Questions

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. The Situation

a. The Problem

b. The Objectives

3. Creative Alternatives

Introduction

Bloomin’ Brands manages four brands of restaurants in the US. The company is growing and gaining market share through creative advertising and addressing key strategic initiatives to continue driving demand to restaurants. By employing strategic initiatives to minimize risk for the restaurant brand managing company, the continued success and performance will continue as it expands its footprint globally into new markets and countries.

The Situation

Bloomin’ Brands started with the Outback brand in the 1980’s and has expanded to include Carrabba’s, Bonefish and Flemings. Over time the company has developed a robust supply chain, sourcing and transporting products required for their restaurants including food and restaurant supplies throughout the US. The company is expanding operations and locations in Brazil, China, and Korea as the company seeks continued growth and expansion into new untapped markets. Bloomin’ Brands has significant domestic opportunities to increase locations, reposition under-performing stores, and update existing locations. In addition to these opportunities, the company is increasing the volume of same-store-sales through lunch offerings and extended hours. The company relies on employed consumers with disposable income to frequent their restaurants marketed to different demographics and income levels, ensuring maximum market share opportunities.

Background of the Problem

Competition in the US is high with new local restaurants reducing consumer demand within individual markets. As the locations become established, annual growth declines. Regional markets also have seasonal demand impacting the profitability of the restaurant, highly dependent on weather, season, and economic index. Promotions, marketing, and prices have a strong impact on demand as the market is highly elastic with brand loyal customers maintaining baseline volume. In addition to these trends, consumer preferences are shifting as more individuals become health conscious and demand transparency in supply chain sourcing and nutritional information.

Bloomin’ Brands utilizes an electronic ordering system to manage and maintain inventory, prices, menu items, employee hours, kitchen displays, gift cards, loyalty programs and provides the raw data extracted for management reporting at the store level, brand and corporate operations levels. The system has additional capabilities that can be leveraged but is expensive to implement and requires extensive training and system upgrades. The upgrades include forecasting/demand planning generation, website interface allowing individual customers to make reservations and check wait times at specific restaurants, dynamic pricing requiring touch tablets at the tables, and customer surveys.

The Problem

Bloomin’ Brands seeks to increase sales and reduce costs, essentially increasing revenue through margin expansion. In doing so, Bloomin’ Brands must also stay competitive in product offerings, technology, and consumer experience.

The Objectives

· Increase same-store-sales

· Increase supply chain efficiency

· Reduce transportation costs

· Reduce store costs

· Increase consumer loyalty

· Increase market share

· Expand global footprint

· Brand revitalization

· Increase food source transparency

· Increase organic and locally sourced food

· Increase kitchen and dining efficiency

· Reduce menu change costs

· Increased price flexibility

· Reduce SKU/Item count

· Menu innovation

Creative Alternatives to Consider

Supplier Contract Negotiation/Review

Some actions Bloomin’ Brands can take to achieve objectives in organic/locally sourced food include a supplier review with renegotiation of contract term flexibility with reduced rates and organic/local buyer options. This action would increase the quantity of food product sourced locally and certified organic. This would also present the company an opportunity to re-evaluate logistics of supplier to distribution center. There are synergies and truckload consolidation that would reduce fuel and transportations costs.

POS Upgrade & Tablet Ordering

The POS system Bloomin’ Brands uses has additional functionality available through the system provider. It would enable the company to statistically forecast demand and be better positioned to service consumer demand with promotions, product launches, and menu updates. The POS system upgrade also supports restaurant capacity planning with online reservations and live wait times available for customers to preview prior to arrival. In addition to this, the system supports tablet menu ordering and management. Enabling and implementing this feature would allow the corporate team to adjust pricing dynamically as market rates fluctuate without the expense of printing menus and ensuring accurate representation of pricing throughout the system. In addition to this it enhances the customer experience. It gives them the power to submit requests without waiting on a server to be available, surf the internet, play games, and provide important survey feedback on the quality of their meal and dining experience. While there would be an upfront cost to implement the tablet ordering system and upgrade, there would be reduced costs to the location through reduced staff levels, more efficient kitchens, less customer service demand, and higher sales volume.

The customer experience breakdown looks like this:

Tablets in use on tabletops allow customer’s freedom to decide what they want and when they want it. It gives the control to the consumer to fuel their experience.

Renovate Old Restaurants

The oldest restaurant locations have the old original look of the brand. Through a strategic renovation, there are many benefits. It creates excitement in the community and encourages more traffic to the restaurant as people are curious to see the changes. It refreshes the brand image in the minds of the consumer. It increases consumer loyalty and faith in the brand to continue serving quality food with an enhanced customer experience. When the old locations are renovated, the configuration of the entryway, table locations, server stations, and kitchen layouts are adjusted to the latest technology increasing efficiency and boosting employee morale.

Old Outback New Refreshed Look

Old Carrabba’s New Refreshed Look

Marketing Campaign/Megatrend Tie In

As consumer preferences change and demographics shift, it would be ideal for the restaurants to leverage the surrounding community by offering targeted promotions and marketing campaigns. By analyzing the customer base and interests, it is possible to align the brand with that trend, driving incremental sales and greater traffic within the restaurant. The different brands/restaurants will perform differently depending on the potential customers in the surrounding area.

Conclusion

These alternative actions are not limited to single implementation, through timing and prioritization of objectives, Bloomin’ Brand’s senior leadership team can assess the risk and goals of the firm and determine the best future course of action. Bloomin’ Brands is a strong company delivering results through strategic leadership. The company has implemented technology advancements staying current with trends while meeting and exceeding customer expectations and demands. By staying alert to risks and taking steps to mitigate them, Bloomin’ Brands is positioned to continue generating results for key stakeholders.

References

BLOOMIN' BRANDS, INC. - Home. (2015). Retrieved September 30, 2015, from http://www.bloominbrands.com/home/index.aspx

Mudd, J. (2015, April 29). Outback Steakhouse's lesson on using PR to drive sales - Tampa Bay Business Journal. Retrieved September 30, 2015.

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