I visit a restaurant near my office on quite a regular basis. Named X (name hidden, coz the case study is my creation), it boasts of being the best vegetarian outlet on M.G.Road. And I believe they face a small issue now.
All that I write could be hypothetical, and meaningless for some. Nevertheless, it could be food for thought for the rest.
Now X, when it started off, was sparsely populated primarily due to the lack of good advertisement. It gained ground on that part, but still wasn’t able to ping in a major crowd. The reason – M.G.Road is a place where corporates would come out mainly for their lunch, at all other times, they simply dont find enough reason to roam around.
X catered to a multi-ethnic group, and has a whole range of Indian veggie cuisine available. However, a mid-day meal (they call it as an executive thali) costed 80 bucks. X soon realised that to popularise their place, they need to introduce something new, and they did. The South Indian thali that they are providing costs 50 bucks, and thats the price which a majority of unlimited course lunches at offer on MG Road.
They then had to assure themselves that the taste should be sufficiently good in order to pull the new customers. Unsurprisingly, they have achieved that off late.
What bothers me although is the loss of some customers at the same point. With comparatively longer serving times, X has an issue of stuffing in more people in its space. They have two constraints, neither can they afford to increase the floor space to accommodate more seating capacity, nor can they increase the waiting line capacity. As a result of it, they have started losing customers on a regular baiss, those who wait outside for eternity and decide to move on as one always has options on M.G.Road. What more, this has adversely affected their customers who not only come for their lunch but also their evening snacks.
Can anyone provide a good solution wherein they can retain their present customers, and at the same time afford to continue with the attraction of a thali ?
March 3, 2008 at 10:57 am
How about adding a service like ‘door-to-door delivery’.
March 3, 2008 at 6:04 pm
nice idea … infact pretty smart.
But are midday meals a smart package for door to door delivery ?
March 4, 2008 at 2:19 am
I would say, improve speed. The dichotomy of speed vs quality has to end. If people can find better or faster lunches (either), there’s no guarantee they will keep coming. Then, improve advertising.
One point to consider – how many people would really want an unlimited thali on a daily basis? Do you want to stuff yourself so you go snooze in the office? It may be OK for them to reduce servings to achieve speed.
March 4, 2008 at 5:51 am
ghurri, speed is MUST… i spend 15 mins a day per lunch… if i eat too slow, or if the lunch comes late, I have to spend on the auto to go to office.. which costs lot more!
So more hands on cooking, or ready arrangements,,, whatever it takes to speedup the system
March 4, 2008 at 12:33 pm
@arun
Its a limited thali. What I meant was that its the same price which some other unlimited ones take.
@2d
whatever — what is that “whatever”. Suggestions require clarity
March 4, 2008 at 3:10 pm
You know, given a limited meal, midday meals aren’t too bad a deal. Specially if the restaurant develops a contract or something with one or more offices on MG Road. I mean, they can then accommodate more people there and the office-wallahs can eat in the office itself. Follow a dabba system or have the office hire a caterer to serve people or something.
March 5, 2008 at 12:37 am
Apart from bathu’s solution, this is what that can be done;
Firstly two assumptions:
1. X could not attract customers in the initial phase mainly owing to high cost of executive Thali and lack of some new items.
2. Reduction in existing customers is mainly due to long waiting time.
Now considering my assumptions, I would proceed to the solution as follows:
Waiting time can be reduced in the following ways:
(a) Increase of speed
(b) Decrease of people eating at the restaurant.
The first case (a) can be achieved by increasing the staff at the restaurant.
The second case (b) can be achieved in couple of options: One is what bathu has already proposed. Second is slightly counter-intuitive. This is what that can be done. Improve the ambience (or may be quality) of the restaurant and increase the cost of south Indian thali to say 60 bucks (not to 70 or 80). This would cause only really interested customers who care more than price to visit that place. Though this would slightly decrease the number of new customers, that cost will be offset by increase in costs of the South Indian Thali.
Ok…there is another wacky solution that I propose. Have an online reservation system (especially during the lunch time) where in interested customers can assure a seating place 1 or 2 hours before the lunch time. The online reservation system would also show availability of the seats. This would not make customers unnecessarily wait in the queues etc…However this solution has its obvious disadvantages (which I would not get into)
Final solution depends on the situation of firm i.e does it have sufficient capital etc to make the changes necessary
March 5, 2008 at 2:31 am
Hehe, as whacky as it is, does make sense. Isn’t this what they mean by advanced reservation – the only issue is, do you really want to do something like this for lunch?
Also would increase in cost of a thali require the management to show specifically why they increased it, not just the quality but also the say something like increase in the number of items.
Ok, so here is my suggestion. If thali is what most people end up eating why dont they just end up having a buffet. The issue with a regular serving place is that half the time a customer is sitting is spent waiting for food and the other eating. Having a buffet reduces this wait time and increases the turnover. There can be an option for ‘order what you want’ but they would be lesser in number.
March 5, 2008 at 4:59 am
to improve upon Pig’s above sugegstion, I’d say.. have membership coupons on a weekly basis (not monthly, cos that would be really long, and people might not eat at that place for a whole month).. but say, coupon-tickets for 10 days.
It solves the following purposes:
a. no need for ‘computer’ reservation or phone calls
b. The restaurant knows the number of regular people per day (and hence can arrange the buffet for them, which will reduce wastage)
c. As this is the buffet, shorter times (na said)
d. If people really get bored they’d switch to the otehr restaurants anyways (hence dont waste too much on 30 day coupons)
e. put limited validity on the coupons (valid for a month).. that way, the hotel saves on the number of un-eaten meals (hehehe, atleast 1-2 coupons of the bunch will be unused)
f. The hotel can give higher preference to their regular customers, and some order will be established! others, can wait!!
March 5, 2008 at 5:08 am
I never knew that such a lot of crap can get so many replies … just goes to show people like to reason more than anything else.
Shall try to post more of such case studies, in the meantime, I request you all to think the reason for such dwindling populations visiting this blog, I mean … ppl cant be that too busy that they literally dont get time to open such a harmless website everyday
March 5, 2008 at 9:21 am
fight crap with crap ani evadooo annadu(read: mr. lfart)
March 5, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Your question: Is mid-day meals a smart package for door-door delivery.
My answer would be – It can be made into one!
The main constraint that you mentioned was that of retaining your customers
by providing them food at the same cost without compromising on the quality or
by changing the menu and the price. Now think of this. Consider packaging a typical
south-indian thali/meal(my assumption if it works for south-indian meal then it will work as hell for north indian meal). Typically you would consider packaging a meal by
putting the food stuff(rice, dal ,two curries, a raita, and say a sweet) in separate aluminium foil packets, which are safe and preserve the quality, and the essence of eating cooked food. By doing so the restaurenteer will meet the first two constraints that of not losing any of his existing customers(infact he can make more customers out of this) and also to preserve the quality of the food. But he will incur additional costs of packaging and operational costs for running a delivery joint which includes paying salaries for delivery boys + transport costs + additional costs. And he will have to do this y not violating the third and 4th constraints. The only way out is he will have to cut down his margin on a single meal. But since this a new service which he is extending from the existing menu, he has the option of introducing meal types( roti-meal mini-roti meal rice-meal mini-rice meal and for people with larger appetites a large meal ) and so on. this will to an extent cut down the additional burden incurred .
March 5, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Avunu ra gadida ghurram ga (Btw, dear raghuram), nuvvu emayina gumasta udyogam nundi vantamanishi udyoganiki job change kottadaniki prayatnistunnava? (Are you trying to change jobs from a secretary to a cook?) Inlanti case studies analyze chestunnavu (that you are analyzing such stuff).
March 6, 2008 at 5:36 am
Abbov, mast translation saar (Hey dude, thats a great way to translate). Ilaganna tamalanti busy vyaktulu ee blog ki vacchi ilanti comments raastaaru ane aasa toh nenu modaletta ee case study series (I felt that busy ppl like you might visit the blog just to solve such case studies, and hence have planned to start a series).
Please guys, all those stuck up in the initial euphoria are out I guess, only those who really see the need of this place and visiting, the rest as they say are the rest !!!
March 6, 2008 at 6:42 am
gumasta to cook to translator .. what a transformation!!
March 6, 2008 at 11:30 am
I want the blog from bathu or sandy please… been a really ling time since those guys showed up! cheers, bug them till they are in! and not some case studies but other stuff… please please… i will give them 2 bucks
March 6, 2008 at 12:09 pm
btw do akkala and party know abt this website ? also nune et.al. ??
March 7, 2008 at 5:29 am
2 bucks? i wont do it even for 100 bucks.
March 7, 2008 at 9:54 am
Are consulting fees ivvakunda entha mandi opinions isthunnaro
Ghurri is really talented…
Mama Hotel open chese plans emanna vunnaya?
Mamaaaaaaa
April 1, 2008 at 12:07 am
Exactly, amma Ghurri ………manchi plan vesi motham IITians brain kelli solutions laagesdham ane. If X is your case study, then why dont u find out the solution yourself then asking us. I will provide my solution only if you can reveal the name of X. Because policies and solutions change by the restaurants. So I need to know more about X.
Avunu nuvvu emaina consultancy pettava, anni ilanti problems gurinchi aduguthunnavu. Pedithe cheppu memu andharu kuda tala oka idea icchi partners ayyipotham