” We are really not in the business of making food”¦. We are in the business of feeding people” John Martin Background Prior to 1983, Taco Bell had 40% of the Mexican food market, but only a negligible market share of the overall fast food market. It was apparent that something needed to be done if Taco Bell was going to compete successfully in the fast food market. The Taco Bell of the early 1980s was: · Production labor intensive with a low level of technology; a white board was used to keep track of orders and a manual system was used for administrative tasks.
· Preparing raw, fresh food daily, which resulted in customer delays.
· Cooking food on-site, resulting in variations in food taste and quality.
· 70% food preparation and cooking space and 30% customer service space, with no drive through service.
· Managed by three levels of managers who took part in all daily activities of the restaurant, while district managers acted as “corporate cop.” 1983-1988: The First Wave – Establishing Direction and Implementing Incremental Change””New CEO John Martin has a plan.
With John Martin at the helm a series of changes were implemented to force a paradigm shift in the corporate mindset and to facilitate Taco Bell’s ability to compete more successfully in the fast food market, Taco Bell did the following to establish a firm and marketable identity: · Modernized physical units “” Stores were remodeled, seating capacity was increased, drive-through windows were installed, new signs were created, and employees were outfitted in more modern uniforms.
The Business plan on Taco Bell Marketing
Which looking at the results creates the ideal opportunity in opening a relatively new fast food concept, which provides a different cuisine from the current trends in a fast food format into the Hong Kong market. Environmental Analysis SWOT Analysis Strengths| Weaknesses| 1. Established a huge brand awareness and loyalty. Tremendous amounts of consumer satisfaction. | 1. Local consumer tastes ...
· Added new menu items.
· Accelerated company growth “” Averaged 249 new stores per year and increased geographic presence to the Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast · Streamlined food-handling “” A new assembly line was installed that improved product-flow, increased capacity, and made serving easier; white boards were replaced with cash registers linked to television monitors over the assembly line.
1988-1991: Second Wave – Transformation of the Business “Restaurants can, in fact, operate by themselves. The bottom line is there is no rocket science in a fast food restaurant. The difficulty is that you have 1,500 things all going on at once”¦. The typical top down command and control can’t deal with those things under any circumstances.” John Martin In 1988, Taco Bell decided that since its primary focus was delivery of food””the actual food preparation was a tangential element. This created a new business strategy focused on customer value. The company adopted value pricing, which meant a need for reduction in costs for the company and radical changes to accomplish the goal. The following changes were implemented: · K-Minus (Kitchen Minus) “” The kitchen became a heating and assembly unit to which pre-cooked and pre-prepared ingredients were delivered by corporate headquarters; space was inverted from 70% kitchen 30% customer to 70% customer service and 30% kitchen.
Ø Impact – Enabled dramatic improvements in efficiency, tighter control of consistency and quality of food, expanded seating capacity, and a decrease in real estate expenses in proportion to sales and aggregate labor costs · FACT – Fast food (Fast, Accurate orders, Clean restaurants, food served at appropriate Temperature) Ø Impact – Change in traditional way of thinking that quality and price were incompatible tradeoffs. Taco Bell estimated that 60 % of all fast food orders delivered are incorrect.
· SOS (Speed of Service) “” Recipes were reformulated and heated holding areas were developed.
The Term Paper on Northwestern University Customer Customers Marketing
The advent of modern information and telecommunication technologies has made a lot of the traditional mammoth task easier to apprehend, for example, the management of a huge database within a company. Certainly within the past decade, technologies have in a way enabled new management disciplines to materialise. These include customer relationship marketing (CRM); knowledge management (KM); ...
Ø Impact – Reduced customer waiting time by 71%.
· Safety nets “” Toll-free telephone numbers for customers to comment on restaurants, food, and service; mystery shoppers rated restaurants on specific quality issues and the reports were used to calculate bonuses for Restaurant general managers (RGMs); marketing surveys were given to customers at unannounced times and the data was used to calculate bonuses and how the chain was viewed by customers.
Ø Impact – These were the “controls” used to evaluate conformance with company objectives. The focus was changed from policing the restaurants to performance-based evaluations.
· Information Infrastructure, “Total Automation of Company Operations” (TACO) “” This MIS program consisted of a personal computer installed in every store and linked to a point-of-sale system, to marketing managers, and to corporate headquarters; provided information and analytical tools needed to support new management roles while reducing paperwork and providing feedback in the form of reports and projections of demands. The computer generated information could be disregarded at managers’ discretion based upon special knowledge, i.e., there is a football game tonight so expect to be crowded around 10pm.
Ø TACO reduced the operational paperwork for Restaurant General Managers (RGM) by 10 hours a week.
Ø Marketing Managers were able to receive daily, weekly and monthly reports on stores in their areas.
Ø Senior Managers were able to download sales information directly from the store’s register to the central register.
· Changing role of managers “” Restaurant General Managers (RGM) were given more responsibility and accountability. They were trained in operational policies and procedures and leadership areas such as coaching and restaurant communication; district managers became marketing managers whose span of control increased to 20 restaurants, which forced them to manage by coaching rather than as enforcing and inspecting; to replace Marketing Managers who could not meet expectations the company looked outside the industry for MBA graduates and non-food executives who could coach and develop RGMs while building business · Incentives “” Increased skill level and responsibility for RGMs led to a raise in salary and target incentive bonuses, along with opportunity to expand responsibility and pay by opening new stores; marketing managers’ salaries were based on strength of performance, complexity of market; job tenure and jobs could expand by growing business in their area, assuming a new position within the expanding business, becoming an international market manager, or moving into the new retail side of the business.
The Term Paper on Patient Information Management System Documentation
The software methodology followed in this project includes the object-oriented methodology and Iteration methodologies. It starts with an initial planning and ends with deployment with the cyclic interactions in between. The basic idea behind this method is to develop a system through repeated cycles (iterative) and in smaller portions at a time (incremental), allowing software developers to take ...
1991-1994: Creating a Learning Organization Taco Bell’s sales had more than doubled (Revenues in 1983–$700 million, 1991 to $1.6 billion, and in 1993–$4 Billion) while at the same time profits tripled, but the decision was made to further modify the business strategy in order to reach out to customers any time and place they were hungry. The goal was to evolve into a $25 billion food retailer with a worldwide distribution system of over 200,000 POAs by the year 2000. Taco Bell acquired other restaurant chains and expanded its range of retail brands in order to help achieve its goal. In addition, the following changes were implemented: · Resource sharing “” Managers identified how the strengths of the existing infrastructure within Pepsi Co. could support the new ventures.
· Creation of a Learning Organization able to capture, share and react to current information better and faster than competitors by absorbing experiences and information and quickly sharing the experience throughout the organization; the benefits include greater organizational flexibility and increased individual productivity.
In order to create a learning organization, Taco Bell had to refine its organizational design. The managers’ span of responsibility was enlarged once again. The following changes were also made: · TMUs (Team-Managed Units) “” Teams of crew members became self-sufficient and were able to manage a store without a full-time on-site manager.
· Incentives “” Managers’ salaries were raised depending on performance at meeting profit targets, customer service ratings, and actual stores sales.
· Building an intellectual network”” TACO II allowed employees to ask questions, get answers, and perform their jobs better by disseminating information in a user friendly easy to understand manner. For example, a team member may not understand a report that indicates a 5% variance in the meat used on a particular shift. The TACO II system would “translate” this into more easily understood terms – 5% meat variance =+- 300 tacos. The TACO II system was not only focused at the team level. Management was able to post pre-reviewed legal documents for use in real estate transactions. Additionally, shared databases became a key component of the new system. Managers were able to draw on each other’s experiences. Corporate communications were enhanced through the use of email, voice mail, and computer conferencing.
The Term Paper on Information Systems and Organization
This paper, and the special issue, address relationships between information systems and changes in the organization of modern enterprise, both within and across firms. The emerging organizational paradigm involves complementary changes in multiple dimensions. The revolution in information systems merits special attention as both cause and effect of the organizational transformation. This can be ...
· Ongoing innovation “” A restaurant-of-the-future testing site near headquarters allow advances to be tested before being introduced in stores. (The Automated Taco Maker – 900 per hour, touch screen order system) Jim: I would just finish with something about their operations now””here’s a few bullets: PepsiCo spun off Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken to form Tricon Foods (YUM).
Tricon is the second largest fast food conglomerate in the world, trailing only the McD
