ACTIVITY 3

High performance team case

SITUATION

The restaurant where I worked in the past, had an excess of demand at Christmas
time, increasing its sales up to 300%, the strange thing was that despite having more
sales than usual, profits were increasingly lower, in the last year there were even
losses, although it has been considered a much better date than the previous ones.
The owner could not explain what was happening, he even thought that some of the
workers were stealing or there was some mistake.

The owner decided to investigate what was happening, it was not logical that every
time sales increased, profits went down, so he decided to talk to each of the workers
and apparently everything was working properly, however when he talked to the
sales department he realized that there were oversales, more orders were accepted
that exceeded the capacity of the company, and the kitchen manager had the
permission to request more supplies wherever he wanted to cover "sales
emergencies", he could also hire more staff on a temporary basis if necessary.

RESPONSE

In response to the problem, the owner decided to hold a meeting where he called
the sales manager, operations manager, and kitchen manager and began to discuss
the situation, asking each of them for a sale and purchasing report for the last three
years, for the months of November and December. They all came to the conclusion
that the problem involved all areas, due to poor planning and lack of communication
between the different departments, for example, the marketing area was doing a
good job but had a fight with the sales department. The sales department was also
doing a good job, but they were accepting all orders, even overnight orders.

The operations department was also doing a good job planning the purchase of
supplies, based on a year ago, but there was no good communication with the sales
department, and finally, the head chef, who had permission to make emergency
ACTIVITY 3
High performance team case

purchases and even hire people on a temporary basis, did so

in the places where it was more expensive, his argument being that he cared for
quality.

RESULTS

To act on the major problems that could end the company, it was decided to hire an
external consultant to develop a plan to strengthen the organizational culture and
communication between the different departments was assertive and there was a
better teamwork. Secondly, it was decided to create a budget planning for the
organization based on the previous year's sales.

Thirdly, it was decided to implement a software that would help to visualize each of
the movements of the areas involved, through a mobile application, the sales
department could visualize if it was possible to accept more orders according to the
company's inventory and when an order was sent, the kitchen manager could better
organize the staff for deliveries and thus avoid hiring more staff or making
emergency purchases that increased costs.

LEARNING

The problem of many restaurants is precisely this, that when increasing their sales,
many times their profits are lower, the main problem is the high costs generated by
poor inventory planning, oversales, inefficiencies in cost management and high food
waste. To solve this problem, it is necessary to analyze costs and inventory
management to identify areas for improvement.

Then, measures such as a periodic cost review, improved inventory management

and price adjustment can be implemented to ensure a balance between sales and
profits. In addition, it is advisable to have a cost and inventory tracking and control
system in place to constantly monitor costs and sales and make the necessary
ACTIVITY 3
High performance team case

adjustments to maintain a balance between the two. Finally, it

is important to review in detail the root cause of a problem because it leads to more
problems.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jenkins, A. (2021, February 8th). 8 Best Practices in Restaurant Inventory

Management. Retrieved February 05th, 2023 from
https://www.netsuite.com/portal/resource/articles/inventory-
management/restaurant-inventory-management.shtml

Koko, M. (2018, November 12th). Measuring and optimizing inventory management

processes for Restaurant X. Retrieved February 05th, 2023 from
https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/156137/Measuring and
optimizing inventory management processes for Restaurant
X.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Perfect Venue. (2022, August 4th). Restaurant Inventory Management: Tips & Best
Practices. Retrieved February 05th, 2023 from
https://www.perfectvenue.com/post/restaurant-inventory-management