Essay On Jameson’s Grab-And-Eat Restaurant

Introduction to the company

Jameson's Grab-and-eat Restaurant is a diner enterprise located next to a home depot store. The diner's mission is to offer meals at affordable prices, catering for both kids and adults. The business' name is derived from its convenient nature to consumers. The restaurant offers ready-made meals that customers can conveniently eat in the restaurant or carry with them along the way. Jameson's Grab-and-eat was founded in 2013 and is located next to the home depot store. Food served in the restaurant ranges from breakfast, lunch, dinner, and supper. Moreover, customers who wish to have their food packaged are provided with brown paper bags and lunch boxes with the business' logo to carry their food, though this depends on the type of food purchased by the consumer.

Environmental Analysis

Since the restaurant is located in one of the busiest towns, political factors have influenced its performance over the years. These factors include, tax rates, legislation, political stability and labor laws. The restaurant has adhered to these factors, and this has given it an upper hand over its close rivals. The success of the company since its inception can also be attributed to adherence to economic factors such as interest rates, exchange rates, economic growth, and inflation rates. These have been the main points of concern as they have helped leverage costs, prices, demand of the food products and prices. Social factors have also influenced the running of operations in Jameson's Grab-and-eat restaurant. Social changes such as the movement of people towards urban settings have influenced the profitability of the restaurant. As a result, it has been forced to supply more food products and thus profitability has been achieved. Additionally, the restaurant’s technological advancement such as the introduction of online shopping and self-service checkout points has influenced the performance of the restaurant (Hoffmann, 2008).

Primary and secondary target customers

Jameson's Grab–and-eat restaurant has a logistics plan that assists the business in identifying a convenient communication channel between consumers and the services offered at the restaurant. The strategic location next to The Home Depot Stores enables the restaurant to serve families as this is its primary target. The restaurant also targets secondary customers who visit the home depot from various parts of the country, from different locations and ethnicity, and this has prompted it to provide a wide range of food products that meet the tastes and demands of the consumers. Families are the major customers of the restaurants. In fact, during weekdays and Sabbath days, the restaurant is always full of families as they have no time to prepare meals at their homes. Besides, the strategic location or place of the restaurant makes it easily accessible for families within town during lunch hours (Wilson & Berry, 2000). Though the number of customers from other parts of the country is not high, they have enhanced the restaurant's profitability as they purchase products in bulk. The fact that Grab –and-eat attracts a large number of customers is due to the promotional strategies adopted. The restaurant advertises its products and services, and this creates a positive distribution channel. The advertisements are done on media - both print and visual. Advertisements on the radio and television assist the restaurant in attracting new customers who might be new in town or those passing through the town. Conversely, by posting advertisements in newspapers and through issuing pamphlets to customers, new customers have been easily attracted to Jameson's Grab-and-eat. Additionally, the restaurant has established an online platform with one of the staff members running the restaurant's website. The website is the other promotional strategy that enables the restaurant to display the delicious and quality food served. The information shared on the website gives the staff at Grab-and-eat a chance to interact with their customers while at the same time allowing customers to share their views and comments about the restaurant. Grab-and-2eat has also collaborated with courier service companies in offering after-sales services that include delivering food orders to consumers (Balakrishnan, 2012). This gives the consumers an opportunity of enjoying their meals away from the restaurant and at the comfort of their homes. The restaurant also provides customers with stickers and pamphlets with the Grab-n-eat logo, which they take with them, hence allowing others to know or learn about it. As part of the seasonal promotion strategy, the restaurant offers giveaways to their customers. Customers take part in competitions at the restaurant’s website, where, by posting one thing they like about the restaurant, they often stand a chance to win a cap, hat, T-shirt, shirt, meal vouchers, or post cards. Grab-and-eat restaurant has also capitalized on the online community through social media by creating awareness and encouraging more people to visit the restaurant physically and through its website. The promotional strategies adopted have given it an upper hand over its close competitors (Wilson & McDonald, 2011).

Short-term and long-term goals

The main goal or objective of Jameson’s Grab-and-eat in the next one year is to make the restaurant popular in the market by attracting as many customers as possible. The restaurant plans to achieve this goal by offering promotions and giveaways to the customers. Subsequently, the long term goal that the restaurant looks forward to achieve in the next five years is to adopt the use of novelty items as a strategy of promotion. The restaurant looks forward to designing tangible materials bearing its logo and name. These items will include key holders, writing pens and pencils, notebooks, and head gears. These items will be issued to customers who visit the restaurant and also during trade affairs or promotional activities in the surrounding towns and localities. This will be a suitable opportunity for the restaurant to make a name among the locals and counter the stiff competition from close rivals. In achieving this goal, the restaurant will require assistance from neighboring printing companies in producing the items. Conversely, staff members will be required to be more hospitable to customers and cooperate in issuing the promotional items (Leader et al., 1990). Thus, in the next five years, free promotional items with Grab-n-eat logo will be constant reminders of the quality of food and services of the restaurant to consumers.
The most appropriate ways to measure both the short and long-term goals will be through observing whether the restaurant has recorded an increase in market share, viewing the number of customers retained by the restaurant, viewing the number of visitors to the restaurants website and observing the restaurant’s rate of growth compared to competition and the market (Gaur & Saggere, 2003)..

SWOT analysis

Apparently, since the establishment of the Grab-and-eat restaurant in 2013, it has exhibited a number of strengths that have enabled it to overcome the stiff competition from its close rivals. One of the strengths is that the restaurant has been able to keep an estimated amount of food products and drinks in stock daily to serve potential customers. To keep the food products fresh and ready for consumption at all times, the restaurant stores them in refrigerators though this is dependent on the type of food. The other strength of the restaurant is that it has a sales team consisting of waiters and waitresses who deliver food products to the consumers. Although the delivery of food products is essential, it brings out a weakness of the company where such services are highly charged, and this has driven away a few of the loyal customers. The other weakness of the restaurant is that it has not put in place customer-care services to help new customers who have no knowledge or information about the restaurant. Grab-and-go restaurant enjoys great opportunities. For instance, the restaurant enjoys a continuous flow of raw food stuff and processed food products such as cooking supplies from vendors and suppliers. The restaurant’s suppliers deliver the raw food stuff and cooking products twice a week using Lorries and this enables it maintain an active stock control system. Besides, the continuous supply of materials enables the restaurant to maintain a smooth distribution of food products to customers. The presence of several restaurants at the center of town is a big threat to Jameson's Grab-and –eat restaurant. This is because a number of loyal customers have shifted to the newly established restaurants, and this has led to some of the losses that the Grab-and-eat, has recorded. The other threat that the restaurant faces is the inflation of the prices of raw foodstuffs and other cooking equipment. This has forced the restaurant to incur additional costs.

References

Balakrishnan, A. (2012). #CONTENT MARKETING tweet: 140 bite-sized ideas to create and market compelling content. Cupertino, Calif: THINKaha.
Gaur, S. S., & Saggere, S. V. (2003). Event marketing and management. New Dehli: Vikas Pub. House.
Hoffmann, S. (2008). Are the 4 P's of international marketing of equal importance to all firms? What factors might cause some to more or less important than others?: A short article. München: GRIN Verlag GmbH.
Leader, W. G., Kyritsis, N., & Roberts, F. (1990). Fundamentals of Marketing. Cheltenham: Thornes.
Wilson, D. & Berry, T. (2000). On Target: The Book on Marketing Plans. Palo Alto Software Inc
Wilson, H. & McDonald, M. (2011). Marketing Plans: How to Prepare Them, How to Use Them. Wiley