|
KENCO MANAGEMENT COMPANY
Kenco has a reputation of educating their customers to the process of restaurant business planning; site potentials, financial planning, flow and equipment design and venture statements. Only the well-educated new restaurant owners can be financially successful in today’s driven market place.
The following pages will give a prospective new food service futurist an idea of the amount of work that will go into just planning your new venture on paper in the shape of a venture statement and business plan. All the sections of this outline need to be fully explored and defined before step two (looking for an actual location) can be considered.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to e-mail us and someone on our staff will get back to you.
If you are in the market for a business consultant, we ask that you familiarize yourself with this section and contact us as an educated consumer rather than a restaurant dreamer. We at Kenco look for ways that our customers can be successful, not how they can lose their hard-earned money.
Keys to success in business
Nobody really understands America's fascination with the restaurant industry. The fact is though that 113`d of all meals eaten in the United States, are eaten out. (*N.R.A. 1993)
The high percentage of people eating out is mainly due to:
1)-business meetings
2)-avoid cooking
3)-entertainment
4)-Travel
As of 1993, the national restaurant association suggests that there are 737,000 food locations in the United States, and that 43% of all consumer food dollars are spent on eating out. These numbers have of course grown since 1993.
Most people who like to cook are fascinated by the restaurant industry. This accounts for the very high mortality rate in this industry.
Going into food and beverage means more than having a great idea, and some money to spend. You must have a good sound business plan, a mission statement, and some working experience so that it can function in a stable work environment. Without the right tools, if you do happen to get off the ground, your chances of survival are very slim at best.
Every new business venture has got to begin with a significant business plan or mission statement. Without a business plan there is no telling what direction your venture is destine to travel. A business plan entails understanding not only the purpose of your mission, but who will take you there, and more importantly how. Every individual in the business plan should have a clear and specific understanding of what the goals of the mission are. Lack of understanding will cause individuals within the venture to work independently from the rest of the group causing the group, and possibly the venture to stall, and eventually collapse. The best way to shortcut these potential problems is to write out a clear and well-defined analysis of your intentions from the very beginning. Independent variables can change during the growth of a venture, but the main purpose of the venture should be well defined and followed by the entire group.
Some of the most relevant questions related to a smooth business start up are as follows:
• What is the major intention of your venture?
• What is the secondary intention?
• Will the major intention support the cost of doing business?
• Who will direct the company through executive power?
• Who will head up operations in this new business?
• Who will be the comptroller of the operation?
• Do all the partners understand and agree with their current mission statement?
• Do all partners have a clear understanding of their responsibilities in this venture, and do they agree with its intent?
• Has the group capitalized themselves well enough to make success a reality?
• Is there a time schedule in place so that all areas of concern stay on task?
• Are the BI-LAWS attached to the venture?
1. Management-employee relations
2. Customer service
3. Working condition rules, and BI-laws
4. Dress codes
5. Ethics codes
6. Quality control standards
7. Finance and expense rules
8. Exclusive rights agreements
• Have you listed stages in which your venture intends to grow?
• Is there a back up plan to trouble shoot potential and foreseeable set backs?
"Being unprepared only puts an individual in a position to react to a crises, rather than avoid the crises through careful planning"
When opening a food and beverage type operation a mission plan may be outlined by defining the following:
1. concept and development
a. type of restaurant
1. Fast food
2. Sit-down
3. carry out
4. meat or dairy
5. strip mall or single outlet
6. layout of kitchen and seating
7. Design or theme of restaurant
b. food concept
1. type of food to be sold
2. recipes of all food to be produced
3. presentation of foods
4. menu design
c. cost of restaurant
1. build out ( electrical, plumbing, and carpentry)
2. interior design
3. cost of aesthetics or memorabilia
4. cost of fixtures and equipment
5. all signage costs
6. permit costs
2. Restaurant plan( mission statement)
a. business plan
1. budget build out
2. budget legal, accounting, and all permits
3. budget equipment and fixtures
4. budget inventory
5. budget working capital
6. equate cost of doing business through food cost, payroll,
and overhead
3. marketing plan
a. research and development
1. evaluate your market shares ( competition)
2. evaluate the type of service you will be providing
3. what will be unique about your business
4. how do you see yourself as being perceived by the
general public
b. marketing
1. type of advertising ( how to get the word out)
2. type of gimmicks to get people to come back
3. specialties of the house (what will you be known for
4. meet and greet concepts
5. contests, giveaways, freebees
4. Build out
a. Interior build out ( walls, floors, lighting, and all fixed
assets) includes bathrooms vestibule and hood
b. Equipment and fixture installation (all seating, work
areas, coolers, cooking equipment etc... )
Infrastructure
The infrastructure of your new business should be broken down to specific areas.
Executive branch- oversees all aspects of the business
1. Finance
2. Payroll
3. purchasing
4. customer service
5. employee relations
6. quality control
7. research and development
8. shipping and receiving
9. accounts payable, and receivables
Operations branch - in control of operations
1. hiring and firing
2. purchasing
3. marketing, and development
4. new product resources
5. sales force
Comptroller- controls the finances of the operation.
1. payroll
2. accounts payable and receivable
3. shipping and receiving
4. taxes ( state, federal, & payroll)
5. inventory control
6. project spending
7. advertising expenses
8. bookkeeping
Office or facility manager-controls the site environment
1. receptionist
2. customer relations
3. record keeping
4. filing
5. secretarial force
Marketing department- the main purpose of a marketing department is to build a strong, respectable, and reliable reputation to go along with the rest of your business approach. Marketing is a major concern to any business infrastructure, and may end up being one of your ventures greatest assets.
It is not an accident that some businesses become very successful and grow, while other ventures with the same potential, and quality products fail almost form the beginning. Think of business as a dwelling (home). If you were to build two identical homes, one on a concrete slab foundation and one on merrily a bed of sand. Which of these homes could you feel conformable investing in? While this may sound like a wild exaggeration to most people, it in fact is the way that 80% of the business community in this country operates on a daily basis. Eight out of ten businesses in this country fail within the first four years of their inception. The cause of these failed ventures is primarily linked to the lack of good solid business planning, and in 65% of cases, no business planning at all. So, building a house on a bed of sand is not so wild after all. | 
