Industry Project: Strategic Management at Simply Indian Restaurant

This project examines strategic management issues at Simply Indian Restaurant in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, focusing on customer service. The research identifies key problems, including long waiting times, lack of attentiveness, and food quality concerns. The project includes a detailed literature review covering customer service and satisfaction, followed by a research methodology section analyzing customer perspectives. The findings highlight the importance of respect, food quality, and wait times. The project concludes with short-term and long-term recommendations to improve customer service, address negative feedback, and enhance the restaurant's overall performance. The project aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the restaurant's strategic management challenges and potential solutions.

Running head: INDUSTRY PROJECT
Industry Project
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The strategic management is one of the most important aspects of the modern day organizations.
The selected organization for the purpose of this study is Simply Indian Restaurant, which is
located at Lower Hut, New Zealand. The selected topic for this project is customer service.
There are certain strategic management issues that are being highlighted in this research- long
waiting time, lack of care and low quality of foods. The identified issues have been explained in
detail and suitable recommendations have been made. A detailed literature review would be
performed which would underline the different important concepts of the concerned topic. The
research would be done and on the basis of that data analysis would be performed. This paper
would broaden the understanding of a real strategic management issue in a real organization.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
1.0 Industry background..................................................................................................................5
1.2 Organization Background......................................................................................................6
2. 0 Project Scope............................................................................................................................6
2.1 Statement of issue..................................................................................................................7
2.2 Catalyst..................................................................................................................................8
3.0 Literature Review......................................................................................................................8
3.1 Customer Service...................................................................................................................8
3.2 Customer Satisfaction..........................................................................................................11
4.0Introduction...........................................................................................................................13
4.1 Research Methodology........................................................................................................14
4.2 Customers want respect and care.........................................................................................17
4.3Quality of the restaurant meal is important..........................................................................18
4.4 Customer wait time matters.................................................................................................18
4.5 Limitations, Assumptions and Ethical Considerations........................................................19
5.0 Recommendations....................................................................................................................20
5.1 Long term recommendations...............................................................................................20
5.2 Short term recommendations...............................................................................................21
References......................................................................................................................................23

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Appendix 1:...................................................................................................................................28
Appendix 2:...................................................................................................................................30

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Introduction
The strategic management of a firm is one of the most important job role in which there
is formulation as well as implementation of the initiatives as well as goals of the
company(Peppard& Ward, 2016). The strategic management initiatives are being taken by the
top management of the company on the behalf of the owners. The strategic decisions need to be
taken by considering the internal as well as external environment in which the organization is
operating (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2014). The customer relationship management is one of the
most important aspects in the strategic management of the modern day organizations. It is related
to strategies in which there are tools for fulfilling the customer needs as well as meets their
growing expectations. The modern day organizations should formulate practices, technologies as
well as policies which would help them to manage the customer interactions well(Hill, Jones &
Schilling, 2014). The main aim of the companies is to drive profits as well as more customer
retention. There should be assessment policies for the assessment of the customer needs and it is
also important to evaluate the current service level of the organizations. The customers should be
heard and their feedbacks should be used for gaining constructive improvements in their business
operation.
The selected organization for the purpose of this study is Simply Indian Restaurant,
which is located at Lower Hut, New Zealand. Simply Indian restaurants have some strategic
management issues which need to be highlighted so that necessary improvements can be taken.
This paper would enumerate the problems that are being faced by the restaurant. A detailed
literature review would be performed which would underline the different important concepts of
the concerned topic. The research would be done and on the basis of that data analysis would be

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performed. The concluding part of the paper would comprise of the short term as well as long-
term recommendations for future improvements.
1.0 Industry background
The hospitality industry in New Zealand involves the flights, restaurants and hotels. This
industry is currently on the rise and it gives employment to around 200,000 people. The
restaurants and bar business is considered as the largest employer with over 50% people working
here(Hobbs &Hobbs, 2015). The casual dining restaurants have witnessed a 10% growth in the
foodservice value in the year 2016. There is a string growth of the restaurant business in New
Zealand and it has gained strong customer confidence. There is growing income of the people,
which makes the customers to dine outside their homes. In New Zealand, the concept of quality
food is associated with casual dining and they give better value than the traditional full-service
restaurants (Hobbs &Hobbs, 2015). The casual dining joints also provide a more relaxing
atmosphere and are ideal for socializing. The Lone Star Cafe in New Zealand has foodservice
value of NZD53 million, that represents value share of about 1% in the category.
There has been an increase in the growth of the online food ordering system in New
Zealand and that would hinder the development of the full-service restaurants(O'Neill & Pearson,
2016). There is an increase in the development of the urban lifestyles, which has led to
proliferation of food chains. There is also an emerging system of online ordering as well as third
party delivery services. The dine-out systems have the probability of declining as it is usually
more time-consuming (Hobbs &Hobbs, 2015). It is expected that there would be proliferation of
the “third party delivery service providers” (for example UberEats), which is expected to gain
market prominence.

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1.2 Organization Background
One of the finest Indian dining restaurants in Wellington is Simply Indian
Restaurant(Simplyindian.co.nz, 2017). It is located at Lower Hut, Wellington, New Zealand.
The restaurant has an electric mix of the modern Indian cuisines, which is also inclusive of the
traditional foods of India. The restaurant also has efficient as well as personable service. It offers
the customers a sophisticated dining experience (Simplyindian.co.nz, 2017). They also provide
charming employees and excellent service,which gives tough fight to its competitors
(Simplyindian.co.nz, 2017). There are various kinds of services provided by the restaurant such
as catering, fine dining, private parties and hosting corporate events. The joint is also famous for
the Indian lunch buffer, which has variety of vegetarian as well as non-vegetarian dishes.
Simply Indian Restaurant provides a range of dinner menu such as soups, appetizers,
maincourse, chef’s recommendations, for kids, banquet meal, rice creativity, Chinese connection,
Indian breads and naan (Simplyindian.co.nz, 2017). There are other meals available such as
takeaways, snacks and lunch (Simplyindian.co.nz, 2017). It also offers range of sweets such as
kesarladoo, pista burfi, badampista burfi, saffron peda and others.
2. 0 Project Scope
The project scope would include the different attributes of the Simply Indian Restaurant
in serving the customers. The project would investigate the levels of customer service in the
restaurant and how they can be improved. The customer service is of paramount importance in
today’s competitive environment and hence this project would strive to detect the service
delivery aspects of the restaurant. The attitude and behavior of the customers would be assessed
and their impact on the customer satisfaction levels would be analyzed. The project would first

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strive to analyze the various kinds of services provided by the restaurants to the customers. The
customers’reaction would also be measured and the customer feedbacks would be analyzed.The
primary focus of the paper would be the quality of customer services and all the factors that
affect it either directly or indirectly. Any operational aspect of the restaurant and any financial
considerations are outside the scope of this project.
2.1 Statement of issue
Simply Indian Restaurant is one of most popular places of Wellington, New Zealand and
it is famous for the tasty dishes they provide (TripAdvisor, 2017). They are well known for their
authentic vegetarian dishes and excellent non vegetarian dishes. However, there are several
problems with the quality of foodbeing offered to the customers. The customers have made lot of
complains regarding the average quality of food that they offer and the poor cooking skills
possessed by their chefs (TripAdvisor, 2017). In fact, there were few customers, who have said
that the food quality in the restaurant is patheticand they didn’t found the food “value for
money”. One customer has given feedback that the Chinese noodles ordered by them was
excessive oily and it affected their health(TripAdvisor, 2017). There was another review that one
of the vegetarian fish had strong smell of fish, which is certainly not acceptable. The customers
also complained about the taste of the foods and they were pretty dissatisfied with the
same(TripAdvisor, 2017).
The other identified issue was the lack of customer service, which infuriated the
customers in certain instances(TripAdvisor, 2017). The customers have complained about the
arrogant behavior of the waiter and rude answers given by them when there are adverse
situations. The restaurant authorities also gave little importance to the needs and wants of the

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customers(TripAdvisor, 2017). The waiters didn’t respond well to the customer preferences and
hence the customers were not satisfied while visiting the restaurant.
2.2 Catalyst
Simply Indian Restaurant has decided to focus on improvingthe customer service and
increase the number of satisfied customers. It aims to explore the customer service issues in
detail and seek to provide a solution for them (Simplyindian.co.nz, 2017). The organization is
receiving a growing number of complaints in their online forums, which is deterring their brand
image. This has caused them to ponder over the issue and seek for enhancing the customer
satisfaction levels. The increased number of customer complaints has led to the negative brand
publicity and the customers have started doubting their services. A recent customer survey has
revealed that an increasing number of customers are unhappy with the quality of food provided
by the restaurant (Simplyindian.co.nz, 2017). The poor quality of foods has caused a decrease in
the customer satisfaction levels, which in turn has affected the profitgeneration of the
organization.
The above issues have encouraged the restaurant to take up this issue in a serious manner
and to identify the various loopholes present in the customer service. The research also aims to
identify probable solutions for enhancing the satisfaction levels of the customers visiting the
restaurant.
3.0 Literature Review
3.1 Customer Service
As opined by Dabholkar (2015), the theory of customer service is concerned with the
identification as well as satisfaction of the needs of the customers. The ideal situationbelieves in

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the fact that the needs of the customers need to be met beyond their expectation levels and this
can achieved only through the help of enhanced service delivery. The organizations need to
deliver high levels of customer service so that they can not only gain satisfied customers but they
also gain loyal customers. As argued by Bowen(2016), the changing role of the employees in
service theory has proved to be successful in modern day organizations. The employees of an
organization (especially the front-line employees) are critical in driving excellent customer
service outcomes. The greater degree of services marketing has led to an increase in the service
encounters with the customers.
As opposed by Dabholkar(2015), the customer participation in the process of service
delivery is responsible for the perception of the service quality. It is argued that for particular
services such as customer specific job roles, a greater degree of customer participation would
lead to greater “perceived service quality” (Su et al., 2016). This implies that if the consumers
are involved more in the process of service delivery, they would perceive that the service is of
premium level.
As stated byKurian and Muzumdar(2017), the restaurant formality is known to have
ausualdegrading effect on the loyalty of the customers. However, this effect is considered as
positive when it combines with customer gratification. The act of reorder and repurchaseis being
considered as the combined impact of satisfaction that can be derived from the level of service
delivery (Dabholkar, 2015).The act of customer gratification can be defined as the level of
emotional pleasure that can be derived by the process of customer satisfaction or customer desire
(Kurian &Muzumdar, 2017). The resource based view of the company focuses on the fact that
the sustained competitive advantage can be gained from the resources as well valuable
capabilities of the firm. The resources of the firm form a combination of both tangible as well as

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intangible assets (Kurian &Muzumdar, 2017). The act of “servicescape” can be defined as the
man-made physical environment which can be controlled by the service companies so that they
can achieve the external as well as internal organizational goals (Kearney, 2016). There is an
effect of the physical environment such as artifacts, ambience and spatial layout on the customer
satisfaction and customer price perception (Kurian &Muzumdar, 2017). The more the improved
ambience of the restaurant is, the more the customers would perceive the place as a good one.
The tidiness of the restaurant staff and the appearance of the service staffs are responsible for
greater levels of customer pleasure.
According to Aryeeet al.(2015), an enhanced level of customer service can be initiated
with the help of following actions-
 Building a culture of customer service- It is important to give adequate training to the
existing as well as new employees of the organization so that they can know about the art
of providing effective customer service (Sekaran& Bougie, 2016). Theemployees should
be trained about the fact that front-line employees need to be as friendlier as possible,
which would improve the overall customer happiness. The employees should be
rewarded if they are able to satisfy their customers (Kurian &Muzumdar, 2017). This can
be done in the form of dinners, newsletters, prizes and other perks.
 Effective communication- The customer service depends on the level of communication
level maintained with the customers (Kurian &Muzumdar, 2017). The customers should
be appreciated and can be given small token of appreciations.
 Setting up of customer expectations- As commented by Jaakkola and Alexander (2014),
a realistic setting of the customer expectations goes a long way in fulfilling their wants
and desires. There should not be exaggerated claims, which are proved false when the

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customers actually avail the products or services (Kurian &Muzumdar, 2017). The
organization should be able to fulfill the promises made to the customers, which would
help them to win the trust of them.
 Be aware of the target audience’s needs- Peppers and Roger (2016) states that it
isimportant for the organizations to devise promotional strategies based on the type of
target market that they are catering to. It is important to focus on the way customers
perceive quality. It is not only sufficient to focus on the demographic details of the
customers, but it is also important to focus on their behavioral patterns.
The findings of Boo (2017) reveal that the service driven nature of the restaurant industry has
generated a lot of income in the global economy and it should be well managed. The various
attributes of the service quality need to be identified, which provide the maximum benefit to the
customers. The customer service is enhanced by the price of the services and the human services.
3.2 Customer Satisfaction
As defined by Lee, Back and Chan (2015), the customer satisfaction can be defined as the
perceived expectations and perceived quality. When there is an increase in the performance
beyond the expectation limits, then there is the creation of the customer satisfaction. The
customer satisfaction comprises of both the objective as well as subjective factors. The
subjective factors comprises of the customer needs and emotions (Kurian &Muzumdar, 2017).
The objective factors comprise of the product as well as services features. In the hospitality
industry, there are important attributes that are considered by the customers visiting the
restaurants. Two of the most important attributes are related to service quality and customer
satisfaction. As argued by Radojevic, Stanisic and Stanic (2015), there are several factors that
determine customer satisfaction such as value for money, security, staff courtesy and others. The