The World's Best Airline Awards 2013

Ranking 1 to 20

The World Airline Awards are a primary benchmarking tool for Passenger Satisfaction levels of airlines throughout the world, delivering a unique survey format based on analysis of business and leisure travellers, across all cabin travel types (First Class, Business Class, Premium Economy Class and Economy class passengers).

Air travellers completed an online survey questionnaire about their experience with airlines on the ground and onboard, during a 10-month period. The survey measures passenger satisfaction across more than 40 key performance indicators of airline front-line product and service - including check-in, boarding, onboard seat comfort, cabin cleanliness, food, beverages, inflight entertainment and staff service. The Survey covered over 200 airlines, from the largest international airlines to smaller domestic carriers.

1	Emirates
2	Qatar Airways
3	Singapore Airlines
4	ANA All Nippon Airways
5	Asiana Airlines
6	Cathay Pacific Airways
7	Etihad Airways
8	Garuda Indonesia
9	Turkish Airlines
10	Qantas Airways
11	Lufthansa
12	EVA Air
13	Virgin Australia
14	Malaysia Airlines
15	Thai Airways
16	Swiss Int'l Air Lines
17	Korean Air
18	Air New Zealand
19	Hainan Airlines
20	Air Canada

The World's 50 Best Restaurants Award 2013

list from San Pellegrino

The World's 50 Best Restaurants list has been announced, and the big news is of course that Noma's three year reign as the number one restaurant in the world has come to an end. That title now goes to El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain. Noma holds tight at second, while third goes to Massimo Bottura's Osteria Francescana.

World's 50 Best also announced they'll be doing Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants in September in Lima; more details on that can be found in a press release below.

1. El Celler de Can Roca, Girona, Catalonia, Spain 
2. Noma, Copenhagen 
3. Osteria Francescana, Modena, Italy 
4. Mugaritz, San Sebastián, Spain 
5. Eleven Madison Park, New York City 
6. D.O.M, Sao Paulo, Brazil 
7. Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, London 
8. Arzak, San Sebastián, Spain 
9. Steirereck Restaurant, Vienna, Austria 
10. Vendôme, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany

How to Do a Breakeven Analysis

Breakeven analysis helps determine when your business revenues equal your costs

By Daniel Richards

If you can accurately forecast your costs and sales, conducting a breakeven analysis is a matter of simple math. A company has broken even when its total sales or revenues equal its total expenses. At the breakeven point, no profit has been made, nor have any losses been incurred. This calculation is critical for any business owner, because the breakeven point is the lower limit of profit when determining margins.

There are several types of costs to consider when conducting a breakeven analysis, so here's a refresher on the most relevant.

• Fixed costs: These are costs that are the same regardless of how many items you sell. All start-up costs, such as rent, insurance and computers, are considered fixed costs since you have to make these outlays before you sell your first item.

• Variable costs: These are recurring costs that you absorb with each unit you sell. For example, if you were operating a greeting card store where you had to buy greeting cards from a stationary company for $1 each, then that dollar represents a variable cost. As your business and sales grow, you can begin appropriating labor and other items as variable costs if it makes sense for your industry.

Setting a Price

This is critical to your breakeven analysis; you can't calculate likely revenues if you don't know what the unit price will be. Unit price refers to the amount you plan to charge customers to buy a single unit of your product.

• Psychology of Pricing: Pricing can involve a complicated decision-making process on the part of the consumer, and there is plenty of research on the marketing and psychology of how consumers perceive price. Take the time to review articles on pricing strategy and the psychology of pricing before choosing how to price your product or service.

• Pricing Methods: There are several different schools of thought on how to treat price when conducting a breakeven analysis. It is a mix of quantitative and qualitative factors. If you've created a brand new, unique product, you should be able to charge a premium price, but if you're entering a competitive industry, you'll have to keep the price in line with the going rate or perhaps even offer a discount to get customers to switch to your company.

The World's 50 Best Restaurant Award 2011

quoted from William Reed Business Media Ltd

The much-anticipated S. Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards 2011 was held on Monday 18th April at the historic Guildhall in the City of London, in the company of the world's finest chefs, international media and the world's most influential restaurateurs.

The S. Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards and List is organised and compiled by Restaurant magazine, and sponsored by S.Pellegrino. The Awards are now in their tenth year.

Marketing Strategy

Approach and Concept

Marketing is far more than just selling, although higher sales are obviously the ultimate aim. Rather, marketing is a whole collection of activities including advertising, selling and sales promotion, marketing research, introduction of new products, pricing, packaging, distribution and after sales service.

Approaches to Marketing

One approach to marketing is to regard it as the process of finding customers for goods which the firm has already decided to supply. In this case there is much emphasis on face to face customer contact, price cutting, heavy advertising and sales promotions. It might be assumed that customers will always want to purchase well-constructed items that are made available to them at low cost: that all a firm needs to do is offer for sale high quality, sound value product with many attractive features, provide effective after-sales service, and then the goods will ‘sell themselves’.

The Marketing Concept

Alternatively, the firm might seek to evaluate market opportunities before production, assess potential demand for the good, determine the product characteristics desired by consumers, predict the prices consumers are willing to play, and then supply goods corresponding to the needs and wants of target markets more effectively than competitors, business adopting the latter approach are said to apply the marketing concept.

Adherence to the marketing concept means the firm conceives and develops product that satisfy consumer wants. Note however that:

• consumers demand can be and frequently is created and manipulated through advertising campaigns

• unquestioning adoption of the concept could lead to the productions of items that are highly attractive to consumers but which nevertheless are expensive to supply and thus generate negligible profit.

Practical application of the marketing concept implies the full integration of marketing with other business activities (design, production, costing, transport, and distribution, corporate strategy and planning) so that the marketing department assumes extraordinary importance within the firm. Numerous conflicts with other functions arise from situation.

The Marketing Mix

In 1965 Professor N. H. Borden coined the phrase ‘marketing mix’ to describe the combination of marketing element used in given set of circumstances. Appropriate mixes vary depending on the firm and industry, and over time. Professor E. J. McCarty subsequently summarized the

Human Resources Strategy

Human resources management concerns the human side of the management of enterprises and employees’ relations with their firms. Its purpose is to ensure that the employees of a company, i.e. its human resources, are used in such a way that the employer obtains the greatest possible benefit from their abilities and the employees obtain both material and psychological rewards from their work.

Human resources management has strategic dimensions and involves the total deployment of human resources within the firm. Thus, for example, human resources management will consider such matters as:

• the aggregate size of the organization’s labor force in the context of an overall corporate plane (how many divisions and subsidiaries the company is to have, design of the organization, etc.)

• how much to spend on training the workforce, given strategic decisions on target quality levels, product prices, volume of production, and so on

• the desirability of establishing relations with trade unions from the view-point of the effective management control of the entire organization

• the wider implications for employees of the management of change (not just the consequences of alterations in working practices).

The strategic approach to human resources management involves the integration of personnel and other human resources management considerations into the firm’s overall corporate planning and strategy formulation procedures. It is proactive, seeking constantly to discover

Financial Strategy

Effective strategies are crucial to the well-being of the firm, and need to address the following issues:

• How, where and when the business will obtain funds, plus (for public companies) the timing of share issues and the determination of share issue prices
• The best use of financial resources
• Gearing
• How to maximize the market valuation of the firm
• What to do with accumulated cash
• Long term financial planning for business expansion
• The capital structure of the business
• The extent to which internally generated profits are reinvested within the company
• Choice of financial criteria for selecting major capital investments.

Also companies operating in several countries need to formulate

10 Ways to Save Money at Your Restaurant

Everyone is looking for ways to save money these days. Restaurants are no exception. The good news is that there are a lot of quick steps you can take to save you money, either through cutting energy use or reducing spoilage. A lot of these tips are the same things your mom told you growing up.

1. Switch to energy efficient light bulbs. Subway recently switched all their light bulbs to energy efficient bulbs in all of their 2000 US franchise locations. Switching to an energy efficient light bulb can save up to $22 per bulb per year. This can add up to quite a savings over time. Also keep lights off when you don’t need them. If you don’t start serving lunch until 11 o’clock there is no reason to turn the dining room lights on until then. 
2. Only run the dishwasher when it is completely full. This cuts down on water usage, soap and energy costs.
3. Soak the dishes. Rather than running hot water over them to loosen dried food, fill a sink and let them soak.
4. Install low flow faucets and toilets. This will save between 20 to 40 percent of water usage.
5. Turn down the thermostat. You can still be comfortable at 68 degrees rather than 72 degrees.
6. Switch from plastic to glass. Green restaurants have been following this tip for years. If restaurant uses disposable plates, flatware or cups, considering a one time investment for china, glass and silver. You will save on garbage (good for the environment as well as the restaurant budget) and save money over time.
7. Invest in energy efficient appliances. This is a lot easier said than done, especially in a sluggish economy. But consider that many states offer restaurants tax credits and other incentives for switching to energy efficient appliances. Plus, the savings on an energy efficient appliance can often pay for itself within a year or two.
8. Trim down your menu. Track sales of every menu item and remove menu items that aren’t selling. Also look for ways to cross utilize menu items, using one item for multiple dishes. This will help reduce food spoilage as well as keep food cost under control.
9. Take advantage of e-marketing. More and more people turn to Google to look for restaurants than the yellow pages. Take advantage of all the internet has to offer, from your own website to online advertising. Many companies offer inexpensive e-newsletters you can send to customers for a fraction of traditional prints ads.
10. Train your staff. Teach your staff to sort recyclables, turn off lights, let you know if there is a leaky faucet in the wait station. Ask them to bring in their own take-home containers instead of using the restaurant take-outs.

Market Segmentation

The term ‘market segmentation’ describes the breaking down of a market into self-contained and relatively homogeneous sub-groups of customers, each with its own special requirements and characteristics. Products and advertising message can then be altered to make them appeal to particular segments.

Markets may be segmented with respect to customers’ location, ages, incomes, social class, or other demographic variables, or according to consumer lifestyle, attitudes, interests and opinions as they affect purchasing behavior.

It does seem that many consumers buy goods that fit in with a chosen lifestyle (healthy, sophisticated, rugged, etc.) and with their perceptions of what they ought to purchase in order to pursue that lifestyle. Once the lifestyle to which potential consumers aspire is identified, advertising message can be modified in appropriate ways.

Differentiated versus undifferentiated marketing strategies

A differentiated marketing strategy requires the firm to modify its products for various market segments and to operate in all sectors. Production and promotion costs are normally higher when this approach is followed.

Marketing Mix

In 1965 Professor N. H. Borden coined the phrase ‘marketing mix’ to describe the combination of marketing element used in given set of circumstances. Appropriate mixes vary depending on the firm and industry, and over time.

Professor E. J. McCarty subsequently summarized the notion under four headings (known as the ‘four Ps’ of marketing), as follows:

• Promotion – including advertising, merchandising, public relations, and the utilization of sales people.
• Product – design and quality of output, assessment of consumer needs choice of which products to offer for sale, after sale service.
• Price – choice of pricing strategy, prediction of competitors’ responses to changes in the supplying firm’s prices.
• Place – selection of distribution channels, transport arrangements.

Marketing is the primary interface between the firm and its customers, guiding resources towards appropriate product offers and facilitating the satisfaction of customer requirements. Selection of the particular mix to be used forms the basis of the firm’s marketing strategy.

Examples of marketing strategy are:

• developing new product for existing markets
• deeper penetration of existing markets
• entering new markets for existing product
• attacking competitors head-on (rather than following competitors’ norms and behavior)
• serving particular market niches

Marketing Myopia

In 1960 Theodore Levitt published in the Harvard Business Review an article entitled ‘Marketing Myopia’ in which he argued that firms should adopt broad industry orientations rather than focusing their attentions on

10 Ways to Stay Ahead of Your Restaurant Competition

quoted from Ian Macdonald - founder and owner of Macdonald's Gourmet Burgers

Every restaurant owner should constantly be taking an objective look at how well your restaurant is doing. Staying ahead of the competition will keep you on your toes. Here are some ways you can get a good report card.

1. Know who your competition is!

I have encountered situations where a restaurant owner has identified the competition. Or at least what they think is their competition, but they're not. If I am selling Gourmet Burgers with the finest of ingredients, including trimmed premium Scotch Fillet Steak for the beef patties, (like I do), in a licensed restaurant with full service and extras, I am not really in Competition with the greasy burger joint down the road, or a group like Burger King am I?

So make sure your competition is truly your competition in the first place.

2. Get Employees to Sample the Competition.

You should always know what your competition is doing, it is essential to your success. It may be difficult to go yourself though as you would no doubt be known. So send one of your employees instead. Brief them what to look for. It will also give you the opportunity to treat a staff member to something different. How about showing up for work to be told you have to go out to dinner or lunch...all expenses paid!!!

3. Employ the services of a mystery shopper.

This is the reverse of what we have just spoken about. Here you get someone to come to your restaurant and report back to you. So none of you staff know what's going on. I organise this by going to our local business or community college and speaking to someone from the food and beverage school. They always suggest a student that would excel at the project. They earn some money, have some fun, and get a free meal. I often donate something to the college or I might even go and speak to there for them.
Everybody wins.