Internal Analysis of Mr Empanadas Restaurant - Research Paper Example

Module Internal Analysis of Mr. Empanada’s Restaurant The Mr. Empanada restaurant is a successful fast-casual dining franchise located Tampa, Florida. It was launched by Albert and Audrey Perez in 1984. The couple would sell it six years later only to re-launch it 13 years after selling it. In the year 2012, Mr. Empanada expanded to include an additional four franchises. The restaurant has even been launched in St. Petersburg, in Russia (Mr. Empanada). Mission/Vision Analysis The mission of the Mr. Empanada’s restaurant is to offer customers delicious cuisine with friendly service at an affordable price. Its vision as a restaurant is to exceed all the expectations of its clients while also giving back to the company that has supported it. According to its vision, Mr. Empanada will soon make its special delicacies as well known by the American public as hamburgers and pizza (Mr. Empanada). Product/services Identification The main food products created by the Mr. Empanada restaurant are empanadas. Empanadas are actually fried or baked stuffed pastries. They are a Spanish delicacy that has been adopted in many nations due to their delicious taste. It is believed that the Empanada recipe was originally developed in the Middle East but was carried to Spanish Europe by tourists and travelers. Today, Empanadas can be found in almost all nations of the world; with each culture using its preferred stuffing or altering the recipe to suit local tastes. Customer Identification One of the reasons why Mr. Empanada is so successful is because it puts such a high premium on providing the very best for its customers (Yang and Fu 117). For example, Mr. Empanada often tries to implement the advice that is given in customer reviews when seeking to improve its services. It views customer feedback as a way through which to gauge the popularity of its products and service with its best customers. VALUE CHAIN OF MR. EMPANADA’S RESTAURANT Inbound Logistics Mr. Empanada’s value stems from the abilities its value chain has to distinguish its offerings from other fashionable restaurants, its reduction of overall costs by streamlining operations, and supplying tasty and healthy meals through high quality service (Terry). Mr. Empanada purchases a variety of raw materials to create its food products. Most of its raw vegetables are procured from fixed suppliers. Mr. Empanada also favors the practice of backward integration to ensure that all unnecessary costs are reduced, and also to make sure that it only uses the best quality of products to produce its foodstuffs. It is necessary for the outfit at Armenia Avenue to have distribution networks that can carry food stuffs ready for preparation to each of Mr. Empanada’s six restaurants based in Florida (Mr. Empanada). The restaurant has enormous warehouses from which food supplies are shipped by truck to the different restaurants around Florida. Every franchise of Mr. Empanada is part of a centralized chain management process; with only the Russian branch which handles its own distribution and warehousing operations. In the past, operations at the Mr. Empanada restaurant were tracked. The restaurants managers would keep an inventory on food objects and utensils, among other things. Everything that was needed for the restaurant to operate on various shifts would be ordered for on the day before from the distribution center. However, changes were made which made it easier to follow the business operations. With the introduction of automation, the various requirements of different franchises are noted and recorded by a computer. The normal routine today is that the distribution center at Armenia Avenue ships the needed items to various franchises by following a regular schedule. This has allowed the restaurant to be able to serve more customers faster and more efficiently. It has also allowed the business to benefit from cost cutting through discounts that it gets from regular supplies when it regularly purchases whole sale products (Partridge). Outbound Logistics  All the Empanadas that are sold by the restaurant are actually created within the 2,000 square foot production outlet at the Armenia Avenue (Mr. Empanada). All the necessary ingredients are specially prepared in different facilities and then transported to the main facility at the Armenia Avenue. The food substances made by the Mr. Empanada restaurant are the traditional offerings that are the regular fare in ordinary fast food restaurants. Its healthy meals have won the restaurant a diversity of customers from all age-groups and nationalities. The restaurant also regularly receives tenders to provide food for hospitals, schools, and even country clubs. Its consistent production of healthy and well-prepared foodstuffs has ensured Mr. Empanada’s survival even in the face of problems such as the national economic recession which affected numerous businesses in the restaurant industry. The Mr. Empanada restaurant uses only the best ingredients to create its gastronomical delights. For example, all the beef used is of top quality range while the crab meat used for stuffing in some empanadas is imported from Venezuela. The dough used for the Empanadas is fashioned and then filled with different kinds of stuffing through machines. Philadelphia cream cheese is consistently used by the restaurant to make sure that the quality of the Empanadas stays consistent. Mr. Empanada produces mini as well as large sized empanadas. The restaurant also prepares salads, French fries, and soups for its guests. One of the reasons why Mr. Empanada has been so successful in the Southeast is because it caters for a niche market. There are no other restaurants in the area offering specialty foods or even producing Empanadas alone. This means that the Mr. Empanada has a lot of opportunity for greater expansion in the absence of serious business rivals (Wilson). At present, the Mr. Empanada restaurant has seven establishments; five of which are located in the Tampa bay area (Mr. Empanada). The restaurant is committed to supplying through superior service the highest quality food in a welcoming environment. This is why the restaurant has engaged its employees, contractors and distributors in finding ways of providing the best service for its customers. This is also why the restaurant tries to ensure that it serves healthy foods such as soups and salads in addition to its main specialty. Mr. Empanada is also focused on ensuring that it makes use of sustainable packaging methods while also ensuring that the materials used to create packaging for its foods are easily disposed of. Retaining Customer Loyalty In most cases, restaurants such as Mr. Empanada’s are reliant on repeat customers for more business (Jones 365). However, today’s customer is more demanding than was the case just a few years ago. Customers today do not just want an enjoyable eating experience. They want to be entertained and made to feel like they are part of an innovative and trendy new outlet. To deal with this need, many restaurants have turned to social media sites to engage their customers. Many often use gift vouchers for first time customers; or those who purchase a given number of foodstuffs. Along with doing this, Mr. Empanada has supported the creation of a social media site in which customers can speak about their experiences with each other. This is done in the background of a renovated site that has enough ingredients that give a feeling of the restaurant’s special ambiance. For example, in the restaurant’s site, there are different pictures of the offerings of the restaurants as well as the testimonies of the people who have attended the restaurant (Mr. Empanada). The website is also designed in such a way that all its basic functions are easily accessible to even visitors who may not know much about how to operate a computer. A website’s ‘usability’ is one of the key factors that determines whether people decide to read about the information provided, or simply turn to other web pages. Mr. Empanada’s is currently involved in further renovating its website so that customers will have more options when they visit it. There are restaurants with sites in which cus­tomer loy­alty pro­grams are made available through the website. This is a type of change that would increase Mr. Empanada’s proceeds. Mr. Empanada at present has begun a system of providing customers with their meals in their workplace or places of residence. This is a move to retain its customer base in light of the invasion of larger fast food operations such as Dominos, which have larger operations and bigger budgets to work with. In matters concerning delivery, it is the speed with which customers receive their meals, known as the delivery rate that matters. Mr. Empanada has also made the decision to launch into a foreign market (Gibson, Mentzer, and Cook 19). This will provide it with numerous growth opportunities. Russia, where the first international franchise of Mr. Empanada is based also has different culinary preferences and a large population. This means that the restaurant has a lot of choice when choosing its main dishes as well as side dishes. Mr. Empanada will also benefit from the fact that it is the only restaurant that specializes in the production of empanadas that is operating in Russia (Mr. Empanada). Russia’s current population also has a larger disposable income than was available in past generations. The current population also has a large percentage of their salaries put aside for discretionary spending. With an inoffensive menu which has different types of foods offered at cheap local prices to Russia’s working population, it is likely that the restaurant will get a large customer base supporting its first international franchise. Works Cited Ang, Hui, and &Hsin Wei Fu. “Creating and Sustaining competitive advantages of hospitality industry.” Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge 12.1 (2007): 113-119. Gibson, Brian, John Mentzer & Robert Cook. “Supply chain management: The pursuit of a consensus definition.” Journal of Business Logistics 26.2 (2005): 17-25 Jones, Peter. “Impact of the global recession on the hospitality and tourism industry.” Tourism and Hospitality Research 9.4 (2009): 363-367. Mr. Empanada. “Franchise Corporation” 2013. Web. 11 October 2013. http://mrempanadafranchisecorp.com/aboutus.html Partridge, Amy, Roach. “Foodservice logistics brings value to the table”, 2011. 11 October 2013. http://www.cdcsupply.com/pdf/InboundLogisticsArticle_BrinkerYumDelTacoCDC_SCvalue_Dec2011.pdf Terry, Lisa. “Hospitality Logistics: Supply Chains Made to Order”, 2007. 11 October 2013. http://www.inboundlogistics.com/cms/article/hospitality-logistics-supply-chains-made-to-order/ Wilson, Don. “Today’s logistics management challenges.” Dairy Foods 110.12 (2009): 66 Read More