Fostering a customer$-$focused dining experience through a training project

La Colomba Restaurant in Sandton was established in $2015$ when the owner, Mrs Marumola, obtained a business loan.

After extensive marketing endeavours, the customer base was steadily rising and after three years Mrs Marumola needed

to expand her business with the appointment of an additional manager, a pastry chef, a short$-$order cook, two dish washers

five serving staff and one bartender. She gave each person a job description and appointed them on a six$-$month probation

period. Her payroll costs increased dramatically, but were still within an acceptable $30$ per cent of total gross income

generated. The increase in costs was countered by the improvement in the business$$s ability to now also cater for smaller

events such as office functions and birthday parties. Mrs Marumola also updated the restaurant$$s staff shifts so that the

work was distributed evenly among staff. This ensured that no one was over$-$worked and that productivity was not

compromised.

Over the last three months, Mrs Marumola has noticed a sudden increase in complaints from customers. This could have

disastrous consequences for her restaurant since she recently applied to be upgraded to a four$-$star, fine$-$dining

establishment. An assessment of the nature of the complaints revealed that the serving staff did not meet the expectations

of customers. Mrs Marumola knows that, in the food and hospitality industry, everything revolves around providing a perfect

and exceptional experience to the customers. The level of service quality thus depends on the service quality of the staff

and their behaviour. Customers want quick and efficient service and expect servers to go the extra mile. The servers are the

people with whom customers have the most interaction, so they must make a favourable impression to keep customers

coming back. Servers must be able to work well under pressure, meeting the demands of customers at several tables while

maintaining a positive and pleasant demeanour.

It was thus essential to implement a training project to upskill the serving staff. Mrs Marumola had to design a training

project that provided for orientation of staff, observations and guidance through demonstration and role$-$play, the use of the

latest electronic call technology, as well as the recognition of top employees and performance bonuses. Mrs Marumola

decided to also incorporate a role$-$playing training approach where the serving staff are taught what might happen in real$-$life

customer situations and how to handle these. The purpose of the project was thus to enable serving staff to become more

efficient and to assist them in delivering a better service as soon as possible.

Question

When a firm chooses a project selection model, there is certain criteria $($Non$-$numeric model and numeric model$)$ that are most important. Appraise the theory in the

context of the case study.

Guideline

Introduction and conclusion

Define criterias

Non numeric model $($The sacred cow, the operating necessity,the cometitive necessity, the product line extension, comarative benefits and Q$-$sort model$)$

numeric model $($profit$/$profitability$,$ real options, scoring, window of opportunity and discovery $-$driven planning$)$

and provide example from the case cady