Brief Introduction about Business

Starting and owning a fast food restaurant is a small business idea with different expansion options. This business has to be one of the challenging businesses to enter into, as food industry is very competitive (Sanders, 2016). So, there will be need of an effective research before getting started. For this essay, business start-up that is chosen is a fast food restaurant, named as The Best Meals. It is a small scale organization, which will be Queensland State of Australia. It will offer different fast food products, like; burgers, French fries, cookies, drinks and some other breakfast items. First, the company will operate its business in Fast Food Industry in Australia, and then it will plan to expand its business to expand the business in its neighboring nations, like; New Zealand and Indonesia (Business Victoria, 2016).

The vision statement of the company is “to become one of the top food organizations in Australia with its super tasty and delicious variety of foods”. Becoming a premier fast food organization does not mean becoming the biggest but it means being the best in terms of customer service, value and estimated growth. Before launching the business, the company will set goals and objectives and implement effective strategy to attain them (Fleisher & Bensoussan, 2015). Under its strategy, the company will open its first outlet as “market tester” that can be become a model for increasing the number of its fast food outlets in the near future. The major focus of the company will be on managing the quality and creating strong recognition in the domestic market. It will execute an effective pricing strategy, which will make the food affordable for the people of all the classes of people. In addition to this, it will offer variety of foods, which are not provided by other existing players in the industry. By implementing these strategies, the company will be able to approach its predetermined vision and mission (De Kluyer, 2010).

The Best Meals will establish this start-up as a company, which will fulfill all the formalities and requirements to become a company (Okpara, 2007). It will follow a specific organizational structure to run for managing all the operations and duties of its people. Organizational structure is a systematic structure that includes implicit and explicit policies, which are designed to define how the tasks and responsibilities of its organizational staff are allocated and coordinated. For The Best Meals, functional organizational structure will be best suited for this business start-up (Hill, 2015). Under this organizational structure, it will categorize the departments according to the functions, like; human resources, marketing, food order system, production etc. The functional organizational structure for this start-up.

When any organization operates its business, it may face some internal and external forces, which effects its growth and success in competitive food industry. There are some external and internal forces, which will be impacting The Best Meals in Australia. External factors include political, economic, social and technological factors. The political stability will in Australia will contribute to the growth in food industry. Apart from this, the government has created some policies related to food that is affecting the consumption of fast food products. By looking this, the company will introduce a new segment with the healthy and nutritious food (Lam and Harker, 2015). Furthermore, there are some economic factors, like; the economic situation and unemployment rate in the country can affect the business operations of The Best Meals Restaurant. In the near future, the company will have the opportunity to grow, but very slowly under stable Australian economy. In today’s world, people are becoming very much concerned about their health and fitness, so they generally avoid eating fast and prefer to consume healthy food items (Hahn, & Powers. 2010). It will impact the sales of The Best Meals in Australian food market. In the Australian fast food industry, there are some players, which are already well-established, so they will pose competition to The Best Meals.

Analysis of Organization

Apart from these external forces, some internal forces will affect the growth of The Best Meals in Australia, such as; corporate management, human resources, internal pressure etc. In the beginning, it will pay lower salaries to the employees; it can increase the employee turnover (Wisdom, 2014). Effective corporate market will assist in managing the operations and processes and organization will be able to make appropriate decisions. It will enhance the restaurant’s brand image among the population of the country. If the company will be providing limited menu offerings, then it will have less option to modify their food menu. It will also limit the customer base for The Best Meals (Lee, Hallak and Sardeshmukh, 2016).

With gaining the opportunities and benefits, the company may face some risks and challenges, operating the business in fast food industry. One of the major risks at fast food restaurant is the societal risk, which is related to diversity (Kew & Stredwick, 2017). At The Best Meals, the human resources will be from different groups and religions, which can develop the situation of conflict in the workplace environment. Moreover, the lifestyle of people is changing and they prefer to adapt healthy lifestyle, so they prefer to eat only healthy and nutritious food (Berg, 2010). It will be affecting the business of the organization in the near future. Unemployment is decreasing in the country that can make the recruitment more difficult and expensive. It drives the wages to become higher and it can enhance the employee turnover at restaurant. Thus, societal and economic risks are the major risks, which may impact the fast food business and its growth in the Australian industry (Posthuma et al, 2013).

To deal with the risks and challenges, The Best Meals will adopt different business practices, which will enhance and promote the organizational performance. Human resources will play an important role at The Best Meals, so it is very significant to manage them. For managing and motivating them effectively, this organization will execute employee engagement (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2014). By engaging the employees, the firm will be able to motivate them to work with zeal and enthusiasm. It will provide great customer satisfaction, improved productivity and increased profits to the company, which will in turn enhance the overall performance of The Best Meals. In addition to this, the organization will provide the power to middle level and lower level employees to involve in decision making process related to their jobs and quality of work (Riordan, Vandenberg & Richardson, 2005). At The Best Meals, the middle level and lower level employees will be very close to the customer and they will have face to face contact with the customers.

Due to this, they will be able to understand the needs and demands of customers, thus it can assist the organization in making decisions regarding its food menus and other facilities at food outlets. Furthermore, it will offer effective rewards and bonus on the basis of their performance. The company will implement this business practice, because it may have huge impact on the performance of employees. Employees will feel more motivated by getting variable pay and eventually it will increase the productivity of The Best Meals (Chen, and Perez, 2015). It will conduct training and development program for the fresher candidates, so that they can improve their skills and abilities towards their work and responsibilities. By using these business practices, the organization will be able to increase its performance and position in the Australian fast food industry. These business practices will assist the organization in creating positive attitudes of employees and establish a better image in the fast food market in the country (Scarborough, 2015).

Internal and External Forces

To perform the business practices and operations, each and every company needs to categorize its personnel and human resources according to their functions, like; marketing, human resources, finance and operations. The above given organizational structure indicates the most important functions at The Best Meals restaurant, like; marketing, operations, human resources and finance functions (Needle, 2010). The operation function will include different departments at The Best Meals, like; production, purchase, supply of raw materials etc. The people, who will be engaged under this function, will focus on enhancing back office operations and processes. It will consist of different activities and processes, from converting the raw material into finished product, which can be served to customers (Riordan, Vandenberg & Richardson, 2005).

For any business start-up, marketing plays a significant role, under which it will promote and advertise its services. So, The Best Meals will focus on marketing function to promote its services among Australian population. It will include conducting the market research and understanding the needs and preferences of customers regarding the food items (Lee, Hallak and Sardeshmukh, 2016). It will develop the marketing and promotional strategies, which will assist the organization in approaching its target customers, i.e. food lovers. It will use different media sources, like; online media, events, print media, promotional campaigns etc. which will help the restaurant in enhancing its brand image.

Human resources are the important part for a restaurant business, like; cook, waiters, cleaner, as they have direct contact with their potential customers and play an important role in offering services (Untaru & Ispas, 2013). At The Best Meals, the human resource will include handling the people and keeping the records regarding their tasks and responsibilities. Furthermore, finance function will make the organization able to manage the financial resources and allocate them according to the processes and activities (Price, 2007). The Best Meals will make a budget for dividing the funds for different organizational activities. All of these functions relate to the performance and growth of this new start-up, as successful management of these functions will improve the service delivery and productivity of the organization. Managing and training the human resources will assist the organization in offering the food services in an effective manner that will increase the customer base (Scarborough, 2015). Thus, all these important functions will eventually enhance the performance of The Best Meals.

From the above essay, it can be concluded that a new business start-up should effectively implement and manage all its functions and processes, so it can deal with the adverse impact of external and internal environmental factors.    

References

Berg, H.P. (2010). Risk Management: Procedures, methods and experiences, Risk: Analysis & Theory, Vol. 1, No. 2 [17], pp. 79 – 95.

Business Victoria. (2016). Setting up a Business, Retrieved from https://www.business.vic.gov.au/setting-up-a-business/business-structure. 

Chen, Y. and Perez, Y. (2015). Business model design: lessons learned from Tesla Motors. In GERPISA International Conference.

De Kluyer, C. (2010). Fundamentals of Global Strategy: A Business Model Approach, Business Expert Press, Sterling Forest, U.S.

Fleisher, C. S., & Bensoussan, B. E. (2015). Business and competitive analysis: effective application of new and classic methods. FT Press.

Hahn, W. & Powers. T.L. (2010). Strategic plan quality, implementation capability, and firm performance. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 9(1), 63-81.

Hill, C. W., Jones, G. R., & Schilling, M. A. (2014). Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach. Cengage Learning.

Hill, C.W. (2015). International Business: Competing in the Global Market, McGraw-Hill, New York, N.Y.

Kew, J. & Stredwick, J. (2017). Business Environment: Managing in a Strategic Context. Kogan Page Publications.

Lam, W. and Harker, M.J. (2015). Marketing and entrepreneurship: An integrated view from the entrepreneur’s perspective. International Small Business Journal, 33(3), pp.321-348.

Lee, C., Hallak, R. and Sardeshmukh, S.R. (2016). Innovation, entrepreneurship, and restaurant performance: a higher-order structural model. Tourism Management, 53, pp.215-228.

Needle, D. (2010). Business in Context: An Introduction to Business and Its Environment. Cengage Learning.

Okpara, F.O. (2007). The Value of Creativity and Innovation in entrepreneurship. Journal of Asia Entrepreneurship and Sustainability, Vol 3. 

Posthuma, R.A., Campion, M.C., Masimova, M. & Campion, M.A. (2013). A High Performance Work Practices Taxonomy: Integrating the Literature and Directing Future Research, Journal of Management, Vol. 39, No. 5, pp. 1184-1220.

Price, A. (2007). Human Resource Management in a Business Context. Cengage Learning.

Riordan, C.M., Vandenberg, R.J., & Richardson, H.A. (2005). Employee Involvement Climate and Organisational Effectiveness, Human Resource Management, Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 471–488.

Sanders, E.G. (2016). Starting a Restaurant Business Book: How to Start, Finance and Marketing an Opening Restaurant. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Scarborough, N.M. (2015). Entrepreneurship and effective small business management. Pearson Higher Ed.

Untaru, E., & Ispas, A. (2013). Why do young people prefer fast-food restaurants? An exploratory study: Journal of Tourism, (15), 27-34.

Wisdom, J.P. (2014). Innovation Adoption: A Review of Theories and Constructs. Adm Policy Ment Health, 41 (4).