to use the
decision-making process outlined in chapter 7 of your Business in Action
textbook when you write your memo outlining your recommendation. A key
part of this assignment is clearly showing that you understand how to use this
decision-making process!
Consider the following
situation:
You are the General
Manager for a restaurant chain. The strength of your restaurant chain has
historically been great customer service and a friendly atmosphere. Your
restaurants also tend to be smaller in space, and people are generally crowded
(customers and employees).
Your restaurant chain
suffered tremendously from the Covid-19 pandemic. During the worst part of the
pandemic, you had to shut down operations completely. After the worst part of
the pandemic ended, you have had trouble finding employees to work in your restaurants.
To address this issue, you
spent a month researching the environments and operational practices of similar
restaurants to yours. A summary of your findings include:
These restaurants now have fewer
employees than they used to have;
These restaurants now have more
carry-out business than in-person business;
Restaurant employees in general
are not as comfortable as they were (pre-pandemic) working in a crowded
environment.
After a month of
observations, you reviewed your findings. You have decided that you are either
going to return to business as usual, just with fewer employees, or you are
going to implement a “server-less environment” where customers complete their
orders via touch-screen and get their own orders directly from the kitchen.
With this option, you are also considering implementing a reduced-price feature
for customers that take their orders as carry-out (to encourage carry-out
orders).
Upon discussing your plan
with your immediate supervisor, she has asked you to utilize a formal
decision-making process, and report the costs and benefits of these potential
options.
Use the decision-making
process outlined in your chapter reading to help you make this decision. After
applying this decision-making process to this situation, write a summary of
your results for your supervisor, in the form of a business memorandum. Your
memorandum should also demonstrate your ability to make decisions to solve
problems that eliminate inefficiencies and decrease costs.
