Table of Contents
1.0 Abstract 2
2.0 Introduction 2
3.0 Questions and answer 3
4.0 Recommendations 11
5.0 References 12

1. Abstract

Calveta Dining Services is provides services for senior living facilities (SLFs) in the United States (US). The founder of Calveta Dining Services, Antonio Calveta is originated from a poor village in Southern Italy. He is noticed for the passion for food and traditional family values. Calveta Dining Services is taken over by Frank Calveta upon the retirement of his father, Frank Calveta. Frank Calveta was appointed as the new CEO for the Calveta Dining Services. It seems that Frank is having difficulties in keeping the father’s goal for company which is to double the company’s revenue within five years while still maintaining the quality values and culture of company which is the backbone of the company. The main issue which been noticed is can Calveta Dining Services go beyond and achieve Frank Calveta’s goal. In addition, Frank Calveta need to maintain the culture of the company and in the same time he also must overcome the challenges of communication and organizational problems faced in Calveta Dining Services.

2. Introduction

This case is mainly focusing on the expansion of Calveta Dining Services. Calveta Dining Services was established in 1972 by Antonio Calveta. He had a lot of passion for food and also traditional families were maintained ever since in his business. In June 2009, Calveta Dining Services employed 15,000 people and serve 976 Senior Living Facilities (SLF).

One of the quality values of the company is to serve quality food for the Senior Living Facilities. The founder Antonio Calveta retired in 2007 after his 35 years of leadership of bringing the company with all the traditional values that he always believed and practiced. Upon his retirement, Frank Calveta took over the position as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to replace his father, Frank Calveta’s position in Calveta Dining Services.

3. Questions and answer

1) What role (if any) have Calveta’s values played in the organization success to date?

Calveta’s values played major role in bringing success to the organization. According to the case, the challenges faces is to provide the highest quality food and personalized services to the residents they serve and to meet the budget of their Senior Living Facilities (SLF) clients.

Calveta’s values also drove the company to innovate constantly in developing new services which inclusive of creating new menu items to be served to their clients. His value was also to develop employees with full potential and to grow profitably and generating the funds needed to generate even greater growth in future years are often referred to as backbone of Antonio’s ways.

These goals are determined by Antonio Calveta to be implemented into the organisation. By growing the company, Calveta grow the rank of chefs, managers and executives who’ve been trained in these values, and thus Calveta make the world a better place. Research analysts often ask what the relationship s between service and profit. It’s people that provide the connection between the two. Calveta usually motivate their employee to take care of their clients respectfully.

Frank is also a trained accountant who constantly reviews the company’s ongoing efforts to execute on the five core goals his father had established. The goal of providing customized service was merged with the quality of the food.

It is proven that few of those principles are contributed to Calveta’s success. As an example, in an effort to provide more personalized service to bedridden residents, Jennifer in 2006 devised “At your service” a catering program that allowed residents to pre-order their meals for the next day. Calveta staff delivered menus each morning and returned early afternoon to collect residents’ selection, which they submitted to the kitchen via personal digital assistant (PDA).

Exhibit 2 shows the values and desired behaviors which are the core elements of Calveta’s success. These values played a strong role in Calvate’s company performance. Values describe the character as an organization form the foundation on which the strategic plan is built. The list of behaviors is a direct outgrowth of the values. It describes how we interact both internally with members, organizations and externally with customers.

Exhibit 2

|Values |Desired Behaviors |
|Quality |Food is freshly prepared to our guests’ taste |
|Service |Servers provide exceptional customer experience at every contact |
|Charity |Employee help each other and the less privileged during work hours |
| |and in their home lives |
|Education |Calveta staff strives for continuous improvement |
|Respect |Employee respect each other, our clients and our guests |
|Growth |Staff proactively identifies opportunities for new and/or enhanced |
| |revenue streams |
|Profitability |Employees actively search for and implement cost reduction practice |
| |and productivity improvements |

The principles, values, desired behaviors are totally the core elements of Calveta’s success.

2) Does Calveta’s operating approach offer sustainable competitive advantages?

Calveta’s sustainable competitive advantage is largely due to the quality of the food provided. The quality of the food that Calveta prepared received high ratings from SLF residents and managers. Calveta built their local food service teams and menu offering to serve each facility uniquely. For example, to serve an SLF whose residents were largely Hispanic, a Calveta manager would hire cooks proficient at creating authentic Hispanic dishes. This was able to create uniqueness compared to other competitor in the same time makes them to be successful in the business.

Calveta also distinguished itself from competitors through its cost control model – a mix of gourmet and skinflint. The food buyers negotiated low prices by agreeing to sign long term contracts with the best vendors. The demand for freshness itself could yield savings. For example, Calveta made its pizza dough from scratch, saving roughly $ 1.00 per pizza shell over the pre-made product. The company also had clever ways to discourage waste, like incorporating leftover cookies into creative desserts.

Although Calveta’s human resources strategy included a pay-for-performance plan, it distinguished itself by emphasizing other aspects of employee motivation and development such as wide-ranging training programs, constant feedback, and frequent recognition.

3) Why haven’t other food service providers copied Calveta’s approach?

The reason why haven’t other food service providers copied Calveta’s approach this is because Calveta use differentiation focus approach for their business and this approach make other food service difficult to copy their operation. First reason is because most of the competitors might have not started as a traditional family company. As we know Calveta Dining Services was built on Antonio Calveta’s passion for food and traditional family values. Calveta Dining Services had their own family recipes and it difficult for other food service copy Calveta’s approach.

The other one, it is too expensive for competitors to imitated calveta’s approach. This is because base on Calveta’s third goal is related to the innovation, which is to provide more personalized service to bedridden residents, “At Your Service” a catering program that allowed residents to pre-order their meals for the next day. Calveta staff delivered menus each morning and returned early afternoon to collect residents’ selections, which they submitted to the kitchen via personal digital assistant (PDA). Beside that about forth goal it is regarding to the developing employees. Under Calveta human resources culture they had implementing pay-for-performance plan, wide-ranging training program, and the career progression program and among others. The Calveta’s managers also will get high compensation if they left the company. This shows that it is too expensive if the competitors want to imitate Calveta’s approach.

The third reason is because Competitor s have not been able to adopt the no-debt philosophy principal. According to the fifth goal related to the growth, Calveta did not carry much debt and most of the Company’s growth was due to prudent cash flow management. For example, the company had been able to fuel its growth through prudent cash flow management, it did not need to rely on debt to finance kitchen equipment and renovations.

4) Given Calveta communication and internal organization challenges, how important will training and development be to maintain growth and culture?

Calveta’s fifth goal is related on maintaining growth and culture. In order to maintain this two things, training and development play crucial roles and are important to be considered.

The training will enable the employees to keep learning and keep them growing. Besides, by training also can develop employee’s proficiency. Once the employees are perfectly understand their job, then they will be confident and love to do their job. It is important for employees to love their job, as it will motivate them and once the employees are motivated, the result or performance will be good.

Calveta should train the employees to improvise the work to maintain growth and culture. Training and development will help Calveta to identify their weaknesses and quickly find ways to improve them. It is important for a restaurant to always make sure their service are satisfied by customers in order to increase profit. So, developing menus and the restaurant’s environment are some ways that can be done by Calveta to maintain their growth and culture.

Through training and development, manager will always care about the employee’s charity. Manager will also understand the needs of the employees. It is important for a manager to observe employee’s needs as it will increase employee’s loyalty to the employer. By developing some benefits to be reward to the employees will also enable them to be loyal to the organization. Some benefits such as bonus, medical benefit and other allowances are desired by most employees.

The loyalty of the employees may help Calveta to cut cost in employees turnover thus can maintain their growth and cultures.

5) Calveta’s fifth goal is profitable growth. Goals one through four is more ethical in nature. Is goal five consistent with the first four?

For Calveta Dining Service Inc., they are five basic goals. The first goal is to provide the highest quality food and personalized service to the residents of the SLFs. Second goal is to hew to the budgets of SLF clients and their own company. To innovate constantly, developing new service features as determinedly as new menu items as third goal. Next goal is to develop every Calveta employees to his or her full potential. Last goal is to grow profitably, generating the funds needed to generate even greater growth in future years. As we know, profitable growth is a primary objective of every business and does not act independently of other goals. So, all goals support each. Whether they consistent with others goals or not, it depend on a management.

For the first goal high quality food is inconsistent with profitable growth. It is because they just point out 25% of SLFs contracted for food service and other 75% for potential customer. It is impossible for Frank and executive team believe that the company could get double its revenue in 5 years even despite the growth of an aging population unless it branched out the SLF segment. Double revenues in 5 years may lead to unethical practices, bad growth and profitable growth becoming inconsistent.

Second goals to hew to the budgets of SLF clients and their own company are consistent with profitable growth. It is because they use cost-control model like “a mix of gourmet and skinflint”. They using negotiated low prices about food buyers by sign long-term contracts with the best vendor. The company also has a method to avoid waste like incorporating leftover cookies into creative desserts. From this method, they can cut costing and make high profitable growth.

Third goal is inconsistent with the fifth goals. It is because when Calveta explored market opportunities beyond the food services and hospital segment, the result was unsatisfactory. From that result, Calveta noted that the cleaning services industry so low and his think whether his company could operate FSS profitably. So, from the view Calveta, the innovation where are third goal is inconsistent with profitability growth.

To develop every Calveta employee to his or her full potential is consistent with profitably growth. It can see from the HR approach and programs, we can see that Calveta want to develop every employee led to the creation of an aggressive management-progression structure. As we know, 80% food service managers were graduates of top culinary schools and 20% from management trainees from the front line. It advantage to Calveta to make their company go further in this industry. Other than that, to support this goal, Calveta offer extensive educational programs. From this view, we can see that Calveta can be successful in this field with the attempt. When Calveta successful, automatically Calveta be better known and will cause high profit growth.

Profitably growth should only be considered inconsistent when it stems from ‘bad growth’, otherwise it remain consistent with business goal.

6) How, if at all, should Calveta’s organization structure be changed to resolve communication issues, preserve the company’s culture, and support future growth?

The main issue to be noticed in this matter is whether Calveta change their organization structure in order to solve communication issues, preserve the company and support future growth of the company.

As Calveta is facing a positive growth, it looks like it is running out of the actual track. The growth of the organization makes it hard to be kept up to the culture which been preserve till these days. There are some adjustments need to be made to solve this communication problems among customer and staff, employees and management so that the company’s culture could be preserve as what it should be and to support future growth.

The communication in current organizational structure seemed to be ineffective due to some obstacles which could be noted. There is a big gap between the management, employees and also the clients. This makes the employees to feel that they could not feel the same amount of leadership they had previously which drives them to be extremely committed to their duty and also the organization. If this communication issues prolongs in the organization, it might affect their service towards their clients and also risk the company in future growth and profitability.

The communication should be back to the original track as previously it was to gain more commitment from the employees. As a result of a better communication which been corrected, the employee will perform a better job. They will be more motivated and dedicated in serving the clients.

The employees should always close the higher managements such as their supervisors to update their duty progress and also clients’ needs and wants. This will make the communication process even smoother. The Manager should always come up with monthly progress report in various angles to monitor the company’s strength and also weakness. This will make sure the company is on the right track to achieve its primary goal.

As a step to support the future growth, Calveta should always maintain their quality of service and product. They can also think about expanding their business into other region or sector of SLF’s. This would be a better move of expansion and also a strategy to increase the profitability of Calveta. Directly this expansion will lead Calveta to a growth, increase in job offers and also develop new services.

7) Should Frank Calveta move forward with an expansion into the hospital sector? With the proposed acquisition?

As we all concern, this company is a very well-known organization in the field of food service to serve the customers. Within this kind of business, there are several competencies that might be very influential in order to maintain the successful story to remain in the best condition. One of the best things about is giving the best hospitality to the customers.

As we considered about hospital business, it may concern about how to give the best to the customers. Theoretically and logically, hospital and food service may have several similarities between both of the type of business. It is all about to satisfy the customers for the services that they are provided.

However, before enter to this different kind of business, Calveta should really consider about the economic condition on hospital service for the moment. As we all know, during the year 2008 until 2009, it was a huge economic downturn impact the whole wide world condition, including hospital sector. It may be contribute to higher expenses need to be bear by Calveta during that time of economic disaster. However, since the economic condition has become more stable for the moment, it may be a quite good decision to involve in this type of business.

In addition, there are several factors that may be considered as to enter to hospital service by Calveta. When we look into the demographic factor, it is quite a good investment for Calveta to involve in this business. People are looking for the best hospital services currently. Since healthy meals and food may be one of the initiatives that may be provided by Calveta to the customers and visitor, so the acquisition seems quite a right decision to make.

This may due to the competencies that already been possessed by Calveta itself. Even though this might cause the organization to incur extra cost like renovation and equipment, however the potential of the business to expend might be far more better in return in the future. We know the growth of the company in terms in its financial position as well as the cash flow circulation are very outstanding, this surely may help the company to sustain its success even though it is a different type of business, as compared to its main core of business.

By meaning of acquisition, in our opinion, Calveta should really implement this as to expand its diversification of business within the organization. Acquisition may face lesser cost as compared to start from scratch business. The skills and human capital may remain in the organization without any further extra cost for training the new human capital for the business.

4. Recommendations

There are several problems or drawbacks of this organization itself, mainly come from the customers. Some of them might feel dissatisfied with the progression policies of the company. One of the ways as to prevent this is through the internal control of the company. It should be strengthen via giving the authority power to review the policies time by time and perhaps may consult to expert for the purpose of setting up the polices within the organization.

Other problem that may arise is from the perspective of the employees themselves. Perhaps some places in the organization may not facilitate the workers well. So the company should really provide a better working condition especially to those who are skilled workers, as to avoid any employees’ turnover is very high. The facility for them, for example the chefs, should be in the best condition.

The main problem that may arise in administration is about the skillfulness of the accountants. Some have shown that certain employed workers in accounting department are not coming from the experienced background. Thus, it may affect the company as whole. In our opinion, the company may use the style of mentor-mentee within the department. The senior accountants may train the new recruited novice in their learning process about this, since the training budget was already maxed out.

The last but not least, it is regarding of the structure of the organization itself. The authorization should be well-monitored in the first place as to avoid any conflict that might occur within the organization itself. By trying to promote the assertive communication skills among the workers may help a lot for them to blend in the culture of the organization as to ensure that everyone can work together in more harmony circumstances and any dilemma or crisis can be managed in a good manner or the best solution can be concluded.

5. References

Huang, H. J. (1999). Job Rotation from the Employees’ Point of View, Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, 7(1), 75-85.

Sarantinos, V.(2007). Flexibility in the workplace: What happens to commitment, Journal of Nusiness and Public Affairs, 1(2), 1-10

Acemoglu, D &Pischke, J.S(1999). Beyond Becker: Training in Imperfect Labour Markets, The Economic Journal, 109(453), 112-142

Davison, B. (2003). Management span of control: How wide is too wide?,Journal of Business Strategy,24(4), 22-29

Raja Abdul Ghafoor Khan, Furqan Ahmed Khan & Dr. Muhammad Aslam Khan. (2011). Impact of Training and Development on Organizational Performance, Global Journal of Management and BusinessResearch, 11(7), 63-38

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