Nature and Characteristic of Hakkasan Restaurant Located in West End, London - Case Study Example

Title: A critical investigation into the nature and characteristic of Hakkasan Restaurant located in West End, London, United Kingdom Name: Student ID: Name of Tutor: Date: Table of contents 1.0 Introduction 4 2.0 Methodology 4 3.0 Main analysis 5 3.1 About the company-Hakkasan restaurant 5 3.1.1 Structure and organization 6 3.1.2 Products, services and facilities 6 3.1.3 Image and atmosphere 6 3.1.4 Customer base, needs, wants and expectations 7 3.2 Human resource management 8 3.3 Promotion and marketing 9 3.4 Pricing 10 3.5 Competition 11 3.6 micro-environment analysis 12 3.6.1 SWOT analysis of the company 12 3.6.2 PESTLE analysis 12 4.0 Conclusion 14 5.0 Reference 15 Abstract The hospitality industry is a sector that has received plenty of attention in the recent past and that more research is also being carried out in order to ascertain the needs of this lucrative industry. Businesses in this industry have fetched a lot of revenue and foreign exchange because of the needs of humankind at the moment that centre mostly on leisure, food and accommodation. More people are moving around the world in search of education, to set up their companies through globalization, to study, for tourism purposes etc. hence the needs to tap the money used for such requirements through the hospitality industry is evident. One of the ways of taping these proceeds is through the development of good restaurants for both leisure and accommodation purposes. In the UK, for example, there are many Chinese restaurants promoting the Chinese culture and providing the necessities of the Chinese nationals visiting the UK for varied reasons. One of them is the Hakkasan restaurant situated in London that serves Chinese delicacies, provides accommodation, conference facilities, among other things A critical investigation into the nature and characteristic of Hakkasan Restaurant located in West End, London, United Kingdom 1.0 Introduction According to Pfeifer 1983, hospitality can be defined as the ability of an organization to offer basic needs to clients while they are away form their homes with a view to satisfying their needs as human beings in terms of food, shelter and entertainment. The hospitality industry has been one of the best contributors to the economy of the world despite the setbacks that it has undergone for quite some time now1. The most notable sector of the hospitality industry is hotel and restaurants where many tourists and locals take time in when they are free and would want to have a cool time at. 2.0 Methodology In order to understand the operations for this hospitality industry type, the researcher will be able to utilize secondary methods of research to get information regarding the Chinese restaurants, their services, facilities, marketing strategies, promotions etc . Most of the information will come from works of other researchers that have analyzed the way Chinese restaurants have flared up in the UK and other parts of the world. It will particularly involve the use of online journals, interne sources and newspaper/magazine reports on this type of hospitality industry type. 3.0 Main analysis 3.1 About the company-Hakkasan restaurant Hakkasan in one of the leading Chinese restaurants in UK located in the West End of London. It is considered a stylish state-of-the-art restaurant that provides services to the many Asian nationals in the UK and generally the Chinese who are working, studying, living or visiting the country. Hakkasan restaurant was set up in 2001 as a premier resort for Chinese nationals in the UK to offer both accommodation and other services that relate to the Chinese traditions and culture. The Hakkasan restaurant was specifically designed and modelled by a French designer who placed a lot of emphasize on the display of the Chinese culture through the restaurant2. He particularly fused traditional Chinese decoration with modern aesthetic features to give it the flavour it is required. The restaurant is owned by Alan Yau who also owns many more Chinese restaurants including yauatcha restaurant in UK. The headquarters of this company is in London but is serves as a support centre for other outlets in the country. In this restaurant, people are served with good quality beverages, excellent entertainment, music, live bands, comfortable seats (chairs, sofa, and room tables), good customer service, and other great client services at the restaurant. All these services have placed the restaurant at a global perspective and Hakkasan is now a global company with branches all over Europe, America and Asia. 3.1.1 Structure and organization The organizational structure for this restaurant is such that there is the board of directors at the top of the management with a chairman as its head and various departmental head ho head sections such as the human resource managers, supervisors, customer care representatives, financial controllers, sales executives, apprentice and secretaries3. All these people obey some form of command style in which the communication starts with junior officials to the senior officers and finally to the board of directors. 3.1.2 Products, services and facilities Hakkasan engages itself in the provision of various services and products such as hotel rooms, Chinese delicacies, entertainment, bars, refreshments and drinks, modern GYM, conference facilities and a boxing arena. The restaurant can also comfortably accommodate more than 500 visitors at ago making it one of the largest Chinese restaurant s in UK4. 3.1.3 Image and atmosphere The restaurant has been able to create a positive image with many of its clients and the members of public at large. In the recent past, it has been able to successfully host the Chinese cultural week for two consecutive years hence improving its image not only among the Britons but also among other visitors to the UK including the Chinese. The restaurant has also employed a diverse workforce who has mastered the art, culture and food preparation for the Chinese population. This has made possible the fact that more and more non-Chinese nationals are beginning to acquire meals and other services at the restaurant. Hakkasan was in fact ranked number nineteenth by the British restaurant Magazine that released its global annual ranking on the day of April, 2007. This gives a clear indication that the restaurant has a global brand that has caught the eyes of many people. Among the Chinese restaurants, Hakkasan ranks the best of them all and it was even awarded the Michelin star rating by the end of 2003. 3.1.4 Customer base, needs, wants and expectations Being a stylish Chinese restaurant, Hakkasan has been able to attract and maintain a huge customer base ranging from 200 to more than 500 people per day depending on the time of the day5. The Main reasons for this include; the blending of Chinese cultural food and drinks with those in Europe, good advertising techniques, proper promotion and excellent customer service among other things. Currently, the restaurant receives close to 300 visitors per day excluding those who have booked the hotel rooms for a longer period of time such for a month, a week or so. 3.2 Human resource management There are some set of human resource practices that are essential for any company and that if they are not implemented well and in a proper manner, will lead to misunderstandings, conflicts and general failure of the company. Recent research has suggested that HRM practices play important roles in the development of any organization. This restaurant has embraced this reality and it has come up with strategies for employee recruitment, planning, selection, evaluation and dismissing by the management. This is because the management has realized that there exists a distinctive link between the human resource management practices and systems employed by the restaurant and its overall productivity. Hakkasan has a good human resource department that gathers for the needs of its employees6. It however has some improvements to make in terms of formulating corporate strategies that incorporate systematic scrutiny and elucidation of the restaurant’s management avowal. Hakkasan’s human resource department should also offer strategic plans to the rest of the administration when considering how the restaurant services should develop and in what ways should the restaurant propel for its success with regard to future developments. Despite all setbacks, Hakkasan is certainly proud of an overall improvement in management of the restaurant that has been able to foster an environment of growth and development for the last few years hence all credit should be given unto it. This restaurant is also recognized with superior corporate forecast which has improved in general the assimilation of development schemes within the restaurant such as the improvement of human resource practices which incorporates both tactical and strategic development agenda. 3.3 Promotion and marketing Marketing can be illustrated as a set of processes that are undertaken by an organization in order to construct, adopt and sell its products and services that the restaurant or any other organization for that matter engage in. One of the main objectives of marketing is to create consciousness and association between the company and the customers in a manner that will benefit the organization. Selling and marketing can therefore be described as any activity of any company that entails to bring more clients to the restaurant in this case7. Inventiveness in marketing is very important and indispensable today because it helps a company to come up with appropriate marketing techniques that are relevant to the market needs. In addition, it makes the company save on costs that could have otherwise been wasted .Every company requires an efficient marketing and promotional strategy in order to remain competitive. The company has been also able to utilize telemarketing as a strategy to meet with its prospective customers. The figure below describes the functions that this restaurant employs in order to satisfy the needs of the government, environmental concerns and customer needs e.g. security Figure 1. Products and service assimilation in the hospitality industry Hakkasan has been able to engage itself in promotional activities such as the Chinese cultural festivals in the UK and significant results have been achieved because consumers have responded well in the process making the company a cultural site for meetings, occasions and a centre of attraction8. Hakkasan has also employed vigorous advertising campaigns through the print media and bill boards and this has attracted a large number of customers to enjoy its products and use the services available there. 3.4 Pricing Pricing is one of the techniques of marketing which gives the organization the revenue it requires. When an organization overprices or under prices its products and services, there will automatically be a problem. There are various factors that are being undertaken in the hospitality industry before a pricing industry is adopted. With reference to Hakkasan, the factors taken into considerations are; competition, market share, product identity, the income of prospective customers, season of the year and government issues. Hakkasan has focused on producing quality products at a premium price which will help the restaurant meet its external costs. Despite the fact that services and products from the company seem to be having an elevated price and cost, it can be attributed to the quality of the services being offered9. This company has therefore adopted the following pricing methods; premium pricing, penetration pricing and unit pricing to enable products and services reach its marketing levels 3.5 Competition Competition is rife everywhere and Hakkasan has not been able to escape this phenomenon. There are very many Chinese restaurants that have established themselves in London and other parts of the country. The main ones include Chin Chin, Lili’s, China Tang, among others. All these restaurants have become a threat to Hakkasan as they are adopting new measures of development including the lowering of prices to attract customers. 3.6 micro-environment analysis 3.6.1 SWOT analysis of the company Hakkasan has a strong brand name which helps the restaurant have a competitive advantage over the other Chinese restaurants in this location. Hakkasan is also accredited with the best marketing network that has made the company to at least expand its operations to other locations not only in UK but also in other parts of the world. This company intends to go global and open outlets in various parts of the world such as in China, Japan, U.S, U.K, and Australia10. With the best distribution networks in the hospitality industry, there ha been a significant growth which has been a strength that has significantly helped the company to dominate the market in the past. There are certain weaknesses that have hindered the company from attaining its objectives and targets. Hakkasan’s policies, procedures and rules are said to be weak as in some markets they have started to perform badly. In the U.S market for example, the issue of competition has really affected the growth of this company by far and it needs to adopt better technologies and approaches for development 3.6.2 PESTLE analysis This kind of analysis is very crucial for any business because it gives an overview of how the company will perform given specific conditions in the host country such the UK in the case of Hakkasan restaurant. In an effort to expand its market share, this restaurant has been able to utilize this concept and come up with factors that may either hinder or improve its market share in the society. The first one is the political factors and since this is a restaurant in the UK, it works under the laws and regulations of the country and which may not favour the operations of the restaurant. A lot of taxing, laws and other political systems have in one way or another interfered with the running, growth and development of the company. In general, the business-political linkage for this restaurant in UK has been good and there is minimum political prying that may hinder its growth in future. The other factor that affects the business environment is the economical factors which deal with the financial forces affecting the restaurant11. There has been noticeable complains regarding the adoption of a single currency such as Euro, balance of payments, counter trades, fiscal policies, inflation and monetary polices that may affect the growth of the restaurant. Being a business that utilizes the hospitality strategies to market its products, the social cultural issue is very important here. Forces within the society including social structures, family, education, and religion, may impact negatively or positively on the company’s performance. Societal aspects that affect our feelings, opinion, attitude and interests on the way people view the Chinese culture, food, clothing, religion and integration in the UK plays a role in the development of the restaurant. Another factor is technology and technology has changed the way this restaurant operates markets and even promotes its business. As it plans to advance and go global, this is the major factor that will help boost its growth. The UK, for example has a well defined technological systems including ICT that help companies doing business in the country to improve. The rule of law and legal factors summarizes this analysis and therefore the way Hakkasan function in terms of operating rules of law for instance how it copes with the legal rules in UK is more imperative since it shuns legal fights and conflicts12. 4.0 Conclusion Hakkasan restaurant in the UK is one of the operations of the hospitality industry that has adopted principles and values for its services and products from other sectors of the economy. It has been able to boost the Chinese culture, traditions, food and religion in the UK thus meeting the objectives and aims of any hospitality industry. Hakkasan has also been able to utilize effective marketing, promotion and pricing strategies that utilize conventional ideologies to meet the needs of its customers. Due to cut-throat competition being observed in the hospitality industry and more specifically the restaurant business, Hakkasan has to come up with marketing strategies that can make it maintain its market share. As many observers put it, consumers in this industry have become more informed and require more information on buying and spending in these restaurants or the entertainment centre as such. 5.0 Reference Allen, Z. (1997): Marketing management for the hospitality industry: A strategic approach; Wiley; retrieved from http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471310123.html accessed on 11th November, 2007 Aviad, A. (2007): Crisis Management practices in the restaurant industry; international Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol 27; retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science accessed on 11th November, 2007 Davidoff, M. (1994): Customer service in the hospitality and tourism industry, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall Hakkasan London, (2007): Restaurant review and information; retrieved from www.london-eating.co.uk/1680.htm accessed on 11th November, 2007 Powers, T. (1995): Introduction to management in the Hospitality Industry, New York Wiley Read More