Company profile:

  • Sector: HORECA
  • over 20 locations in Romania
  • 300 employees

Inventure involvement:

  • drafting of the franchise manuals
  • drafting of the franchise package

Initial Phase

The project was initiated by the City Grill shareholders, who were aiming to develop a modern corporate structure. The group had (and has also today) a very strong corporate culture, the management team (top and middle management) having a long experience working inside the City Grill Group.

HORECA, as a field of activity, is a very demanding one. One needs an almost. permanent presence from the management inside the location. The business is people dependant.

Several management training programs were under development as well as continuous formation programs inside the locations (on the job experience)

At the employees level, City Grill is considered as an excellent training ground, a real school. All those ever working for City Grill are acknowledging the high level of requirements and standards.

The shareholders aimed at reaching a superior operations level through standardizations and formalizing the working procedures. Also they aimed at implementing new instruments (like the operations manual). Also, having in mind the rapid expansion of the group, these instruments were going to ease the integration of the new employees in the City Grill organizational structure, especially for middle and top management positions.

Although the majority of the locations are directly owned by the company, it was envisaged the extension of the concept through a franchise system which was supposing a very thorough procedures and standardization.

Final outcome

Over a month was dedicated to the on the job operational training, in order to understand the business from the inside. Following a training matrix similar to the one used in McDonald’s, all the roles were experimented, from help cook to rota coordinator and location manager.

Interviews were conducted with top and middle management representatives. The financial data were analyzed in order to get to a reference business model (the so called benchmark). This model was further going to be used in the negotiation with the potential franchise partners.

After a thorough understanding of the operational flows as well as of the entire business model, we were in the position to finalize the Operations Manual which included some corrective measures and standardized operations procedures.

The whole franchise package was finalized and successfully implemented. At present time, all of the City Grill locations have implemented these manuals at the core of their operational procedures..