Benihana Strategy Execution (Essay Sample)

BENIHANA
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Exercise 1
Benihana Strategy Execution - 7s model Analysis
In 1959, when on a university wrestling team tour in the united state, Hiroaki Aoki quickly noticed the restaurant business opportunity that the city of New York presented. He established a restaurant in 1964 in New York and called it Benihana after his parent’s business name in Tokyo Japan. After Aoki visited New York at the age 20 years he saw an opportunity in replicating his father’s idea in the city. He knew that he would never go hungry while running a food store. He took the next 3 years researching and analyzing the New York market. During this time he did odd jobs to raise capital. By the time he was set to launch the first store, he had $10000 in savings and borrowed another $20000, and set the ball rolling (Klug, Sasser & Harvard Business School, 1998).
Within a short time, the 1st store was already making profits. To ease traffic from his initial investment he opened a 2nd store a few blocks away in 1966. Everything worked out very well just as Aoki had dreamed of and a year later he flew to Chicago and established the 3rdstore. The 3rd store performed exemplary. As a matter of fact, it became the restaurant’s money maker grossing approximately $1.3 million in profits per annum. The growth experienced was so tremendous that in 1969, San Frasisco and Las Vegas witnessed the launch of the 4th and 5th Benihana branches. Essentially the 5thbranch was a joint venture. May willing investors were waiting to have investments as joint ventures with Benihana. Puerto Rico, Harrisburg, Seattle, Beverley Hills and Portland Fort Lauderdale were granted the rights to franchise. Later, Benihana opted to invest alone due to various challenges related to franchise business such as; the incoming investors did not have any experience in the restaurant industry, the American investors could not relate well with the primarily indigenous Japanese staffs and culture and also the controls required maintaining a franchise. Benihana has beaten all odds to become a very successful brand in the restaurant industry and currently boasts of 116 Japanese restaurants around the globe (Klug, Sasser & Harvard Business School, 1998).
To analyse the extent of the success of Benihana in executing its strategies, one can consider seven elements which are very core in every business. The seven elements include shared values, strategy, structure, systems, staff, skills and style. According to McKinsey, the seven interconnected elements can be aligned together to achieve effectiveness (Thurbin, 2001). 
From these seven elements, he formulated the 7-S model which is now commonly used in evaluating the performance of businesses by analyst’s world over.
By applying the element of Strategy to evaluate the performance, Aoki’s initial strategy was to introduce the Hibachi kitchen setup. This meant that unlike most other restaurant with conventional kitchens, the chef would cook meals in front of the clients who sat on the communal table waiting for the food to be ready in the Japanese style (Teppanyaki). The essence of the Hibachi was to provide a greater attention and service to the customer and reduce costs at the same time. Lack of a conventional kitchen also meant that there was increased productivity of the available area and also limited the main menu to 3 entrees thus reducing wastage. This also ensured that the clients eat freshly cooked foods.(Van & Verweire, 2004). 
Applying the element of skills, Benihana brought in highly experienced and trained chefs from Japan. The chefs brought in from Japan played a big part in enhancing the success of Benihana. The restaurant which was formed with the concept of attracting its clients by their love for the Japanese culture through the "Hibachi" mode of kitchen and the "Teppanyaki" cooking and serving style needed to have chefs with great experience in Japanese cooking styles.
Applying the element of staffs, Benihana provided good incentives to its employees and connected with them helping them reduce the employee turnover. The management of Benihana instituted a bonus plan where staffs that exceeded their targets could be rewarded proportionately to his performance. (Thurbin, 2001). For firms to be able to retain its experienced staffs, it must ensure that it hosts a motivated team else the competitors will take advantage of the situation. It’s also imperative to note that in order to ensure that the staffs gave the clients the Benihana Experience thus leading to the customers coming back for a similar experience.
Applying the element of structures, Benihana established a simple and cost effective organizational structure and control. Each restaurant consisted of a manager, assistant manager and 2 or 3 front men’s. The managers in all the stores reported to the Allen Saito, the manager of operations who then reported to Bill Susha the vice president (Van & Verweire, 2004). 
Applying the element of style; The Benihana restaurant which specializes in an exhibition display style of Japanese cooking concept of Hibachi Teppanyaki. The Benihana restaurants are also adorned with Samurai armor and costly Japanese art, and Shoji rice paper screens to partition the dining area. The Oriental atmosphere and Decors in a typical Benihana restaurant are also unique thus a source of more attraction for more clients (Weiss, 2009). 
Applying the element of systems which recognizes the day to day activities of a given firm, the Benihana restaurants specializes in an exhibition display style of Japanese cooking called Teppanyaki where clients sit on a shared table and watch as the chef cooked their meal on a Hibachi. A Hibachi is a replacement of the conventional kitchen where a chef would slice the client’s steak, seafood, vegetables, and chicken at very high speed, and then grill their meal right in front of them, and then toss it accurately onto their plates (Van & Verweire, 2004). 
Under the 7S model, Shared Values are at the core of all the other elements that determine how the business operates. Shared values are the norms and standards that guide worker behavior and company actions and thus, are the foundation of every business. Applying the element of Shared Values, Benihana was established with a unique Japanese culture mindset. Aoki integrated the Hibachi kitchen where chefs cooked the Japanese food in front of the customers using the Teppanyaki style of cooking. During the course of his research, Aoki discovered that Americans loved exotic dishes and this is what he wanted to deliver on their table. Thus Aoki combined, the strategy, Japanese staffs and the skills, Systems and processes and its structure in achieving the company’s goals (Weiss, 2009). 
Exercise 2
Changes needed in order to execute the new strategy of start small "Japanese fast food restaurants" using the 7-S model
In the process of starting small Japanese fast food restaurants, Aoki should consider training local chefs from the location in which he opens a new store. This element of passing over the skills to the local would aim at reducing the costs of paying expatriate chefs and paying for their resettlement into the US. Following the concept of 100% Japan authentic is not practical as the cost related to obtaining well trained and experienced chefs from Japan is higher. Training of the locals will greatly reduce the cost of production and therefore he can afford to cut on price and thus attract a new class of clients thus growing the brand (Klug, Sasser & Harvard Business School, 1998).
Considering the element of style, in order to make the current stores 100% authentic, Benihana imports all items used in construction from Japan (Thurbin, 2001). When opening a small Japanese restaurant, Aoki should consider utilizing locally available materials thus reducing on cost of start-up. In most occasions the locals do not really appreciate the Japanese Decors but are most attracted to the type of food and service thus locally available materials would give the same effect. Furthermore, some people are very preservative of their cultures and thus application of the Japanese concept only can limit such people from visiting the restaurant.
(Klug, Sasser & Harvard Business School, 1998).
In relations to the element of staffs and structure of reporting or process; as Aoki considers starting small Japanese fast food restaurants, he must make sure that he has the right staffs equipped with the necessary skills required to implement the Hibachi Japanese concept to the locals who are employed in the different stores. In that regard, he needs to ensure that he has an experienced senior Japanese chef as the overall head of the production wing of a store with all the other junior chefs, waiters and waitresses reporting and learning the Japanese concept from him. To motivate the staffs and ensure that the customer does not leave the store satisfied by the food but by the experience they get at the restaurant, he should reward the staffs well by paying them commissions on quality work done in terms of good service to the clients and the feedback gotten from the satisfied customers (Klug, Sasser & Harvard Business School, 1998).
Franchising is one of the new market entry strategies that is widely used world over. Benihana tried this concept but failed. By using the 7...