Hard Rock Cafe

Assignment n#1

Jorge Luis Atouguia

CMS2-515-751

Student ID: 260598030

Chapter 1 Case Study

Hard Rock Café: Operations Management in Services
Discussion Questions answers:

Question 1

• Product design:

Hard Rock Café is a firm that focus mainly in providing a service. The principal goods from the café are its Meals, drinks and retail merchandise. Hard Rock’s menu is in constant review and the firm invests in food research.  However, Hard Rock Café focuses mostly on selling an experience.

Hard Rock provides a meal surrounded of a music environment, which it is basically a museum that change over time with new layouts of Rock and roll memorabilia.

The product adapts over time with the new tastes in music, menus, and merchandise, and so do the firm’s strategies.

• Quality:

The firm established Quality standards and different control procedures. For instance, Surveys about the food and the service are done frequently; A score lower than the maximum satisfaction is considered a failure.

• Process:

Hard Rock’s processes have change over the time, evolving accordingly to the development of its main activity.

As stated in the case study, Hard Rock started as a pub and throughout the years the firm diversified into cafés, hotels, casinos, a Rock museum, an even an annual Rock festival.  This implies that the firm processes have change with the time, and so did the equipment used, the technology, the human resources, the quality standards and the maintenance procedures.

For instance, during the early years of the café, the menu was classic American oriented. Now these menus include higher-end items such as veal chops and lobster tails.

• Location:

Finding the adequate location for each café is a key OM decision. The company meticulously studies the different markets and then decide where to expand. Hard Rock even narrows the search from country to city and even to street corner.

• Layout:

Since the firm differentiates itself based on the musical experience and the display of collectibles, the café’s layout is designed to provide adequate lighting effects, memorabilia, contemporary music, and sound quality.

Hard Rock Café carefully integrates its kitchen flow and retail shop operations to maximize job efficiency in the restaurant area, bar layout and souvenir sales (the last one accounting for almost half of Hard Rock café’s total profits).

• Human resources:

Employees are hired not only based on their required skills, but also on their passion for music. Hard Rock’s staffs are considered to be part of the whole experience by acting as entertainers and even telling stories about music to their customers.

The café staff must adapt to the environment where they operate. Each member is required to spend 15 minutes intervals to study seasonal and daily demand changes from customers.