Activity 1: Case 1 Familiarisation The course will use two cases as examples as we progress through the chapters. This is the first case. Hard Rock Cafe-This unique restaurant chain has thrived where similar themed restaurants have disappeared. Via the videos, we get introduced to the firm's unique strategies in creating a full customer experience," how managers use forecasting methods discussed in the book, how they determine new restaurant locations around the world, how their human resource strategies lead to such low turnover and great customer service, how they schedule, and how they use project management to put on annual "Rockfest concerts. Hard Rock is interesting because it's so much more than just a restaurant, Management speaks about its "experience strategy which, in addition to quality food, includes rock-and-roll memorabilia, music, lighting, jovial staff, and a retail store. The video is sprinkled with scenes of happy employees dancing around or volunteering in the community. Most of the video is spent covering how Hard Rock Cafe approaches some of the 10 operations management decisions. For example: (1) scheduling is driven by forecasts that are based on prior sales, seasonality, recent trends, and current local events; (2) cafe layout focuses on maximizing the customer experience and driving customers toward revenue-generating activities; and (3) Inventory management goes well beyond the inventory of food and retail items --Hard Rock has a 540 million inventory of rock-and-roll memorabilia to manage and each restaurant goes through a complete changeover of memorabilia every 5-7 years. Hard Rock Cafe: Operation Management in Services The Hard Rock Cafe case is outlined in Chapter 1. Requirements: Study the Q&As described in the video. Two clear differences about Hard Rock Cafe itself are: (1) because of and contributing to such successful branding the cafe's retail sales (shirts, etc.) account for nearly the same amount of revenue as the main product the food itself; and (2) the management of the memorabila around the world represents a unique and extremely important management effort on its own