurants quickly shifted to Delivery and take-out services and used QR
codes which people scanned to order quickly without any contact. The Chinese government
also helped the restaurant businesses to adapt quickly (Bin Li & YunYing & Tingting Zhang
& Nan Hua, 2021).
These strategies can be replicated in Pakistan to help keep the restaurants businesses afloat.

Methods of study:
This research used the data collected by different organizations such as Upserve, emerald and
mckinsey. This study was made possible by collecting survey responses from a variety of
restaurants in America and China as no such study was conducted in Pakistan and the food
industry specifically restaurants have yet not started working their way toward transitioning
to online business. The survey was also conducted online for restaurants who already
transitioned to online food delivery and were only doing business online. Approximately 500
responses were recorded by Upserve in America by spring 2020. Additionally, five major
cities were selected by emerald, due to their prevalence in the restaurant industry, New York,
Chicago, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Houston and San Francisco. The survey was
completely public so that both expensive and local restaurants could take part in this. All
articles that were published between March 15 and May 15 from each of the selected
publications websites were reviewed and selected based on their applicability to the aim of
the research. Applicability was determined either from the title of the article or from a
precursory scan of the article's contents, as a result a total of 294 articles were collected.
Upon complete review of the articles, 94 were removed from further analysis because they
focused on overall effects to the industry or statistics relating to COVID-19 and not on
specific business model changes that were implemented.

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Results:
The research conducted has revealed the major strategies and changes foreign restaurants
have implemented to fight the effects of Covid-19 restrictions on their businesses. They are
discussed in detail in the next sections:

 Take-out Operations and Home Delivery:

As the restrictions tightened due to COVID pandemic, Restaurants have had to
close dine-in operations. Restaurant branches that made changes quickly to their business
model like making home-delivery an option, take-out operations and expanded and built
drive-thrus survived and maintained their financial stability, while those who were unable
to implement these changes had to close down and went out of business, some of them
temporarily and some permanently. Restaurants who also provided delivery and take-out
service pre-pandemic found it easier to adapt while traditional restaurants who relied on
their luxury environment and ambiance as part of their business model found it hard to
apply these changes quickly and thus suffered the most due to the pandemic restrictions.
Restaurants found adapting to delivery and online orders to be the biggest challenge as
this study shows:

Figure 2 STUDY OF CHALLENGES FACED BY RESTAURANTS

 Online ordering and third-party delivery:

Due to Covid-19 restrictions, many restaurants launched online order platforms
for their brands, with well laid out menus that are simple and easy for the customer to
order from. Restaurants also created a presence on social media accounts such as
Instagram, Facebook etc. Restaurants used these accounts to interact with their
customers, address, complains of them and to promote themselves through social media
accounts. Many restaurants also made deals with third party apps for home delivery
services, some even expanded third-party delivery to multiple companies, e.g.,

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 McDonalds in the US made deals with Doordash, Grubhub and UberEats. Restaurants
also worked with these companies to offer free delivery promotions, so the customers
find it more appealing to order for them. Some restaurants reported a 30% increase in
orders due to free delivery promotions. These were some of the most popular and
successful changes adopted by the restaurants as this study shows:

Figure 3 TACTICS USED TO ADAPT TO COVID-19

Discussion:
This report provides information on multitudes of business model changes made by
restaurants abroad due to Covid-19 restrictions. Restaurants made changes according to
their location and the problems they faced, in addition to the severity of covid restrictions
in their area. Many studies suggest that there is no single change that was influential for
every restaurant. But rather, to make several changes with innovation and creativity.
Restaurants who showed willingness to make changes to their business models survived
while those who were unwilling to change had to shut down eventually.
In difficult times such as Covid-19, restaurants must be flexible in their business model,
they must learn to use technology and explore online avenues. Restaurants who are
unwilling to show flexibility in their business due to traditionality cannot survive the
pandemic. They must create an online presence and interact with customers online.
Traditional dine-in restaurants also need to use social media accounts to promote
themselves online and establish take-out and drive-thru facilities. Flexibility and
creativity is essential to face any crisis and that is even truer in the world of finance, those
who are unwilling to change cease to exist.

Conclusion:
The provided facts and figures entail that there is a dire need for an online food service
facility otherwise the restaurant will face bankruptcy. The customers appearing nearly to
zero for our dine-in system are not helping our financial status at all therefore, we need to
somehow start a food delivery process. The research attached do show that 69%
restaurants in America transitioned to online business and are happy with the results. One
of the key points was that 33% restaurants took help from a 3rd party delivery company
rather than starting their own. This drastically cut down their expenditures regarding

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 delivery of food. Since we are also poor on the financial end we can pick this option as
well.

Recommendation:
As food delivery service is a must therefore we have two routes we can take, one being
that we launch our own delivery service and the other being that we seek help from a 3rd
party delivery service. The 22% restaurants which started their own delivery service in
America had enough money to pay for all the expenses. But we already know that the
restaurants with unstable financial situation which partnered with 3rd party services like
UberEats were also enjoying profit and the net cost of delivery was comparatively less.
Hence, we should go that route as well and partner ourselves with such delivery service.
A noticeable name in this regard is FoodPanda. With the motto “Bringing good food into
your everyday” it is the fastest growing 3rd party food delivery service in Pakistan. So, if
we consider partnering with such a service for our food delivery then this might increase
our costumer count due to foodpanda’s popularity and our main motive will also be
fulfilled with minimum cost.

References:
Norris, C.L., Taylor Jr, S. and Taylor, D.C. (2021), Pivot!
How the restaurant industry adapted during COVID-19 restrictions , International
Hospitality Review, Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 132-155. https://doi.org/10.1108/IHR-09-2020-
0052
Li, B., Zhong, Y., Zhang, T., & Hua, N. (2021).
Transcending the COVID-19 crisis: Business resilience and innovation of the
restaurant industry in China. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1447677021001455#sec2
Stacey Haas, Eric Kuehl, John R. Moran, and Kumar Venkataraman. (2020),
How restaurants can thrive in the next normal.
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/how-restaurants-can-thrive-in-
the-next-normal

How restaurants can thrive in the next normal. (2020, May 19). Retrieved from
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/how-restaurants-can-thrive-in-
the-next-normal

The impact of COVID-19 on eating, restaurants and fast food chains. (2021, February 18).
Retrieved from https://www.wearemiq.com/blog/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-eating-
restaurants-and-fast-food-chains/

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The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on restaurant resilience: Lessons, generalizations, and
ideas for future research. (2022, February 1). Retrieved from
https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/serv.2021.0293
Moessner, A. V. (2020, July 29). How have restaurants been affected by COVID-19? Retrieved
from https://upserve.com/restaurant-insider/how-restaurants-have-been-affected-by-
covid-19/
Partner with a third-party delivery service or not? A prediction-and-Decision tool for restaurants
facing Takeout demand surges during a pandemic. (2022, January 21). Retrieved from
https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/serv.2021.0294
Pivot! How the restaurant industry adapted during COVID-19 restrictions. (2021, February 18).
Retrieved from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IHR-09-2020-
0052/full/html

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