Monday, March 30, 2020
Great Italian Cuicine Without Wait free essay sample
It needed a domestic avenue for growth. Alessio had persuaded Porciniââ¬â¢s senior executives to consider opening limited-menu outlets, Porciniââ¬â¢s ââ¬Å"Pronto,â⬠to serve interstate highway travelers. Most competitors serving this market were fast-food or low-end outlets. Alessio believed that Pronto could offer a quality difference that travelers would value, but the challenges were substantial. Could Prontoââ¬â¢s profitably provide a limited selection of Porciniââ¬â¢s standard menu at moderate prices without jeopardizing the companyââ¬â¢s reputation for excellent food? Could it maintain Porciniââ¬â¢s famously high service standards? Could it profitably break into a market occupied by established competitors? Food and service quality were only two aspects of the challenge. Porciniââ¬â¢sââ¬âa slow-growing, privately held enterpriseââ¬âwould need to roll out its new restaurants quickly in order to establish itself as a powerful brand. With limited capital and access to prime real estate sites, however, that seemed unlikely unless it adopted either a franchising or a syndication model of ownership. We will write a custom essay sample on Great Italian Cuicine Without Wait or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The first risked the companyââ¬â¢s quality reputation; the second might produce a pace of growth that the company was ill-equipped to handle. Working with VP of Operations Kurt Jensen, HR director Wanda Halloran, and Chief Chef Mariana Molise, Alessio had sketched out tactics for facilitating Prontoââ¬â¢s quality goals. These included an innovative process for selecting, appraising, and rewarding employees, and the use of wireless technology to eliminate time from customer billing. Meanwhile, Chef Molise had begun formulating menu items for ââ¬Å"great Italian cuisine without the wait. â⬠In Alessioââ¬â¢s mind, all parts of the Pronto conceptââ¬âservice quality, food quality, pricing, branding, location, and ownership formââ¬âhad to be coordinated and mutually supportive. Copyright à © 2011 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to http://www. hbsp. harvard. edu. This publication may not be digitized, photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the permission of Harvard Business School. 4277 | Porciniââ¬â¢s Pronto: ââ¬Å"Great Italian cuisine without the wait! â⬠Company Background Porciniââ¬â¢s, Inc. , had begun in 1969 as a family-owned restaurant in Bostonââ¬â¢s North Endââ¬âa largely Italian-American neighborhood. Over the next two decades it opened new Porciniââ¬â¢s restaurants in Hyannis, Massachusetts, Providence and Newport, Rhode Island, and Hartford, Connecticut. In 1989, the family (the Ventolas) sold a controlling interest in the enterprise to a group of private investors. The new management expanded to a number of downtown and shopping mall locations in the northeastern United States, competing with equivalently priced full-service restaurant chains. Except during the recession of 2008ââ¬â2009, Porciniââ¬â¢s had increased revenues and earnings every year. By yearend 2010, Porciniââ¬â¢s, Inc. , operated 23 locations, employed 954 eople (many part-time), and generated $94. 3 million in revenues. Its profit margin had risen to 4% from less than 3% the year before. Even as many competitors were suffering, Porciniââ¬â¢s was doing well. The companyââ¬â¢s senior executives attributed Porciniââ¬â¢s success to uniformly high-quality food and service at each location. That quality could be traced to the long experience of individual restaurant managers, supervisory personnel, and chefs, a relatively stable workforce, and to the recipes of Chef Mariana Molise, who had won the coveted James Beard award while running the kitchen at New Yorkââ¬â¢s Catania Grille. On joining the company in 2006, Molise applied her culinary principles to Porciniââ¬â¢s less-pricey menu and personally trained each outletââ¬â¢s chef in her ââ¬Å"flash cookingâ⬠techniques. Her signature vitello ala Mariana and pan-seared scallops with mushrooms had become favorites throughout the chain. ââ¬Å"Twenty-three restaurants,â⬠one restaurant critic told readers, ââ¬Å"and each makes almost everything from scratch, using fresh ingredients and artful presentations. â⬠And yet the average entree cost only two or three dollars more than those of Olive Gardenââ¬â¢s, a near rival. As management saw it, attention to quality differentiated it from Olive Garden, and from more formulaic competitors such as Unos, Bertucciââ¬â¢s, and Buca di Beppo. Also, each Porciniââ¬â¢s created the ambiance of a unique, family-owned restaurantââ¬âin keeping with its North End rootsââ¬âunlike the ââ¬Å"Italian theme parkâ⬠atmosphere of many competitors. Customers valued the difference and made Porciniââ¬â¢s a powerful regional brand. Table service matched the food in quality; in 2010 a prominent New England restaurant guide gave Porciniââ¬â¢s its ââ¬Å"Best Chain Serviceâ⬠award for the fourth consecutive year.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.