HAT302 - Mappen Noodle Restaurant: Investigation of Cost Controls

This report investigates the cost control and financial management practices at Mappen Noodle Restaurant, a Japanese cuisine restaurant located in Sydney's Central Business District. Data was collected through a semi-structured interview with the restaurant's general manager, focusing on front-of-house and back-of-house operations. The study identifies several cost-saving techniques, including leveraging food cooperative discounts, setting a positive leadership example for employees, and strategically limiting advertising expenses. Backhouse control measures include careful food cost regulation, inventory management, and employee training, while front-of-house strategies emphasize creating a comfortable and clean environment for customers. The report concludes that effective cost regulation and financial management are crucial for the restaurant's profitability and overall success, highlighting the importance of both front-of-house and back-of-house operations in shaping customer perception and service quality.

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Individual Investigation Report
Mappen Noodle Restaurant
Surname
The Name of the Class (Course)
Professor (Tutor)
The Name of the School (University)
The City and State where it is located
The Date

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Introduction
The past few decades have experienced a huge number of start-up businesses that also
fail in equal measure. The increased small business establishments and their rapid failures have
therefore heightened the need to establish the factors, which, according to business
entrepreneurs, influence business performance. An issue that has raised a particular interest, as
well as complexity in business management, is the management of funds. With the intention of
unraveling the different cost control measures taken for proper management of funds, a semi-
structured interview was conducted in one Mappen Noodle Restaurant.
The interview was conducted on the general manager of Mappen Noodle Restaurant that
operates as a food and beverage restaurant. The interview targeted the person at the top of the
chain of command in the restaurant given that he oversees the customer service in the company
in terms of ensuring the services offered are of high quality and that the food and beverages are
fresh and safe for human consumption. He is also in charge of ordering stock for the restaurant
and cost regulation. He also ensures that employees who leave the restaurant are given a good
sendoff. The general manager embraces the culture of saving and cost control is done effectively.
Background Overview
Mappen Noodle Restaurant operates from the Central Business District of Sydney. The
restaurant specializes in Japanese dishes and beverages. Management offers a variety of noodles
and rice recipes to attract different segments of customers. Besides, the restaurant ensures that it
offers reasonable pricing strategy for customers who love value services (Filimonau, et al.,

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2017). Currently, the restaurant is focusing on redesigning its menu but there is also need to
implement proper financial management techniques.
Methodology
Data was collected by interviewing the general manager of the restaurant. Before the interview,
the hotel owner was advised on the need to conduct the survey, advantages, and the possible uses
of the results that would be obtained. His consent was then obtained after the explanation that
eventually improved his confidence towards the study. Besides, the researchers requested to be
allowed to receive further information even after the study if need be.
Discussion and Findings
Cost Control Techniques
There are a few cost control techniques utilized by the general manager regularly. The
restaurant has created a connection with food cooperatives in the region for supplies. By buying
from the cooperatives, the restaurant is able to get discounts, which reduces operational cost. The
discounts further ensure that the restaurant maximizes on profit. The manager also focuses on
setting a decent example for the employees to follow. At the point when the restaurant leaders
exhibit interest to push the business forward, then at that point, the workers make up for lost time
with the manager in achieving the goals of the restaurant .Subsequently, the employees work
towards guaranteeing that the organization becomes successful with respect to tasks and
maximum profits.
The other strategy is publicizing costs. This expenditure can be limited and provides
measured costs that many food and beverage providers cut from their financial plans when the

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running consumption turns out to be more costly. According to Helsen, et al (2017), rather than
deploying money in many sorts of marketing modules, a person can just spotlight on the key
strategies and spend less in marketing and reach the same number of individuals as was
expected, unlike other people who will spend a great deal in many advertising techniques
resulting to similar sales. The general manager also explained that the restaurant has the principal
part of cost cutting. Furlough is a routine with regards to training workers with their pay rates. At
the beginning of employing different staff to the framework, they get training on how the
restaurant tasks are carried out (Annaraud, Singh and Lively, 2014).Jayaraman (2016) indicates
that these costs incurred in employee training are constantly moved into the worker's
compensation and afterward it is addressed.
Backhouse Control Measures
In the backhouse control measures, cost control activities include procurement of things
and practicing control over management to give services that clients will be pleased with. The
general manager carries out the food cost regulation. The general manager maintains the daily
food inventory, the restaurant sanitation levels, and planning assessment. This further
incorporates guaranteeing appropriate handling of all food and dealing with services and menus
(Jaaron & Backhouse, 2016). The general manager also works capably and proficiently and
within the required gauges of food cost desires. He for the most part oversees daily food tasks
with the concentration on profit maximization. Group training and affirmation is another critical
action taken by the general manager. Training employees is conducted every year and posting
them on the lead cook advancement. The restaurant practices the most elevated knowledge to the
cooking and thusly most of the clients appreciate the restaurant services and dependably use the
restaurant for meetings as well as food and beverages. In the back house, planning of the work is

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an important demonstration of cost-cutting (Sachs, et al 2014). Each employee is put in a
situation to acclimate with his/her field of production (Choi, Chan & Yue, 2017), and along these
lines everybody expands the potential for business profits.
Front of House Operations
The front area is the most important part of the restaurant. The restaurant requires
reducing the budget, but this is the important move in making the overall standpoint of the
restaurant once the clients enter it. The interior ought to be pleasantly beautified to draw in the
clients (Cezar, Cavusoglu & Raghunathan, 2017). Having an excessive number of clients at once
is challenging. The manager needs to set waiting sections that will give most extreme solace to
the clients but at a less cost. This incorporates level seats and stylish seats. The manager of the
restaurant I visited guarantees that menus are placed in those waiting sections to keep those
clients doing something that guarantees clients are not exhausted. There ought to be a few more
measures to influence the client’s enjoyment before they are served (Pavlatos, 2011). Because of
many clients having kids, they use the restrooms when they visit the restaurant. So the restaurant
generally keeps them to the measures of tidiness and hygiene required by the customers. With
the ongoing innovation, it underpins the advanced tools that helps the best possible sanitation
and influences it to stay clean without much struggle. In this manner, the restaurant controls the
budget of enlisting different employees to keep up tidiness in the restaurant.
Because of budget regulation, there is some business proficiency. The principle
advantage of budget control is decreasing the restaurant expenditures by bringing down the
amount of funds at the disposal of staff members. The restaurant confines the estimation of
money that ought to be discharged to dependably deal with noteworthy measures of money close
by at all time and put resources into many categories (Niţă & Stefea, 2014). Additionally, by

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considering some finances, the staff is permitted to control its spending. The restaurant is taking
the initiative to decrease potential abuse by workers. In the event that an employee is given an
objective concerning how he can run a noteworthy errand, he might be less prone to spend cash
on unauthorized errands or products, as he will not have the capacity to achieve his core targets.
Cost regulation dependably urges everyone in the restaurant to maintain the healthy business
environment in different sectors of the restaurant (Thomas, Brown & Thomas, 2017). Likewise,
to some degree a few workers are committed to helping the restaurant accomplish its objective.
A noteworthy advantage of cost regulation is that it strengthens bookkeeping and helps
restaurant planning by focusing on the proper use of resources. According to Helsen et al (2017),
by knowing the operating costs, managers can accurately anticipate the financial plan when the
cash is spent.
Conclusion
Cost regulation and money related management is the foundation of a restaurant business.
It includes the measure of profit that the restaurant will generate at a specific time. Front house
of the restaurant is fundamental in deciding the sort of discernment the client will have in
relation to the restaurant. The back house will dependably decide the nature of the services of the
restaurant. The redesigning of the menu will play a great role in attracting the clients to review
the different dishes offered in the restaurant.

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Reference
Annaraud, K., Singh, D., & Lively, H. (2014) Assessing and Analyzing Internal Control
Practices in the Lodging Industry. The Journal of Hospitality Financial Management, 2(1), 26-
31.
Cezar, A., Cavusoglu, H., & Raghunathan, S. (2017) Sourcing Information Security Operations:
The Role of Risk Interdependency and Competitive Externality in Outsourcing Decisions.
Production and Operations Management, 5(5), pp. 860-879.
Choi, T., Chan. H. K., & Yue. X. (2017) Recent development in big data analytics for business
operations and risk management. IEEE transactions on cybernetics, 2(4), pp. 81-92.
Filimonau, V., Lemmer, C., Marshall, D. and Bejjani, G. (2017) Nudging’as an architect of more
responsible consumer choice in food service provision: The role of restaurant menu design.
Journal of Cleaner Production, 14(4), pp.161-170.
Helsen, Z. Lybaert, N., Steijvers, T., Orens, R., & Dekker, J. (2017) Management control
systems in family firms: A review of the literature and directions for the future. Journal of
Economic Surveys, pp. 410-435.
Jaaron, A. M., & Backhouse, C. (2016) A systems approach for forward and reverse logistics
design: Maximising value from customer involvement. The International Journal of Logistics
Management, Vol. 27 Issue: 3, pp.947-971
Jayaraman, R. (2016) Project cost control: a new method to plan and control costs in large
projects. Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 22 Issue: 6, pp.1247-1268
Niţă, C. G., & Stefea, P. (2014) Cost control for business sustainability. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences, pp. 307-311.
Pavlatos, O. (2011) The Impact of Strategic Management Accounting and Cost Structure on
ABC Systems in Hotels. The Journal of Hospitality Financial Management, 19(2), 37-55.
Sachs, C., Allen, P., Terman, R., Hayden, J., & Hatcher, C. (2014) Front and back of the house:
Socio-spatial inequalities in food work. Agriculture and Human Values, pp. 3-17.
Thomas, N. J., Brown, E., & Thomas, Y. L. (2017) Employee satisfaction and turnover intention:
A comparative analysis between front-of-house and back-of-house employees in casino-
entertainment venues. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, pp. 112-118.

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APPENDICES
Interview Script
a) What is your role as the general manager of the restaurant?
b) A review of your restaurant shows that the restaurant is focusing on redesigning the menu
to catch the att4ention of the customers. What other front of house techniques is the
restaurant using to catch the attention of the clients?
c) Given that the restaurant attracts many clients, how well are the employees and trained to
deal with the customers?
d) Given the many customers who visit the restaurant, how is the restaurant able to manage
hygiene and tidiness?
e) Your restaurant has developed comprehensive linkages and relationship with suppliers
who have been offering goods on credit. Has this been an effective cost control measure?

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f) What other cost control measures have you put in place and how are the employees
engaged in cost control?
g) How the control do measures lead to profit maximization?