BUS 290 Case Study: Strategic Analysis of Morrison's Dilemma

This case study delves into the challenges faced by Irie Caribbean Restaurant, owned by Leroy Morrison, in downtown Toronto. The restaurant struggles with declining sales, profitability, and market share despite offering unique Caribbean cuisine. The analysis identifies key problems such as poor demand, high operational costs, and ineffective marketing strategies. Alternatives are explored, including improved human resource management, leveraging existing customers, innovation in food presentation, and upselling techniques. The report recommends social media marketing, gathering customer feedback, democratic leadership, and online ordering platforms to improve business functioning and ensure long-term sustainability. The case study highlights the importance of strategic management and adaptation for businesses in competitive environments, offering valuable insights for students and practitioners alike. Desklib provides comprehensive resources for similar case studies and business-related assignments.

Running head: BUSINESS STRATEGY
Business strategy
Name of student
Name of University
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Background information............................................................................................................3
Specific area of interest..............................................................................................................3
Specific problem........................................................................................................................4
Alternatives................................................................................................................................5
Recommendations......................................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................6

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Case 1 – Morrison’s Dilemma
Introduction
The case study is presented to discuss about how the Caribbean restaurant located in
downtown Toronto can gain better scope to enhance the profit level as well as improve the
long term viability to sustain in the future. Leroy Morrison has been concerned with the
restaurant’s viability because of the lower revenue generation and lack of ability to expand or
sustain for the meal periods. The restaurant is found to be lacking ability to generate enough
demands in the market and thus failing to create needs among the people regarding the
restaurant services (Ha & Jang, 2013). The report will illustrate about the areas of interest
considering the dilemmas faced by the business, furthermore ensures undertaking steps to
improve the long term viability and profit level too.
Background information
The Irie Caribbean restaurant and Caterers is a casual style restaurant that has served
authentic Caribbean cuisine and the dishes served captured the flavours and tastes of the
Caribbean islands with a tinge of sophistication and uniqueness. The products and services
are targeted at the Caribbean people and the immigrants who come from Caribbean and like
enjoying the cuisine, which has been favoured with the help of restaurant‘s focus on offering
al-la-carte services, catering as well as takeout services. Though according to the CFRA
report, the economic climate has been effective for the food services industry, still not much
good results can be seen, which also hindered the successful establishment of foundation
towards the franchising (Ghezzi, 2013). The financial viability is not up to the mark and even
awareness about the products and services has not been spread properly, which has further
led to decline in sales along with lack of ability to create enough demands in the market.

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The competition is categorised into two segments where the primary competitors were
the restaurants that operated in the College Street area and within five miles of the restaurant
and these include Dipamo’s Barbecue, Ellipsis, Caoba, Midtown West and Tavola Calda
while the take out services offered by restaurants are the other competitors in business. The
other Caribbean restaurants in Toronto were considered as secondary restaurants that had
been located outside the five mile marketing radius.
Specific area of interest
Morrison believed in word of mouth promotions for the advertising purposes, because
of which, the restaurant has aimed to establish relationships with the clients for influencing
their mind sets and at the same time, enable the clients to discuss about the positive things
about the products and services with others to influence their buying behaviours (Erkan &
Evans, 2016). The print media has been used for reaching wider target markets and at the
same time, aimed to implement a new website for increasing brand awareness among the
customers. From the case study analysis, it is also found that the restaurant managed print
advertisements in the NOW magazine and even managed sales promotions. Irie Caribbean
also promoted lunch special and even emailed the lunch special menu to the companies where
the workers can place orders to get the meal delivered easily. To establish good relationships
with the local community, a group of kindergarten children were invited and provided with
free meal and others were provided with Caribbean meal free of cost, which improved the
marketing procedures’ efficiency and contributed to the betterment of business functioning.
This marketing prospect has influenced making right food choices by the customers and at
the same time, positively influenced the psychosocial and behavioural variables, which often
encourages their decision making process regarding further purchases from the restaurant
(Frenchet al., 2001).

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The financial position was good previously, but now it has experienced poor growth
and good profit level due to the sales decline by more than 23 percent. The operating income
also declined by 43 percent and even the owners of the restaurant ignored the fact to
recruiting an operations manager, which might have resolved the issues that were responsible
for sales decline and reduction of profit level. The lack of knowledge about seat turnover
ratio, combination of customers and catering events further contributed to the financial
condition hampering and decrease in revenue generation too (Grant, 2013).
The human resources were managed with the help of training and developmental
sessions arranged for the staffs while the recruitment and selection processes were carried out
with the help of promoting the advertisements of the job role in restaurant and even through
word of mouth referrals and by presenting the advert on the website. Morrison and Walker,
both provided necessary help and support to ensure that the people are engaged together and
encouraged to create a friendly behaviour, furthermore assisted them to keep up with the
changing demands of customers (Mithas, Tafti & Mitchell, 2013). The staffing procedure was
though changed at times for responding to the market fluctuations in demand, which further
ensured formation of a positive work culture where people can work as an unit and in
coordination.
Specific problem
The problems were basically the decline in sales and failing to create enough demands
for the products and services offered by Irie, the Caribbean restaurant in the market
(Tomilnson, 2017). Though the al-la-carte cuisine and Caribbean specialised dishes were
considered as good and effective for attracting more clients, still there were issues like poor
demands for the Caribbean food items in the area, which reduced the sales revenue while the
management of franchising was not up to the mark ad it went off target, which could be

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another issue faced. The operational costs are high, which turned out to be quite problematic
and this affected the economic growth too. The people who were affected the most were the
workers of the restaurant and even the owner. The ongoing issues have also resulted in falling
of market share for the restaurant business, which is a major issue considered here from the
case study.
This could though create various scopes and opportunities for the restaurant business
to make an assessment of the issues, furthermore analyse those and determine he effects that
might be generated in the future and threaten the business’ ability to survive in the
competitive environment (Pisano, 2015).
As the issues have affected the profitability and strategic direction has been diverted,
which has resulted in poor business performance and lower morale of employees too. With
this, the culture should start deteriorating, which needs to be overcome timely for ensuring
that the organisational memebrs work as an unit and in coordination to benefit the
staekholders and at the same time, create positive impacts on the business by drawing in more
clients, enhance sales revenue and high level of customer satisfaction too (Ghezzi, 2013). It
should be important to create higher demands, which would be possible if Morrison lure the
shareholders and make investments for replacing the traditional marketing techniques with
new ones. The manager should make decisions regarding the extension of benefits to be
provided to the employees for keeping them encouraged and motivated to perform to their
potential (Kourdi, 2015).
SWOT
Strengths
 The strengths include unique and
different Caribbean food services
Weaknesses
 Decline in sales

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 The restaurant has been operating
for a long time period
 Poor demands in the market
 Lower morale of employees
Opportunities
 The restaurant should bring
something unique and add
differentiable features in the food
items for attracting more clients
 The online website of the company
should also facilitate the marketing
techniques and ensure reaching
wider group of audience
Threats
 Lack of differentiation of products
and services
 High competition in the market
 Threat of substitute products and
services by other companies
Alternatives
There are multiple alternatives for the restaurant to overcome the sales decline and
lower profitability issues and for that, proper decisions should be made, which is critical to
the success of any business. To facilitate the human resource management, the staffing
process could be changed a bit such as the job role should be posted in the company managed
website. This would act as a great alternative for drawing the attention of people visiting the

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website, furthermore influence them to take part in the recruitment and selection process
based on the qualification and skills required to work at the restaurant (Bansal & DesJardine,
2014).
To increase the profitability, leveraging on the existing customers could be a suitable
alternative, while providing happy hours strategies could act as a better alternative to draw in
more clients and create higher sales, which should be responsible for generating higher
revenue and attain competitive advantage in business too (Nenonen & Storbacka, 2016).
Another effective alternative should be the management of innovation such as mixing the
Caribbean food items with bar theatrics to create a great atmosphere within which, the
customers can enjoy as well as experience relaxation (Pisano¸2015).
The upselling techniques are also considered as great alternatives to improve business
flexibility by providing the employees with necessary training and making them influence the
clients to try something new or even the restaurants signature dish. This would make the dish
popular and even through word of mouth promotions, the restaurant would be able to gain
good brand image. This should also help the restaurant to extend its business globally,
furthermore implement the right international business strategies to sustain competitive edge
over the competitors too.
Recommendations
 The social media marketing is recommended to create extensive digital marketing
platforms, furthermore grab the attention of clients much more easily
 It is recommended to obtain the feedbacks of clients and respond to their queries
online to ensure making changes based on their needs and expectations

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 The democratic leadership style should be followed to allow the staffs provide their
opinions and suggestions for enabling necessary changes to improve business
functioning
 It is also recommended to create an online platform, which can allow the clients to
place orders online and get the food delivered at their doorsteps
Conclusion
The report discussed about the various concepts of business strategies and
management of those considering the Caribbean restaurant business. The business faced sales
decline and profit too, which contributed to lack of market share and poor business viability.
The report combined various data and information from the case study to develop new
procedures for improving the business functioning and ensured the business to sustain in the
long run.

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References
Bansal, P., & DesJardine, M. R. (2014). Business sustainability: It is about time. Strategic
Organization, 12(1), 70-78.
Bentley, K. A., Omer, T. C., & Sharp, N. Y. (2013). Business strategy, financial reporting
irregularities, and audit effort. Contemporary Accounting Research, 30(2), 780-817.
Bharadwaj, A., El Sawy, O. A., Pavlou, P. A., & Venkatraman, N. (2013). Digital business
strategy: toward a next generation of insights. MIS quarterly, 471-482.
Blackburn, R. A., Hart, M., & Wainwright, T. (2013). Small business performance: business,
strategy and owner-manager characteristics. Journal of small business and enterprise
development, 20(1), 8-27.
Erkan, I., & Evans, C. (2016). The influence of eWOM in social media on consumers’
purchase intentions: An extended approach to information adoption. Computers in
Human Behavior, 61, 47-55.
French, S. A., Story, M., Neumark-Sztainer, D., Fulkerson, J. A., & Hannan, P. (2001). Fast
food restaurant use among adolescents: associations with nutrient intake, food choices
and behavioral and psychosocial variables. International journal of obesity, 25(12),
1823.
Ghezzi, A. (2013). Revisiting business strategy under discontinuity. Management Decision,
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Grant, R. M. (2013). Contemporary strategy analysis and cases: text and cases. http://www.
contemporarystrategyanalysis. com.
Ha, J., & Jang, S. (2013). Attributes, consequences, and consumer values: A means-end chain
approach across restaurant segments. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management, 25(3), 383-409.

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Kourdi, J. (2015). Business Strategy: A guide to effective decision-making. The Economist.
Mithas, S., Tafti, A., & Mitchell, W. (2013). How a firm's competitive environment and
digital strategic posture influence digital business strategy. MIS quarterly, 511-536.
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management: Moving beyond customer lifetime value. Industrial Marketing
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Tomlinson, L. (2017). The African-Jamaican Aesthetic: Cultural Retention and
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