Case Analysis: The RED CRAB Group - Jaypee Eugenio

Case
Analysis: The RED CRAB Group

Situation Analysis

                In 1998, the first
restaurant established by Raymond's mother in Clark Pampanga is called Red Crab
and Seafood Restaurant.  Situated on a commercial
space in Mimosa Leisure Estate, it enjoyed a following especially from visitors
who frequented Clark specifically the casino aficionados and golfers. Thus, you
cannot discount the fact that the price was on the high-end since it is
catering to mostly casino players and high rollers. The restaurant hired cooks
from the area who were accustomed to the US Bases-style, no fancy, no frills
straight-forward cooking.

                The menu is
inspired by his mom's 8 crab recipes since she liked to cook as her hobby, plus
the home style Kapampangan food to complement the crabs which was developed by
a group of UP-HRM consultants he hired for the rest of the menu. At that time,
Red Crab has no personality yet other than serving good food, though image-wise,
the restaurant projected the spirit and personality of her mother, very
traditional looking Spanish restaurant.

                The following
year, Raymond and his mother brought Red Crab in Manila without market research
or whatsoever and with the only idea that the area was doing well. After 5
months, they started to experience decrease in sales which made them decide to
re-plan everything. In 2001, two more RED Crab and Seafood Steak restaurants
were opened in Tomas Morato and in Alabang and this is the only time he studied
his market to know who his customers really were and to be branded as a seafood
restaurant.

                The opening of
Greenbelt 3 in 2002 allowed Raymund to have a seafood place with a twist. He
essentially developed a concept that revolved around the casual seafood dining
experience prevalent in the United States with the concept of Seafood Club
which he wanted to become a casual seafood place that possessed a festive
image, a happy place to eat. It has a happy atmosphere, a noisy place where you
and your friends or family can roll up your sleeves and have fun, enjoy the
music and be merry while you're cracking the crabs. This is also the time he
realized that they are not just selling the crabs, but the experience.

                In 2004, Crustacia
in Rockwell mall was born which was oriental inspired and offers Vietnamese,
Thai, and Chinese cuisine using fresh, live crabs, seafood and other exotic
dishes inherent in these Asian countries and this is where the enchantment
unfolds. The food served can be described as fulfilling, liberating, enchanting
and transformative. By 2005, Blackbeard's Seafood Island restaurant with an
animated pirate / island setting was added to their list. Also, a new
restaurant called Heaven and Eggs which is a non seafood place he established
with non-family partners became successful.

Problem Analysis

                There is really no
other problem in the Red Crab Case other than the problem of sustaining and developing
multi-brand restaurant concepts and to be known as a house of brands – a house
of world class restaurant concepts. How are they going to position their future
brand / concepts to align with what was mentioned above and what would they
want their customers to feel whenever they visit and eat at their establishments?
These are the forefront challenges that they need to address in order to be
even more successful and to maintain their competitive advantage.

Alternatives Courses of Action

                To help answer or
solve the problem above and achieve their goal of becoming a house of brands
--- a house of world class restaurant concepts, I suggest / propose three
alternative courses of actions that Raymond Magdaluyo and his partners can
consider.

1.       Is to constantly change the menu offerings of
the restaurants that they currently have. To provide different flavour to its
loyal customers and sustain / retain their interest in your restaurant dishes.

2.       To retain old time favourite and signature
dishes of each restaurant for their customers to enjoy, instead enhance more
the experience they want to imbibe by regularly updating their restaurant
interiors and set up, or providing more amenities that they currently offer
like hot towels, bibs, wooden mallets, etc.

3.       To regularly think and create new concept of restaurants
may it be in seafood or non-seafood category with local or international
inspired flavours. Heaven and Eggs is one good example. They can continue to
expand in different restaurant categories like pastry shop, coffee shop, etc.


Decision and Action Analysis

To come up with the best alternative and arrive at the
best course of action, let us not forget what was mentioned in the case and
what Raymond's guru told him, and that is to create his own segment. To help
him even more, he decided his segment to be divided in three levels given
below.

1.       Micro market or where we are going to operate?
2.       The food type or what we are going to serve?
3.       The motivational group or what influences them
to go to my restaurant?

Therefore, with this in mind, I conclude that the best
alternative course of action is to regularly and constantly create new concept
of restaurant/s if they want to be known as house of brands. They can tap into
different kinds of restaurant and not just stick with seafood. Heaven and Eggs
is one good example of a different type of restaurant that offers different
kind of dishes served in a different time of the day. Since most of the seafood
restaurant they have offers lunch and dinner, heaven and eggs serves sumptuous
breakfast to its customers. Apparently, with the increase in number of contact
support centres that works at night as their possible target market for a good
breakfast before going to bed it is not impossible for it to succeed.

                Moreover, just
like Jollibee who has Red Ribbon (to name one) under its umbrella, Raymond and
his partners can consider offering a different kind of restaurant for those who
loves coffee and pastries as their snacks. They can open up a coffee shop
wherein their customers can go to after having heavy dinner at one of their
popular seafood or non-seafood restaurant. They should not be afraid to
diversify their restaurant offerings since they have already tried it with
H&E. For as long as the three questions above will be answered, then there are
no rules that will prevent them in exploring opportunities.

SENTREP Food Trip - Eating along Makati Avenue – Lea Olegario

SENTREP Food Trip - Eating along Makati Avenue – Lea Olegario

In the busy street of Makati Avenue is where our Entrep class had our Food Trip session.

We started out at A-Venue and proceeded to the Food tents catering different dishes like Filipino, Persian, and Italian. Most stalls cater Filipino dishes developed locally and the popular street food like isaw and barbeque. We tried popular street food isaw, locally developed dish Ilocos Empanada, grilled vegetables, and had sago-gulaman for drinks.

The area is full of professionals and foreigners being near the Makati business area. Also, it is very near the red light district and hotels which again attracts a lot of foreigners. The business concept is that it provides additional tenant space to small entrepreneurs and stall owner. What's unique about the area is that half of it is purely for stalls that can sell anything from clothes to lights. Other food concessions like Banchetto, Mercato, etc are mostly comprised of food stalls. Also, the tents have lights giving it a more festive feel. There really is not much innovation in the food stalls as they are very much like the rest. I believe though that A Venue was successful in utilizing the parking space in a much profitable way and also this place adds to the attraction of the place and provides A venue hotel tenants more choices in terms of eating and getting a feel of what the Philippines is all about.

Next on the list is the Korean restaurant just a block away from A venue. It is offering an authentic taste of Korean food to the market in Makati Ave. The crew of the store is very much limited and it includes the owner. Delivery of the food is great and the crew although limited attended to all our needs. The Korean store's food though is much like all the other Korean food. The grill in the restaurant is quite different in that the charcoal is placed at the sides and the meat is grilled at the sides. The grill that I have seen in other Korean stores are just like a glass on top of a stone but Dona Dona, which is the name of the store, uses Charcoal and grills on the side. There are several customers in the store when we ate there and it was not a weekend so I would say that the restaurant may be doing well. The features of the store though does not look very modern and looks like a painted box from outside. There are many Korean restaurants with the same offering and the edge of this one over the rest is that it is in Makati ave.

After a hearty meal, we went back to A-venue at the original meeting place to have some coffee and cakes. Goldilocks is unique in A-Venue because there was no other that can offer a variety of desserts and coffee at the same time at an affordable price. The business concept is to provide a sweet moment for everyone. Pasalubongs are also offered in there and this can be appealing to the foreigners that frequent the place as these can be the gifts that will be bought by the foreigners and brought to their own country. Polvoron is quite popular with Tourists. The innovation is that it offers drinks – bottled, hot, and cold. The business is a success as a lot of customers buy the goods. Some people may be able to sit inside for a while and get a short bite but the lack of tables and chairs actually lessen the manpower needed to maintain the store. The two crews are more than enough to handle the entire store. Profit is maximized by minimizing expenses.

In this trip, we learned that businesses would have different concepts and they can all be successful. Location is very much important as well as the applicability of the business to the market in that location. Uniqueness of the business is also key as this can be a determining factor on how the customer will remember and try out the shop. Little things that may add value to the product/service would matter a lot especially in a highly competitive environment such as Makati Ave in this case. Success and failure of a business can be determined by these things but careful planning and execution may allow for the business to thrive.

NU12 #1 Molina _ Birthday greetings on pizzas

Birthday Greetings on Pizzas

One day at the office, my colleague had a birthday. This coworker of mine didn't really have a lot of budget to treat the whole office to some snacks so the plan was to treat only her close friends.

Now one of my other colleagues ordered pizza for the celebrant since he saw that there were only few variety of snacks. Now it is customary for celebrants to at least have a cake and blow candles but this particular officemate of mine didn't have any cake.

So when the pizza arrived I thought to myself that there should be a way to put greetings on pizzas!

Birthday Cakes for me are a bit overrated these days. The celebrant actually doesn't eat them all and specialty cakes are astronomically expensive now. And it's all for the sake of sending a greeting that you could also say it yourself but thought it would be better if you write it on a cake.

So I wondered what if pizza could be used as a substitute to greet someone since I believe us yuppies would prefer Pizza over Cakes because the former can make you full while the latter would just give you stomach ache if you eat too many. And besides that, cakes are full of sugar that is why diabetics are guarded in eating them. 4

While pizza is a more complete food. It has bell pepper, onions, salami, pineapple, cheese, tomato, olives, ham, bacon, in some cases there also parsley. Hence, it would have protein, calcium, vit A, B, C, fiber, etc. It is also not deep fried so the oil is only minimal.

 Pizza restaurants should recognize the fact that people buy pizzas when they celebrate something. And I think they can help hype the celebration when they put greetings on pizzas.

But how to put greetings is one question. I was thinking of putting it on the edges (crust) and by using cream cheese, they can write the greetings neatly. Another possible way is by using bell peppers as letterings for the pizza.