Managing Business Activities

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Task B

For my business I will be researching and managing a variety of resources. The three main types are human, physical and financial resources. In this section of my coursework I will explain where I will find these resources and how they will be managed to create a profitable and successful business. Human resources include my staff and their needs. Physical resources include location, fixtures and fittings, raw materials and equipment. Financial resources include profit, sources of money and solvency. I will be comparing and contrasting my restaurant set up to a new chain of Cafes called Café O who are located in Hong Kong.

Café O

Café O is a European style café serving healthy food with a stylish side to presentation. The café interior itself is based on a chic look and provides a lifestyle concept. They decided to become this type of café because they realized the gap in the market. There are coffee shops such as Starbucks and more health conscious food outlets such as Mix. On the other hand there are restaurants with a more formal feel with sit down meals. Café O wanted to offer a service which is in between the two extremes.  This is how they made their café unique and successful.

Human resources

Human resources is the managing of the business and is based on trying to get staff to work as efficiently as possible. There are six main ways of managing staff in a business.

The first way is through Appraisal. This is when higher position staff comment on good work done by other staff. This will encourage staff to carry on with their good work as they can see their work has been recognized. This can then lead to a rewarding good work with either titles such as employee of the month or promotions. This gives workers incentive to work well as they will achieve something from doing well.

To motivate staff to work well managers should also use job enrichment and job enlargement. Job enrichment is when you job is made more interesting so workers are more likely to enjoy their work. Job enlargement is how the job is given more tasks so workers do not become bored with only being able to do one activity. This keeps workers interested and keeps the mind stimulated.

The best way to motivate works is through employee involvement. They will feel their opinion and presence is recognized and important in the running of the business. By having meetings to discuss how to improve the business and letting all staff have a fair contribution they will feel they are improving the business. Staffs know best how to run a business as they are doing it as a job and are more aware of the problems and issues raised when running the business.

Café O is a private limited company with limited liability to increase their chance to grow. Their long term aim is to increase from 2 cafes to 10 then further on into around the world. However I have chosen to become a partnership as I am only a small private business and am not aiming to expand out in the near future. My main goal right now is to survive and create a profit. On the other hand in the future I will aim to become a private limited company, as it will be easier and more reliable having limited liability. This means my expenditures and amount of staff will be much lower than Café O as they are spread at the moment over 2 cafes whereas I am only holding one restaurant. As I become more successful I will aim to grow and expand onto Hong Kong Island and other areas around Hong Kong and maybe into the mainland and Macau.

 I have chosen for my restaurant I will be manager as I think it will be easier for me to know what is going on in my business and I will know what I want to do to increase my profits as I have motivation. My partner will specialize in the finances, as I will special with the actual running of the restaurant.  I will also employ a headwaiter and a head chef who will manage their sections of the restaurant. The headwaiter will be in charge of all the floor staff and manage their quality.

The chef at Café O is paid around $11,000 monthly and lower chefs being paid $7,500 to $8,500 monthly. However for my restaurant I will increase my wages as I want to attract a higher standard of staff and I think a restaurant has more work to do than a café as it is smaller. For my restaurant the head chef will manage the kitchen and will have an assistant chef and 1 hand chef. The head chef will be paid $13,000, assistant chef will be paid $11, 500 and the hand chef will be paid $9, 500. This is based on the average wages in the industry. However the average wage given to restaurant staff from the Hong Kong government is $11,293 which is higher than what is given in the actual industry. This is based on information given to me by wikipedia. My head chef will be an experienced cook in Asian cuisine such as Chinese, Thai, Indian, Indonesian and Malaysian. The chef will also be able to lead the kitchen and instruct the other chefs on what to do. I will be hiring my head chef through jobsDB.com, a very well known and reliable staff recruiting centre.

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My floor staff will have to have qualifications in catering and hospitality. They have to have personality and enjoy their work. I want this for my staff as then they will be able to provide a high level of service to my customers and hopefully attract more. As my restaurant is located in Discovery Bay which is very residential and there are many families the waiting staff have to be friendly to children. As it is an Asian restaurant I will want half my staff to be bilingual in English and Cantonese and/or Mandarin. This will attract a larger ...

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