By James Bundle, Founder of eat17 (www.eat17.co.uk)
Globally the Covid 19 pandemic has ripped through the hospitality sector with hotels, bars and restaurants shut up for months.
In the UK, outlets closed their doors on 20th March, three days before the nationwide lockdown was announced and began to reopen 15 weeks later on 4th July.
Now business leaders are urging the sector to adapt and become more agile to future proof and look at new ways to grow revenue.
Founder James Brundle from innovative London food retailer Eat17, who are offering franchising opportunities, looks at the changes the sec- tor can make to become more agile and adaptable over the coming months.
The priority for many businesses at the moment is very simple – survival.With the furlough scheme beginning to draw to a close and life slowly returning to a kind of normal, all sectors are having to adapt to a new way of operating.
And none more so than the hospitality sector.The last four months has been devastating for the UKs hotels, bars and restaurants. Just as the Easter and summer season were about to get started in earnest, busi- nesses were locked up for the foreseeable future.
According to estimates from UK Hospitality, the sector experienced a 97% drop in revenue from the beginning of April.
Survival for these businesses now depend on them becoming agile, adaptable and ready to change to suit the market conditions.
Our business offers a convenience store with restaurant and takeaway dining so like others in the hospitality sector, we have had to make changes to adapt. However, by having several strands to our business, we’ve been able to adapt to the market conditions to remain viable.
Planning is now important to ensure profitability as businesses move forward and adapt to the changing times.
There are some steps they can begin to take to ensure a more prof- itable future.
SET OBJECTIVES
Think about why your business model needs to be agile.What do you want to achieve and what benefits will it bring? What changes will need to be made to adopt this new way of working and how will it help and provide value to staff and customers? Where do you need to start and how will you communicate the change?
SET PRIORITIES
For the business to be agile, priorities need to be set but take your time to do them. Do not rush and have time to reflect on the changes you are making.Think about the changes you want to make to secure future growth and recoup loses made in the last four months. By turning over redundant space to retail or offering an eating out / takeaway option as our franchise model suggests, you’ll be creating new streams of revenue which will work now and in the future.
PLAN FOR THE UNEXPECTED
If the last four months have taught businesses anything, it’s to plan for the unexpected.Think about the negative and positive thing that could happen to your business. Being agile means you can adapt to those changes.What we’ve seen in recent months in the adaptable businesses flourish.They’ve taken their offering online, found new ways to meet customer needs and come up with a much more robust business model. For some that has been impossible because of the nature of their busi- ness but now is the time to look to solutions for the future.What can you do with unusable space both internally and externally and kitchens that have been shut for months? As lockdown was eased, we increased the outdoor eating area at our restaurant in Walthamstow. It made good use of that space, was safe for our customers and meant we could increase our covers.
THE TEAM
In an agile business, overall performance is more important than when and where people work so a flexible approach needs to be built in, Think about the training you need to offer to make this happen, encourage teamwork and collaboration and make the most of the services and support available to you and your team.
