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 range of customers of both Asian and western nationality. They will have to have knowledge of every dish and what is in each dish served at my restaurant. They must be honest and reliable so I am able to keep a good relationship with my staff and I can trust them. Physically I would like them to be presentable and have a respectable standard of personal hygiene. I will encourage them to have good people skills as I think this is a very important factor in a catering business. The best way to serve our customers well is to be able to understand them and provide them with the things they want.
Each waiter or waitress will be paid $8,000 a month and will work around 54 hours a week. For part time floor staff they will be paid $50 an hour as the average for my full time floor staff is $37 per hour and part time employees are usually paid more as they are a variable cost. I have based the working hours on figures Café O are currently using on their cafes. Café O formed the working hours for part time staff by investigating when the peak hours were. I will do the same for my restaurant as it is the most effective method of working out the times I need more staff to manage the restaurant. I have chosen to pay my staff a salary a little higher than Café O as I want to attract staff with better skills and experience so they will provide better service.
To keep my restaurant clean I will employ maintenance staff to clean my restaurant at the end of every day as to keep my restaurant hygenic. This is very important particulary in my business as I am selling food and drink and children are part of my target group. To employ a cleaner it will cost me around $3,000 a month and I will only employ one cleaner. This cleaner will also do the laundry for my staff’s uniform 3 times a week. I will provide my staff with 4 sets of uniform which will cost around $30 each as I will order from a wholesaler. The uniform for floor staff will be a simple T shirt with the restaurant logo and they will have to provide their own black trousers.
Altogehter I will have 60 covers to cover the 1200 square foot of my restaurant. To cover these 60 covers I will have 8 waiters and a head waiter as well as a seat alocator. My seat alocator will have to be a lively person who works well with people and good at handling problems involving unhappy customers. This door alocator will be paid $8,500 monthly as they will have some managing over floor staff with head waiter.
My restaurant will be open between 10am and 11pm. This is because I want to be able to serve brunch, lunch and dinner. As the resturant is aimed at families I will not need to open till very late to create a late workers atmosphere. I will also have a takeaway service as the plaza is in a very convinent place for business men and women to pick up their dinner on their way home from work. Shifts will be divided and into 3 main sections of the day. 10am to 2pm will be brunch and lunch however this will be more popular on weekends than on weekdays. Between 6pm and 11pm will be my dinner peak hours and I think this will be popular during the week days and weekends. During peak hours and days I will have a higher number of floor staff working as I think it will be busier.
I will not discriminate my staff on their sex but I think it would be nice to have a equal amount of floor staff of male to female as to make things even. However if their experience and skills are very high I will only look at this aspect when recruiting them. I will conform to the race relations act, sex discrimination act and disability discrimination act when hiring my staff.
To motivate and appraise my employees I am going to include them in a lot of the decision making so they feel they have an opinion on how to run the business as then they will feel they are working for themselves. Tips received from all floor staff will be divided by the number of staff at the end of every week as to make things fair between staff. Employees will also have fringe benefits where they will be able to bring home any left over food. However I will have to keep a very strong stock control so employees do not take advantage of this opportunity and steal stock from the restaurant.
To motivate the workers at Café O they decided on setting a target profit size every month as to increase workers initiative to work harder and better as to improve the quality standard of their work. In return they would be awarded bonuses. I think I will do this as it is an efficient way of encouragement to work harder as they know they are working harder to receive something. However I may start this scheme later on in the future when I have broken my breakeven and feel the business and profits are stable.
I will provide a training course for my staff as this will help them enjoy their work and be able to have more qualifications. My business can also benefit from these qualifications and make my restaurant more unique as my staff may have special qualifications in wine or drinks or types of Asian cooking. To also increase incentive to work well I will have promotions. This will only be done with staff already working within my business as they will know the business more than someone from outside the business.
Café O recruits their staff from universities from abroad and locally as they are qualified and are eager to get a job. To entice graduates from abroad Café O provide cheap housing for their staff as their parent company owns property in Hong Kong. Other successful ways is through HK magazine which is a local free magazine in Hong Kong but this is more for low level staff such as floor staff. To recruit higher staff such as head chefs, I will be using jobDB.com. This website is the largest and leading interactive recruitment network in the Asia Pacific with over 5.6 million job seeker profiles. As they are not only based in Hong Kong, this will enable my staff to be from over seas and may have different experiences which could be beneficial to my business.
http://www.jobsdb.com/HK/EN/V6HTML/Employer/ResourcesHome/tips.ht
Physical Resources
Physical resources include the management of the business, machinery and equipment, materials and other stocks. Here I will be explaining where I will be getting my resources from and how I will manage them. There are 5 main parts to physical resources.
Product – food and drink I will provide
Plant – Machinery – fixtures and fittings, cooking equipment etc.
Process – who will be appointed which jobs
Program – time table of work and shifts
People – production processes and staff
I will also have to consider stock control, which includes the ordering and storing of food.
My restaurant will be located in the Plaza of Discovery Bay which is the commercial centre of this residential area. Discovery Bay is on an island called Lantau Island which is a large, less developed island off of Hong Kong Island. My restaurant will be on the waterfront of the commercial centre which looks over the Bay itself. It is in a development of restaurants so there will be a public toilet provided by Hong Kong resort which will be paid for through management fees. As the restaurant is in a development of restaurants there is centralized air-conditioning provided by Hong Kong Resort which is paid for through the management fees as well. The management fee for a restaurant of my size is HK$12450 per month which covers toilet access and air-conditioning. My location is 1500 square foot with 300 square foot being the kitchen. As I will have 1200 square left for seating I will be providing 60 covers, with a selection of tables of four and two. The Law in Hong Kong is if your food/drink outlet provides more than 33 covers you must provide physical disability access. My restaurant is on the ground floor however there is a step through the entrance. I will have to provide a small ramp so my restaurant is accessible to people with physical disabilities.
Since I am running a restaurant business I will need catering equipment. For Asian cooking I will need a variety of different types of cooking equipment. I will purchase a full kitchen to be able to run a restaurant with 60 covers. This will range between $20,000 - $50,000. I will estimate that my kitchen will cost around $40,000 to install and that fixtures and fittings will be around $50,000. I will purchase this equipment from as they are reliable and at an affordable price. Such equipment will be cooking pots and pans, woks, cooking utensils, fridge, oven, rice cooker, stove
Café O obtains their raw ingredients from Chef’s Garden for supplies with a short life span. Their dairy products are from Kowloon Dairy where both are very well known and have a very good reputation. For their bakery products they are supplied by La Rose which is also supplies their products to a café in Discovery Bay.
Raw materials with a short shelf life span such as vegetables and meat is ordered once a week. Items with a long shelf life span are ordered once every 3 months as they are not in such high demand. Other items which run out daily are sometimes bought at the local supermarket and either Welcome or Park n’shop.
For my restaurant I think I will do the same as Café O as their ingredients are local and this will make them cheaper. Café O decided to use a smaller range of food wholesalers as then they are able to create a stronger relationship with their wholesalers. In doing this they plan to ask for a discount on items as they are such a loyal customer and have build a good partnership. For items of food and drink that need to bought daily such as fresh milk I will buy from the local supermarket in Discovery Bay called Park n’ shop. Here I am provided with a range of foods as it is a super store and has many ingredients available just round the corner.
I will provide my uniform to my staff and there will be a laundry shift done 3 times a week by our maintenance staff. My maintenance staff will clean the restaurant every night as to keep my restaurant clean. I think this is very important as a clean restaurant means better meals and happier customers to ensure a good business.
To ensure quality control in my business I will do a number of things to make sure I am continuously meeting the needs of my customers. My food, drink and service must be of a high standard as to keep my business successful and keep a good reputation. After each meal is prepared the head chef must check that the meal is to the correct standard and not only tastes like it should but is also be at the correct standard for presentation.
I will set standards to each meal and have checks to make sure these standards are reached at the end of the day. I will aim to create meals with the least amount of defects possible and hopefully no defects at all. Each stage of creating a meal should be clean, efficient and cooked in the correct way. To ensure cooks know what they must do for each meal I will have the head chef test the other chefs from time to time on their part of each meal preparation.
To ensure quality within my staff I will set goals to my staff and show them very clearly what I expect of them. This is called total quality management TQM). I will create a philosophy for my staff so that they will work hard as they want to please their customers, as the customers are the centre of the production process. Our aim is to give customers what they want, when they want it and how they want it.
To make my staff feel more involved and making my business better I will have quality circles. This is a way of solving problems within the work place as a team. This will also increase teamwork and help staff work together and this will increase efficiency if everyone understands everyone. This will increase the relationship between managers and workers as they feel trusted and motivated to do well in their work.
In Hong Kong health inspectors inspect food and drink outlets four times each year. One of these times is unannounced within the four times. Often inspectors prefer not to create hassel and prefer to keep businesses happy as then they don’t have to complain. This will then create a better relationship between businesses and inspectors. However if something is wrong it must be reported to the Food and environmental health department.
I will purchase a touch screen restaurant system as to help ensure payments throughout the business. This will cost me $17,800. With this I will be able to create a floor plan of my restaurant in the system making bills easier to pay and floor staff have less trouble well customers pay for their meals. This will also mean my receipts will be recorded and not easily lost. I will also be able to record my stock control on seeing how much I buy each month, how much I spend and if I’m spending too much and beginning to loose money.
Financial resources
A very important managerial responsibility is obtaining financial resources. To start up a business there must be a source for the money to start it up. Then, a plan must be made to manage out the money within the business. My business will have two different types of finance:
Medium-term – updating equipment and fittings and the cost of rent
Short-term – new stocks and paying wages
Because I am a new business I will need to get a loan from the bank to start my business. When borrowing money from the bank I will have to pay interest. This is when I basically pay the bank for letting me borrow money. However the longer I take to repay the bank the greater the rate of interest.
To run a successful business I must have a financial plan. This plan is of the recording of financial transactions within the business. This determines the performance of my business and shows all the money going out and coming in. Every single transaction is audited so that the final accounts are accurate.
Every business must be able to present these financial statements to two types of people.
Internal users – people within the business such as managers
External users – people outside the business such as shareholders and creditors.
In every business an average good rate of return is between 10 – 15%. This is what I am aiming to receive in my business however during the first months before I hit my break-even point I will not be making any profit. I will have profit targets to aim for every month to increase initiative for staff. These profit targets can be achieved through appropriate pricing and creative pricing.
In order to figure out how profitable I will be I must have accounting information from an accounting system. An accounting system is a way for investors to understand if the business is doing well or badly throughout the year. With this accounting information I can then work out decision within my business such as which meals are most popular, which are least popular and should be taken off the menu.
Accounting is the identifying, measuring, recording and reporting information related to the activity of a business.
Identifying – here I will collect all my receipts from payments such as raw materials, management fee, electrical and gas. It will also include how much I pay my staff and the purchase of any new pieces of machinery.
Measuring – here I will be using Hong Kong dollars as a way to measure my economic transactions. To measure my sales I will use the price of each meal and not the name as it will be more specific.
Recording – for my restaurant business I think I will record my financial data using a computer system as I think this is more reliable. However it must be backed up so valuable information is not lost.
Communicating – I will create a cash flow sheet every two weeks so I am kept up to date with the money I spend on my business so I am able to see where money is wasted and hopefully improve the situation as I want to use everything efficiently.
All my accounts must be:
Reliable – not bias and no errors
Comparable – comparable to information of other restaurants
Relevant – relate the decisions that have to be made to improve the business
Understandable – made understandable to those who need to read them i.e. Investors
Start up costs
Liquidity or solvency
Start up costs is the expenses when setting up a business. This includes all equipment, premises, renovation and other items needed for my restaurant. to begin my restaurant I will need a large some of money. Café O got their sources of finance from a parent company called Starbright. Another way is also through the owners’ own savings.
Cash flow Forecast
For a business to have a successful business plan they must make sure they have the sufficient amount of money to set up the business and that the business can then in result create this amount of money. A cash flow forecast is a statement explaining in detail the amount of money going into the business and the amount of money that will come out of the business. For my business I will create a detailed and organized cash flow forecast to help me understand the finance needed for my type of business.
The forecast helps show the timing of finance. This includes when bills will be coming in and must be paid. You must know what receipts and payments there will be for the business. Using a cash flow forecast you will be able to work out the time between putting money into the business and getting the money back from the business. It is a schedule showing payments made by the business. I will create this schedule
In a business objectives must be set. Cash flow forecast is essential in finding out if the business is capable of achieving these goals. This information also helps people who lend money to the business as they will be able to tell if the business is liquid/solvent or not. If we manage the cash flow well the business is more solvent. Owners and shareholders will want to know what the business owns and what the business owes. A good business always has money going out and coming into the business. This ensures the confidence owners and shareholders have in the business.
Cash flow forecast monitors the performance of the business and how well the business will do. However cash flow forecasts may not always be accurate so it is always important to compare forecast figures to actual figures and edit the cash flow forecast every so often so the schedule is as realistic as possible.
This table shows how much I must make each day and month so I can reach my break-even point and be able to make a profit. I based the electric and gas, operating expenses and raw materials on figures given by Café O as their café is of the same size of my restaurant. The total gives me an estimated average breakeven.