How long would a customer have to wait for a grilled fish meal, assuming she is the first customer to enter the restaurant at lunch? What if she arrives at the peak of the lunch hour? (Hint: Use Little's Law)

The above question is from the Oceancove case study.

Please find the case study below..!

Case:

On December 10, 2001, Rakesh Gupta was sitting in his new office at Nariman Point, Mumbai contemplating the future challenges facing OceanCove. In the last two years, OceanCove had grown from a single restaurant to a chain of five seafood restaurants located in Mumbai and Delhi. Growth had always been an imperative part of the company's vision, and aggressive expansion was planned for 2002. The recent proliferation of moderately expensive restaurants serving international cuisine in India, however, worried Gupta.

Gupta's immediate concern was a proposal to increase the size of the existing restaurants from 120 seats to 160 seats. Could the current restaurant operations handle this increase in size? What changes, if any, might need to be made to OceanCove's operating processes?

OceanCove Spawn

OceanCove was founded in 1998 by two enterprising friends, Satish Kapoor and Rakesh Gupta. The duo met when they were working in the airline industry, where both were flight stewards. According to Gupta:

I was visiting Satish in Athens, Greece, and we had a meal in a local restaurant. It struck us that such a restaurant would be popular and unique in Mumbai or Delhi. It was just like eating on the Greek Islands where people live by the coast, go to the beach and cook the fish they've just caught at sea. The seafood is cooked in a simple and straightforward manner, relying on the natural quality and freshness of the ingredients, served in the same pan in which it was cooked to retain all the natural flavors. No fancy sauces or fussy garnishes, just olive oil, herbs and spices.

Gupta's father and his grandfather before him had owned and run a small but lucrative trading business. Gupta could have worked in the family business after college but wanted to get some world exposure. Kapoor was the youngest son of a wealthy Mumbai silver merchant who owned a shop in the Tajmahal Hotel. Kapoor and Gupta were able to raise part of the capital needed via an informal network of family and friends. Because neither had experience in the food and beverage industry, they entered into a joint venture partnership with the Ocean Feast Group, a South African seafood restaurant company, to start the business in Mumbai. In November 1998, the first OceanCove restaurant opened in Colaba, one of the trendiest areas of the city. The concept of an affordable Mediterranean seafood restaurant was unique in Mumbai. Most European restaurants were highly priced. By May 1999, Kapoor and Gupta bought Ocean Feast's share of the company and became the sole proprietors of the business.

OceanCove opened its second restaurant towards the end of 1999 in Bandra in North Mumbai, another trendy area of the city and a third in Connaught Place in New Delhi, a bustling shopping area. By 2001, OceanCove had three restaurants in Mumbai and two in Delhi. With expansion plans for several more outlets over the next five years, OceanCove was on its way to becoming a household name in these cities.

India

India is the second-largest country in Asia and located in Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Myanmar and Pakistan. In 2001, with a total population of over a billion people, India was a country of social contrasts and enormous ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity. The majority of the people were Hindu (83%). Muslims accounted for a sizeable 11% while Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Parsis made up the balance. In terms of geography, India had a total land area of 2,973,190 square kilometers, which was equivalent to slightly more than one-third the size of the United States.1

In 2001, India had the fourth-largest economy in the world based on purchasing power parity.2 India's economy was a mixture of traditional village farming, modern agriculture, handicrafts, a wide range of modern industries, and a multitude of support services. Faster economic growth in the 1980s permitted a significant increase in real per capita private consumption. Yet a large share of the population, perhaps as much as 40%, remained too poor to afford an adequate diet. Since 1991, production, trade, and investment reforms had provided new opportunities for Indian businessmen and an estimated 100 million to 200 million middle-class consumers. The government had stimulated exports, attracted foreign investment, and revived confidence in India's economic prospects.3 India's average GDP growth rate of 5.4% over the period 1996-2001 was among the world's fastest.4

Setting the Table in India

India was a mini-continent. A vast variety of regional cuisines was available throughout the country. Cities like Mumbai and Delhi had restaurants to suit any price range and type of Indian cuisine a customer might crave. Prior to the 1990s, restaurants that served international cuisine had typically been very expensive and were often owned and operated by five-star hotel chains. During the 1990s, following economic globalization, the demand for European, American, and East Asian food increased tremendously. In response, a number of independent Italian, French, Chinese, Thai, and Mexican restaurants that were affordable to the rising middle class had opened up. See Table 1 for an estimate of costs as a percentage of sales at a three- to four-star restaurant in India.

Table 1. Estimates of costs as a percentage of sales at a three- to four-star restaurant in India.

Food & beverages (including alcoholic beverages) 30-35%