The catering industry after five years of eight regulations： from bottoming out to exploring healthy development
It has been five years since the promulgation of the "Eight Regulations", and the catering industry has been affected to the bottom and began to think about a healthy development path. Nowadays, with the upgrading of consumption, there are many delicious, fun and beautiful catering enterprises in the market, and the catering industry as a whole has begun to pay attention to experience and service. According to the 2017 China Catering Report, the annual revenue of the catering industry exceeded 3.5 trillion yuan in 2016, up 11.2% year-on-year, and it is expected to reach 5 trillion yuan in 2020. While maintaining rapid growth, the catering market is also entering a period of change.
Jiang Junxian, president of China Cuisine Association, said that with the improvement of consumption power, consumers’ desire for personalization and customization is increasing from full to good, and then to eating environment and eating experience, which tests the management characteristics and management level of catering enterprises themselves, and also urges catering enterprises to accurately position themselves. Whether they can keep up with and meet the diversified needs of consumers determines the development of catering enterprises.
Dining environment is the first choice for eating in restaurants.
As a representative of the high-end catering industry, the "Beijing Banquet" was just opened in 2012, with a daily turnover of about 500,000 yuan. At that time, like many high-end restaurants in Beijing, government departments or enterprises hosted most banquets. After the introduction of the "eight regulations", high-end catering as a whole fell into a recession. At that time, UnionPay big data showed that from the end of 2010 to the end of 2014, the overall growth rate of high-end catering credit card consumption showed a decline. The daily turnover of "Beijing Banquet" once dropped to only 2,000 yuan, which simply could not bear the cost of 180,000 yuan per month.
Many high-end catering enterprises are trying some countermeasures, such as changing large rooms into small rooms, expanding banquet halls and increasing wedding banquets, etc. Some catering enterprises have removed all the dishes above 300 yuan, and some catering enterprises have started to sell steamed buns for a few dollars, but the results are not satisfactory, and many shops have to close down.
Yang Xiulong, the chairman of "Beijing Banquet", changed his mind and decided to "move from high-end to high-end", from the high-end of "saving face" to the high-end of "satisfying the pursuit of a better life after the people get rich".
This just proves the result of a survey made by China Cuisine Association last year. The survey shows that the first choice of consumers is the dining environment.
Not only that, consumers are also changing, choosing mobile payment more and paying more attention to dining experience. Kong Lingbo, the chairman of Aoqiwei Company and the founder of Beichuangying Modern Service Class, concluded that the current consumers in China are developing from satisfying consumption to pleasant consumption, and satisfying consumption means satisfying satiety or showing off mentality.
It was then that in 2014, Zhang Tianyi entered the catering industry as a "cross-border practitioner". Although it was only a small shop at first, the new attitude of Peking University master selling Hunan beef powder exploded the catering industry at once. Zhang Tianyi recalled that when he entered the catering industry, he felt a strong sense of anxiety in the industry.
Zhang Tianyi found that a large amount of investment has entered the catering industry, and the emergence of the post-90s generation who just had spending power represents the transformation of the demand side, and cross-border practitioners like him have brought different thinking logic. All factors indicate that the direction of the catering industry is changing, and the industry is welcoming an inflection point.
Good cooking is the foundation, and good experience can win.
Even if everyone is sensitive to change, it is not easy to change. Kong Lingbo believes that the competitive factors between catering enterprises are changing, and new technologies have brought about changes in the flow of consumers. "Doing a good job is the foundation, but if we still regard this as the only element of competition, it will definitely be mercilessly abandoned by the market."
Kong Lingbo said: "Most contradictions stem from cognitive mismatch. If we want to understand them, catering practitioners will find that they are facing great subversion and innovation in management, operation, product innovation and sustainable marketing."
The "Beijing Banquet" has experienced this change. Yang Xiulong decided to work hard on the service of "Beijing Banquet" and launched a private customized service. They divide every scene of life into 36 segments, such as birthday, marriage, further education, etc., and carefully plan every detail from customer reservation, arrival, dining and departure. This idea is different from the previous product promotion, but thinking about demand from the customer’s standpoint, which is a supply-side reform in the catering industry.
"A service that doesn’t leave customers with good memories and stories worth telling is zero service." This strict standard was set by Yang Xiulong, who asked all employees to try their best to satisfy, surprise and move customers. The "table conversion rate" of "Beijing Banquet" (that is, the proportion of the next meal scheduled on the spot after the meal on the same day) has been around 30%, far exceeding the industry average.
Once, a customer gave his old mother a birthday party, and the "Beijing Banquet" specially changed the name of the private room to the "Nanshan Hall" which means "Longevity is better than Nanshan". In the private room, photos of the old mother were placed for everyone to recall the past together, and even the person who cooked longevity noodles finally revealed that it was actually a son, which not only surprised the old mother, but also expressed her son’s deep gratitude. This "Nanshan Hall" story has become a service model within the "Beijing Banquet" and even within the industry.
Zhang Tianyi thinks that solving the problem of catering industry can be divided into several levels: McDonald’s solves the convenient food and clothing, Xibei solves the fresh feeling of dining, Japanese food meets the exotic customs, and Haidilao focuses on service.
"In the past, if a catering company did a good job, it would be successful. Now customers need a compound experience and require the catering industry to do its best in multiple dimensions." Zhang Tianyi said.
"Funiutang" has performed well in the taste of beef powder, dining scene, brand value proposition and appeal. Today, "Funiutang" accounts for 35% of in-house food, 25% of take-away, and 40% of other cold and fresh products sold in convenience stores and online, which is quite different from traditional catering enterprises.
Informatization makes catering enterprises smarter.
Informatization makes the catering industry more intelligent. Jiang Junxian observed that informationization has brought two changes to the catering industry: first, the operational data of the catering industry began to be uploaded to the cloud, and the information companies analyzed the data to judge the development of enterprises; second, AI was entering the catering industry, and many enterprises were trying to integrate the two.
The "Funiutang" that young people like is the forerunner of informationization. In terms of food itself, "Funiutang" has developed a higher standard of original soup beef powder, and in terms of store operation, 90% has achieved mobile payment, which enables catering enterprises to understand consumers better, thus analyzing consumers’ dining data and making appropriate promotion. Today, with the high cost of obtaining customers, this personalized push will directly bring traffic and guide offline and online consumers to convert each other.
Zhang Tianyi revealed that in the future, "Funiutang" may introduce fingerprint payment and face-brushing payment, discover the heat map in the restaurant through smart cameras, analyze the changes in the turnover rate, and make better decisions.
The traditional operation processes of catering enterprises are procurement, warehousing, processing, distribution, cooking, service and marketing. Aoqiwei is a company that provides information services to catering enterprises. Kong Lingbo believes that a flexible process system is the key to the operation of catering enterprises. In the future, a large-scale catering enterprise must be upgraded to a light asset enterprise based on industrial cooperation environment, so that it is possible to build a leading enterprise.
In Kong Lingbo’s view, the three elements of the catering industry are brand operation, product innovation and quality control. China catering enterprises should establish the brand connotation that can make the target customers trust, and not just regard the brand as a carrier of marketing.
