Business Plan for Leon Restaurant

This business plan aims to help Leon Restaurant increase its sales and online presence by utilizing social media platforms and promotional tools. The plan includes specific objectives, measurable improvements, stakeholder engagement, analysis of costs, and compliance with legal requirements.

Business Plan

Contents
INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND..........................................................................................1
OUTLINE OF THE CHALLENGE................................................................................................1
AIMS & OBJECTIVES...................................................................................................................2
IDENTIFICATION OF MEASURABLE IMPROVEMENTS & BENEFITS...............................4
EVIDENCE OF STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT & CONSULTATION................................5
ANALYSIS OF COSTS & COMMERCIAL CONTEXT..............................................................5
LEGISLATIVE REQUIREMENTS................................................................................................6
EVIDENCE OF EFFECTIVE RESEARCH...................................................................................7
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPLEMENTATION...................................................................8
PROPOSED TIMEFRAMES FOR IMPLEMENTATION.............................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND
LEON is a food restaurant company which was established by John Vincent, Henry
Dimbleby and Chef Allegra McEvedy in the year 2004 with an objective of making it easier and
more accessible for every person to eat healthy food. Initial founder of the company had the
vision for the company to make healthy food consumption habits easier to adopt and thus, the
company became the first ever restaurant which displayed nutritional contents on its menus
(Westwood, 2013). The following statistics help in showcasing that the company has proved to
be successful in its operations domestically and has some good strengths. The company has now
opened 63 stores across UK, Europe and USA. The company’s sale in vegetarian and vegan
products has showed a massive boost to up to 64% and 55% in 2019. The founder of the
restaurant company has also made clear their plans for further internationalisation and expanding
to new areas and territories. Among the top competitors of Leon Restaurants, Bryon is the one
which was founded in 2007 in London and is giving a good competition the the company in
present date. McDonald’s & Subway are some other competitors which Leon should be aware
about. One of the major strength of the competitors of Leon is the strategy that they have adopted
to increase their sales by exploitation of social media platforms using marketing campaigns and
use of different channels such as online food delivery systems to give more and more customers
an easy access to their products. The company now focuses on increasing its sales to a level
where it can sustain and financial violability becomes an easy area for the company.
OUTLINE OF THE CHALLENGE
Leon restaurant company has been recognised for bringing a revolution in the food markets
across UK by offering fast food products with nutritional content which is healthy for
consumption. All the sales of the company are generally attributable to its loyal customers along
with few new customers added to the group at a stable rate over the years. The company has
managed to increase its sales over the years at a very high rate but when it comes to awareness
and brand recognition across the whole country, there is still a scope for the company to adopt
better campaigns and strategy to create awareness globally which helps in increasing its sales to
a significant extent (Bjerke and Renger, 2017). There is a huge opportunity for the company to
utilise the potential which lies in social media marketing and promotion tools such as in-house
discounts and offers to boost up the sales as well as increase the number of customers and
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market-share. The reason why this development and execution of this strategy is important
because with the hype that has been created by social media platforms such as Instagram and
snapchat in promoting a place within the target market without any requirement of further
investment is massive and has a great impact and effectiveness. Thus, it becomes very important
for the company to make use of these platforms and adopt marketing strategies relevant to the
changes taking place in business environment to maintain or increase its competitive strength
and market position.
AIMS & OBJECTIVES
This project aims at developing a business or a marketing plan which helps the company
Leon Restaurant to increase its sales and exploit the social media tools and platforms to its
benefit. The main purpose of carrying out this project is to help the management of the company
in development of a strategy which helps it to increase its online presence and awareness and
helps in increasing the sales of the company as well.
Every organisation or company sets different objectives for different time periods considering
the larger interest of the organisational goals and targets. Every objective or goal of a company
should be defined according to the SMART technique. SMART is an acronym which stands for
Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely (Bridge and Hegarty, 2012). According to
this, every objective that a company sets should be very specific in its definition and purpose,
should have a provision of being measured against its realised capacity, should be attainable,
relevant to the organisation’s mission and should have a clearly defined or stated timeline.
The objective of the Leon Restaurant is to “achieve a 10% growth in sales of the restaurant
over a duration of 6 months by using social media platforms and promotional tools.”
Ansoff Matrix:
Ansoff matrix is a business tool used by the management of any firm or organisation to
develop and prepare strategies for growth (Schawel and Billing, 2012). The matrix represents
four strategies that could be adopted by a business firm and evaluates the risk associated with
each strategy. The four strategies are:
Market penetration: It focuses on improving and boosting the revenue from a product within an
existing market.
Product development: Launching a new product into the existing market
Market development: Entering a new market using products which are already existing
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Diversification: Introducing a new product into a new market.
Market Penetration Product Development
Market Development Diversification
Increasing risk
Under this matrix, the risk increases with transition from each strategy to another strategy.
In the following project, management of the Leon Restaurant company is focusing on market
penetration strategies to increase the sales (Jacob, 2013). The tasks which are required to be
executed by the company for effectively implementing this strategy of market penetration are as
follows:
Tasks for achieving the objective:
Building a website: The first and foremost step or task for the management of the company
is to build a proper website with a great user interface and updating the existing website to have
better interaction opportunities in form of feedbacks and surveys.
Utilising social media platforms: There are a number of apps and pages on social media
platforms which are designated for helping restaurants and food joints in promotion and
marketing campaigns. Apps such as Instagram and Facebook have pages which can help in
creating awareness and spreading information about any restaurant service. The company needs
to create a page on both the channels promoting the food items that it offers along with the
nutritional benefits of its products. It is also extremely important to post frequently on such pages
and the company may need to hire a team of people for this purpose who can help in content
creation and managing the social media presence. Apps such as nutrifix where a user can build
his profile and the app finds eateries in the local area according to the requirements and bill
mentioned by the user in the profile have great potential in targeting the right customer market.
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The company should make arrangements to get linked with all such applications related to the
particular nutritional food industry.
Offering discounts and offers: The company needs to offer dine-in discounts and offers
according to the target customer which has a potential to attract and has a value for the customer.
Offering the right type of discount to the right segment of customer is very crucial in ensuring
the effectiveness of the marketing and promotion campaign (Williamson and Ghani, 2012). A
flat percentage discount system needs to be adopted along with some one plus one deals to
increase the attractiveness of the schemes. One plus one deal has to be launched by the company
on some food items on its menu wherein a customer gets the second food item free upon placing
an order for one such item.
IDENTIFICATION OF MEASURABLE IMPROVEMENTS & BENEFITS
Identification and measurement of tangible improvements and benefits of executing a
particular business plan with organisational context is as important as it is to strategically
develop a plan and implement it in the markets. The improvements suggested in the previous
section of the project will help the company to increase its sales and achieve the objective of
increasing sales and revenue optimally and the customers of the restaurant would also benefit
from the discount and schemes which are proposed to be offered under the strategy developed. It
will help the organisation increase profits and at the same time customer would also get a better
and increased value for his money spent.
For measuring the growth in the sales by deploying this business plan, weekly and monthly sales
chart and figures along with the sales graphs are to be considered which shows the trend of
increase or decline in the sales over a period of time (Eskerod and Jepsen, 2013). Along with
this, a customer feedback form with the aim of determining where did the customer come to
know about the restaurant and its food items will also be acquired to obtain information which
helps in ascertaining whether the increase in sales is because of the targeted marketing strategies
of the company or due to any other reason that may exist. Identifying the source of origin of
increased sales is very crucial to understand and comment on the effectiveness of the business
plan and marketing strategy adopted by the company for market penetration. This could be
effectively done with the help of customer feedback forms as suggested.
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EVIDENCE OF STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT & CONSULTATION
Stakeholder engagement and consultation is highly important for development of any
business plan or strategy for an organisation because these people have some power and
particular interest in the operational efficiency of the organisation (Finch, 2013). Stakeholder
matrix is a business tool used for analysing and classifying various stakeholders according to
their power and interest in the organisation. Upon such analysis for the company, three
categories of stakeholders were made:
TYPE POWER INTEREST ENGAGEMENT
Board of
Directors
High High Initial meeting where plan was
proposed and regular working
updates
Management High High Initial meeting along with updates
and reports on a weekly basis
Members Low Moderate A brief meeting to discuss better
implementation strategies
For engagement of stakeholders with high power and high interest like internal management
and board of directors of the company, a meeting was held on 15th March, 2020 at 4 p.m. wherein
the proposed business plan was discussed and suggestions and consultations regarding
implementations were sought. For membership and employee engagement, a meeting was
conducted on 18th March, 2020 at 4 p.m. involving briefing about the business plan and strategies
to implement this plan in a better way at the ground level were formed with the help of employee
suggestion and participation.
ANALYSIS OF COSTS & COMMERCIAL CONTEXT
There are many types of costs associated with the implementation of the proposed business
plan such as advertising costs, social media marketing costs, discounts and offers etcetera. An
analysis of each type of cost with the impact it could bring on the sales and hence profits is being
done below:
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LEGISLATIVE REQUIREMENTS
There are a lot of legal and law requirements which a restaurant company needs to comply
with to ensure smooth operations. Across UK, there are specifically two licenses that every
restaurant or food selling venture needs to obtain to operate. Food hygiene certificate issued by
the Food Standards Agency proves that a restaurant is aware of and operating under the health
and safety standards set by the law (Lewis, 2013). The restaurant company also needs to make
sure that the building or the premises where restaurant is operating is certified by the government
as safe according to the fire and emergency safety standards. General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR) is a set of rules which has been designed by the EU to give the citizens of the nation
more control over the privacy of their data. Under GDPR, organisations and business firms are
required to make sure that the user data is not being exploited and misused and privacy of users
is not being jeopardised. In this case, the management of the Leon Restaurant needs to make sure
that the feedback forms used for determining source of sale are designed according to the
instructions provided under GDPR and all the legal requirement and compliances are duly met
with.
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Particular Amount (£)
Advertising costs:
Website development costs:
Collaboration costs:
Cost of dine-in discounts:
Implementation costs:
Total costs
2000
1000
1500
750
1000
6250
Profit: 8000
Expected sales: 14,250

EVIDENCE OF EFFECTIVE RESEARCH
For carrying out the research and collection of information in this project, a number of
sources and methods were used including various forms which were filled by the shareholders
and the membership for identifying best strategies and ways to implement them. To understand
the effectiveness of different strategies and alternatives, results based on these strategies for
multiple other competitors were considered. For determining the information related to the costs
of various expenditures proposed to be incurred under the business plan it was not possible to
determine the exact figures but estimates were calculated on the consideration of past data and
forecasts made with the help of managers, finance team and other third parties.
Form to be filled by top-management and board of directors:
Q1. What according to you is the best approach for marketing and
promotion?
Q2. How do you think social media and marketing can be helpful in
increasing the sales?
Q3. What other tools of promotion can be used along with social media
marketing to increase the impact?
Q4. How do you think the impact created can be measured in terms
of sales and profit?
Form to be filled by membership and employees:
Q1. What according to you is the best approach for marketing and
promotion?
Q2. How often does a customer asks for any discounts or schemes
offered by the restaurant?
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Q3. What type of discounts and schemes on dine-in could have the
biggest impact?
Q4. According to you, how much willing are customers to fill-up
feedback forms?
On the basis of the responses of the above mentioned forms, the strategies and tools to be
used under the proposed business plan were decided and evaluation of each alternative was done
to arrive at the best possible conclusion.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPLEMENTATION
It is recommended to the management of the company to implement the business plan with
utmost diligence and understand the importance and role which each stakeholders has to play in
ensuring the effectiveness of the plan. The plan should be implemented in various stages which
will have many benefits for the company as well as the customer in terms of improved service
and better value for money. All the strategies discussed under the project needs to be
implemented at a periodic gap wherein the first and foremost step should be the development of
the website and social media collaboration (McKeever, 2016). Employees and stakeholders of
the company can help and support in the implementation process. Employees can help in
reviewing the impact at ground level and top-management can provide useful consultation and
guidance in the course of plan implementation.
PROPOSED TIMEFRAMES FOR IMPLEMENTATION
Various task needs to be executed within different timeframes for the best possible results
and impact. The proposed timeframe for implementation of each strategy is just a guideline and
no strict compulsion for the management to follow, according to the situation of the business
environment and initial responses, alterations can be made in the timeframe accordingly.
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STAGE DURATION EXECUTION STRATEGY
Stage I First 3 weeks Website building and increase of presence on
social media platforms like Facebook and
Instagram
Stage II Next 2 weeks Collaboration with various food blogging apps
alongwith dine-in discounts and offers
Stage III Next 1 month Measurement of impact on sales and
alternations to be made if required in the
business plan for further implementation
It is important to understand that the results obtained under final stage depends on the
succesful implementation of first two stages so the management needs to make sure that the
company is implementing the first two stages with utmost deligence and sincerity.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bjerke, M.B. and Renger, R., 2017. Being smart about writing SMART objectives. Evaluation
and program planning. 61. pp.125-127.
Bridge, S. and Hegarty, C., 2012. An alternative to business plan based advice for start-
ups?. Industry and Higher Education. 26(6). pp.443-452.
Eskerod, P. and Jepsen, A.L., 2013. Project stakeholder management. Gower Publishing, Ltd..
Finch, B., 2013. How to write a business plan (Vol. 35). Kogan Page Publishers.
Jacob, M., 2013. The UK School Food Plan Objectives. World Food Regulation Review. 23(4).
p.22.
Lewis, J., 2013. In Practice. Perspectives in Public Health. 133(6). p.290.
McKeever, M., 2016. How to write a business plan. Nolo.
Schawel, C. and Billing, F., 2012. Ansoff-Matrix. In Top 100 Management Tools (pp. 22-24).
Gabler Verlag, Wiesbaden.
Westwood, J., 2013. How to write a marketing plan. Kogan Page Publishers.
Williamson, O. and Ghani, T., 2012. Transaction cost economics and its uses in
marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. 40(1). pp.74-85.
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