Operations and organization
For owners and chief executives of restaurant groups, owners of franchise networks.
A format that works in a few outlets
and a format that holds across a network
are two different systems.
The step requires the economic result of every unit to depend on the system that governs it, and to hold whatever the shift, the season and the person on duty.
AC Retail Advisory works on that step, and has taken it before: to industrialize the format is to make repeatable what works today because someone holds it together. The scope covers the operating model of the unit, the labor cost that sustains it, and the structure that oversees it as the network grows.
Who it is for
Companies replicating a format
Restaurant and retail chains with a concept that has already proved itself and a pipeline of openings ahead.
Companies running a franchise network
Franchisors that have to obtain the same standard from units they do not manage, with the agreement and the control cycle in place of hierarchy.
Companies producing upstream
Groups where a central kitchen or a plant feeds the network, and production capacity sets the pace of openings.
The situations an engagement starts from
New units do not reach the margin of the ones that proved the concept works
The difference gets put down to the location or to the people, while it sits in a standard that was never made transferable.
Labor cost as a share of sales rises quarter after quarter
Staffing is sized to cover opening hours, and the real flow of the day has a different shape.
The standard lives in the heads of a few people
How a new hire is trained depends on the shift they walk into, and the time of the managers is absorbed by repeating the same instructions.
Staff turnover erases the training just delivered
Every departure takes a piece of the system with it, and service levels fall back a few months with each replacement.
The opening calendar depends on a few people
The team that launches a new unit is always the same one, and the pace of development stops at their availability.
The distance between the best unit and the worst widens with every opening
The gap widens because the system meant to contain it has grown more slowly than the network.
What the work covers
Process standardization
The operating model of the reference unit is rebuilt, identifying the points where variability destroys margin, and standardization concentrates on those.
The rebuilding starts from watching the shift: where time is lost, where yield changes, where two units do the same thing differently. Standardizing every gesture costs more than it returns, so the choice falls on the points where variability is paid for.
The sizing of labor cost
Staffing sized on real flow, productivity per unit of time, coverage of peaks and treatment of unproductive hours.
The calculation starts from the real sales curve by time band and day of the week and arrives at people per shift with the cost attached. It is the figure that makes units with different hours and catchments comparable. Management control and margin →
The network’s operating manual
A digital system built on the real processes of the company, available to staff at the moment of need and updatable without rebuilding it from scratch. Artificial intelligence is used in producing, structuring and maintaining the content.
The content follows the company’s process and is written in the language of the people who carry it out, with the control point next to the instruction. Updating is part of the system: a procedure that cannot be corrected the same day stops being followed. Process digitalization →
The training of operational leaders
Store managers, operations managers and area managers on the standards just defined. The manual and the training are built together: one without the other stays an archive nobody opens. Training and leadership development →
The path closes with a check on the floor: the manager applies the standard on their own shift, and whatever does not hold goes back into training before it becomes practice.
The structure of roles and delegation
Roles, delegation and span of control as the number of units rises, so that the distance between the owners and the unit stays governable.
Span of control means how many units an area manager can follow at a visit frequency that serves a purpose. The number changes with the complexity of the format and with how much the system holds on its own, and it is set before opening: it is the line that determines the cost of the network structure. Franchise network development →
The upstream production capacity
When replication depends on a central kitchen or a plant, the scope extends to the capacity that feeds it.
Yields, production cycles and storage space are read together with the opening plan, because upstream capacity sets the number of units that can be served before the next investment. Manufacturing operations →
What the company has to put in
An operations engagement takes place largely inside the units, and the point is written into the proposal.
Three things are needed. Access to the units during peak shifts, when the system is under pressure and the exceptions show. Some hours from the operational managers, who know the daily workarounds no document records. And one person inside the company who can close the standard when two defensible practices rule each other out.
Where a procedure does not exist, building it enters the scope and is quantified before work begins: it is work that stays with the company after the engagement ends.
What the client is left with
- The operating model of the reference unit, with the control points that matter
- Staffing sized on real flow, by time band and by day
- The digital operating manual, owned by the company and updatable
- The onboarding path for a new hire, with the check that closes it
- Management roles trained on the standards and on the numbers they have to read
- The scheme of roles, delegation and span of control for the next phase
The experience the engagement rests on
The person who leads the engagement ran network operations from the inside for six years before directing them: Restaurant Manager of Fratelli La Bufala across Milan, Rome and Brussels, then Operations Director of Grill Inn Group, then head of the foodservice division of Riso Gallo, launching the Chicchiricchi chain with its pilot store. As Managing Director of the Italian subsidiary of KellyDeli the network went from zero to ninety-five corners in three years: it is the lesson that still opens almost every engagement, because a format that works in three units is a different thing from a format that holds across ninety, and the difference lies in how much of that format is written down, measured and teachable to someone who was not there when it was born.
Among the projects on the operating system of a network run by Andrea Calistri before AC Retail Advisory was founded, the work for the franchisees of Old Wild West in 2015: six months alongside the HR, Finance and Operations departments of the parent company on standards, procedures and controls. And in 2017, for FRAM, the fish restaurant chain, the operating manual, supplier selection, the recipe book and the training of the store manager through to the launch of the restaurant.
Who works on the engagement
The engagement is directed by Andrea Calistri, founder of AC Retail Advisory. Execution is assigned to the practitioner chosen for the scope, introduced to the client before work begins.
