Case study report

Food and Beverage Management-Inventory Cycle Practices
FOOD AND BEVERAGE MANAGEMENT-INVENTORY CYCLE PRACTICES
Contents
Executive Summary    2
Introduction    3
Overview of the case and the issue:    3
The inventory cycle process: “Case of Food and Beverage Industry”    4
Identifying the key problems or the issues with the inventory cycle practices of the organization    6
Purchasing Phase:    6
Receiving    7
Storage    7
Production    7
Key recommendations for the Inventory cycle    7
Conclusion    8
References    9
Executive Summary
Purchasing, Receiving, Storage and Production are the four key areas that the F&B manager has to address while managing the inventory structure of an organization. The effective management of these phases or areas has a direct effect on the quality standards and customer satisfaction level of the organization. This report aims to highlight the same in context to a food and beverage catering organization who has considerably failed to live up to the expectations of its customers in terms of quality and service delivery.
In order to analyze the core reasons behind the failure of the organization’ practices the report initially studied the negative feedbacks given by the customers. ON the basis of the feedback it was identified that the organization has serious issues with its inventory management like no structure ordering system or forecasting policies, lack of quality assessment at each stage, possible issues in the storage system followed by lack of standardization in service delivery. Hence, in order to mitigate the identified problems, the report suggests the use of inventory and product ordering management system that can address areas like product ordering, quality checks, standardization and consistency of recipes etc. for a high level of customer satisfaction.
Introduction
The customer is the core revenue sources for any business or industry, hence for an organization who intends to grow its business, it is important that they maintain a high level of satisfaction in the customers with respect to their services and products. With increasing completion in the market, the importance of high customer satisfaction levels has further elevated. The competition has given the customer a wide range of options to choose from if an organization fails to meet the quality and service expectations of the customer.
The report will try to analyze the key issues behind the organization’ failure to live up to its customer’ expectations. The analysis will be conducted in relation to their inventory management cycle study and will try to identify the key issues that might have led to negative customer feedback and comments. Following the same, the report will then present some recommended course of actions to mitigate those issues or problems and enhance the business productivity and inventory management structure of the organization.
Overview of the case and the issue:
The organization under consideration (the case study) is “The Gold Coast Convention Centre”, who is offering food and beverage catering services to its customers. The organization has recently stepped into the food and catering industry and has performed significantly in terms of finances and revenue generation. But the overall productivity of the organization and their business is under question. A major portion of the customer domain looks unsatisfied with the business operations of the organization. Following are some of the instances of negative feedbacks that the organization has received for its services and quality standards while serving the customers:
Analysing the negative feedback from the customers:
    Feedback
    Description
    The food which was ordered wasn’t actually delivered.
    Some of the reviews from the customers have suggested that the organization does not often serve (or is mostly unable to serve) the item that has been originally ordered by the customer, that is, the food or the product delivered by the organization is either different from the one expected by the customer or the organization might not even serve the food due to lack of material availability with them (Mahr, Kalogeras and Odekerken‐Schröder, 2013).
    Inconsistency in the food delivered to the customers.
    The customers have complained about the inconsistency of the organization with the food that they deliver. According to the customers the food delivered is:
· Inconsistent in terms of size, quantity, and plating.
· The taste of the food is highly inconsistent.
This clearly shows that the customers are highly unsatisfied with the production and presentation standards and policies used by the organization. (An Integrated Occupational Hygiene Consultation Model for the Catering Industry, 2010)
    Questions on the health and safety policies of the organization
    According to the feedbacks given by the customers, there are evident chances where the customers have suffered from food poisoning after eating the food served by the organization. (Creating and Sustaining a Healthy Food Environment in Hospitals Contracting With a Food Service Management Company, 2018) This clearly marks a question over the health and safety policies followed by the organization while preparing the food and serving it to the customers.
The above analysis of the feedbacks given by the customers clearly reflects a high degree of dissatisfaction in the customer for the services offered by the organization. (An Integrated Occupational Hygiene Consultation Model for the Catering Industry, 2010) Before further analyzing the possible inventory management and control issues that might have resulted in the formation of these feedbacks at the client end, it is important to get a basic understanding of what an Inventory cycle is and what are the key areas that a manager needs to address throughout this inventory cycle.
The inventory cycle process: “Case of Food and Beverage Industry”
The inventory cycle in an organization maps the key processes and addressable areas that the organization (eventually the concerned departmental...