Food4u, Inc - the Pizza Competition

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- New Competitive Priorities Kershaw should choose to focus on now shall be:

- Enhance the Service Level

Food4u should maintain the delivery service to the entire campus because the new food court and the Pizza Hut do not provide delivery service. It is a value-added service to help Food4u to retain its market share.

- Identify Customer’s Needs

As Pizza Hut offers very limited pizza selections, Food4u can offer a better variety in its menu to compete with Pizza Hut, such as offer more combinations of pizza toppings, and include other side dish.

- Enhance the Level of Convenience

As Pizza Hut only accepts “walk-up-and-order” and does not accept phone orders, Food4u gains the advantage because it accepts phone orders. On top of that, Food4u can also further enhance the convenience by accepting various means of order through WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.

- Provide Flexibility

Food4u can consider prolonging its business hours to cover the non-meal hours in addition to the current breakfast hours, lunch hours and dinner hours. This is another angle of competitive advantage especially during the examination seasons whereby students can easily find food regardless of the time during the whole day.

Apart from that, Food4u also can run a Van to sell food during off days such as on holidays, and on events or celebrations.

Question 4:

If she were to change the competitive priorities for pizza operation, what are the gaps between the priorities and capabilities of her processes? How might that affect her operating processes and capacity decisions?

If Kershaw were to change the competitive priorities for pizza operations, there might be gaps between priorities and capabilities of processes as follows:-

- Space Constraint

Food4u was facing limited space and insufficient equipment in meeting the growing demand because the capacity of the existing equipment was insufficient for making and cooking pizzas. Sometimes they had to split the preparation and baking process into 2 or 3 sessions for a single order, especially when student groups were starting to order pizzas in big volume for in campus functions. If Food4u upgrades its equipment and install a new oven, with more space being allocated for preparation and storage, the kitchen will become very congested.

- Shortage in Manpower

During peak times of high order volume, they faced shortage of manpower in the preparation and staging stages. Hiring more workers can solve the problem, but it would result in overly crowded working area which would affect the waiting time, and it may pose a safety risk too.

- Operations Efficiency Issue

Foof4u’s current menu is limited in variety. If they were to increase the food choice and variety, they could expect to gain higher profits. However, this would result in other pullbacks such as more complicated preparation process and longer waiting time.

- Workers and Staff Welfare

If Food4u decided to prolong its business hours, they need to ensure sufficient manpower, as well as to perform proper job coordination. Skilled workers may not be easy to hire, and most workers may not be willing to work for long hours. Even if workers were willing to work for long hours, it might pose a health risk or neglected welfare to the workers.

- Cost Control

Food4u needs to juggle the balance between the pros and cons of enhancements and expansion. For instance, if they were to offer better food variety or to upgrade the service level, they need to ensure that the operating costs are not rising drastically in order to keep the expenses under control, hence to maintain its profitability.

Question 5:

What would be a good service strategy for Kershaw’s operations on campus to meet the food court competition?

The following are some suggestions of good service strategy for Food4u to meet the food court competition:-

- Advertisement and Promotions

Food4u can promote its food offerings and its brand name via the University’s Facebook page, or by distributing flyers in certain common areas. This can help to remind the customers of the existing menu, as well as to promote any new menu.

Apart from that, Food4u can consider to offer promotion packages during specific time zone, or value add-ons with cheaper price. They can also encourage re-purchase by giving out vouchers upon purchase.

- Identifying and Meeting Customers’ Needs

Food4u should continue to carry-out regular customer survey to identify customers’ needs, and to keep update of customers’ feedback. This not only can help Food4u to detect any customers’ preference change, it can help to detect any decrease in service level too. Hence, quick rectification and action plans can be implemented to salvage the damage, and business performance can be closely monitored.

- Launch Seasonal Food

Food4u can come up with “special” or “exclusive” food type on seasonal basis. For instance, a special dessert or a special main course is available only on Wednesday, or the special “Christmas Set Meal” is launched only during the December month, and so forth.

Besides that, Food4u can also create special recipe of delightful cakes and cookies, and giveaway for free-tasting in order to attract bigger crowd.

- Facilitate Comfortable and Enjoyable Environment

Food4u can provide comfortable environment in order to retain its customers. This includes providing comfortable tables and chairs with separated partitions, maintain clean washrooms, provide free internet wifi, and play some soft music.

- Create an Image of Professionalism

Food4u can let all of its staffs wear a standardized uniform to create a systematic and professional image. Food4u also needs to take care of its staff benefits and staff welfare, and keep the staffs motivated and happy because happy workers will bring happy