Executive Summary Porcini’s, an Italian-American full service restaurant, has the vision to rapidly expand in the market. The restaurant’s executive team, which includes the VP of marketing- Allesio, the VP of Operations- Kurt Jensen, HR Director- Wanda Halloran, and Chief Chef- Mariana Molise, all collectively developed Porcini’s mission to leverage its strengths for growth. Considering Porcini’s strengths and options available, the organization’s overall strategies are to launch the Pronto’s concept and adapt a company owned-and-operated model. Porcini’s is looking for new opportunities to establish its brand into new markets within the Northeast region. One of the challenges about this is that the markets for full service restaurants are nearing its dissemination point in shopping mall locations and within cities across the US. Motivated by this truth, Porcini’s is strongly considering opening limited-menu outlets at interstate highways, called “Pronto’s”. In an effort to increase their footprint, Porcini’s is considering the options of franchising, syndication, and company-ownership models, all while attempting to maintain its reputation for exceptional food and service. After a careful examination of all of the ownership models and how they affect the operations and service management for the restaurant, it is gathered that the most comprehensive model for Prontos would be syndication; primarily because it allows the restaurant to preserve its brand image and have full control of its service operations. Background Starting out in 1969 as a family-owned Italian restaurant in the Boston area, Porcini’s, Inc., soon expanded to many locations in the Northeastern United States. Known for its consistent deliverance of high-quality food and service at all of their locations, it was apparent for the restaurant to consecutively win awards like the one they won in 2010 for “Best Chain Service”. Porcini’s success and quality could be attributed to the company’s management team, most of the staff, and the restaurant’s very accomplished and experienced Chef Morina Molise of New York’s Catania Grille.

Problem Statement Will the executive team for Porcini’s be able to successfully achieve the idea for the restaurant to open up smaller limited-menu outlets called “Porcini’s Pronto and still be able to not compromise the restaurant’s infamous excellent reputation in food and service quality? If the company decided to pursue this venture, would they need to consider different models of ownerships options, such as franchising or syndication?

Analysis
The initial sound of the opportunity for expansion for a restaurant chain that is regarded as being such a prominent player in the food industry sounds like an inevitable success. Because of this reason, most restaurant chains have been proven to “get in over their heads” or fail when choosing to pursue or accept ownership opportunities for the purposes of growth for the business. When marketing Vice President of Porcini’s, Inc., Tom Alessio came up with and presented the idea of opening limited-menu outlets, which would be called “Porcini’s Prontos”, he had several things to strategically analyze and consider about the growth opportunity. First to consider and most important to consider in this idea of his, is how to effectively achieve the success of Prontos while facing the challenge of possibly compromising the food and service quality that Porcini’s is known for. Also worthy of being analyzed and considered would be the operating strategies that are in planning for Porcini’s Prontos and what the direct and indirect effects of these strategies are on things like quality service and quality control for the company. Finally, the risks and the opportunities associated with the option to franchise and the option of syndication ownership are necessary to examine.
Several factors and recent trends within the restaurant industry would suggest that the creation of a concentrated limited-menu offered by a full service food chain that is known for having great food and service would be successful. As shown in several recent reports, since the mid-2000s, customers are opting for more healthy food choices, which include foods prepared with more fresh ingredients (Patton, 2013). Being that Porcini’s is a restaurant that has always offered fresh food that is prepared with fresh ingredients, today’s consumers may be more inclined to patronize a smaller, menu-limited Porcini’s in certain areas. The idea to strategically place Porcini’s Pronto in close to busy interstate highway exits places them at another possible competitive advantage, particularly due to the fact that Porcini’s main competitors within the chain restaurant industry aren’t designed to serve the traveling or in-a-hurry dining customer target market that Porcini’s Pronto could possibly reach (Heskett & Luecke, 2011). However, Porcini’s faces a few competitive disadvantages with the creation of Porcini Prontos; which includes the lack of brand recognition, especially if amongst other popular fast food chains that are already sustaining strong market share in the type of locations that Prontos is forecasted to be placed in. Probably the most crucial challenge of the ones that Porcini’s Pronto will encounter is maintaining service quality through strategic methods of quality control. Alessio, Porcini’s VP of marketing, plans to do this in several ways, which includes implementing a rigorous employee recruitment practice. His plan to specifically target and recruit candidates solely based on them having the “right attitude” versus the necessary skills, is a very positive contributor in the company’s attempt to maintain the high level of service quality that they need to with Porcini’s Pronto. Once these candidates are hired as Pronto’s employees, the company will also implement strategic methods to retain these people in an attempt to reduce and avoid high turnover and absenteeism by offering employee bonuses and paid vacation leave. Porcini’s fully understands that in order to seamlessly administer their “rapid, quality service strategy” (Heskett & Luecke, 2011), that it is imperative to foresee and counter some of the things that plague the restaurant industry, such as high turnover rates and absenteeism. In an effort to push the rapid, quality service strategy and monitor quality, Porcini’s pays close attention to the voice of their customers by equipping each of their locations with a state of the art computerized customer satisfaction questionnaire. The customer’s responses to the questionnaire allow the restaurant chain to assess areas of strength and weaknesses in the areas of the customer’s experience and the controllable restaurant operations (Markovic, Raspor & Šegaric, 2010). These measurements also allowed for better management of the restaurants emphasis on speed through technology; which is an operation management concept that directly correlates with the restaurant’s goal of service quality management. Porcini’s has the growth opportunity options of maintaining a company owned and operated restaurant chain, franchising, or syndication ownership. Each option is associated with its own set of risks for the restaurant and opportunities for growth as well. If Porcini’s remains company owned and operated, they will have complete and absolute control over the customer experience and the restaurant operations; the most significant challenges that the restaurant faces with the idea of Porcini’s Pronto. They lack, however, brand recognition within the fast food market that serves the traveling customer. This would force the restaurant to consider franchising or syndication, where with both of these options, they’d possibly be able to gain more brand recognition. Costs associated with franchising could be considerably high and it holds the risk of Porcini’s not having much of or no control of the restaurant’s operations, which could ultimately have a negative effect on the restaurant’s food and service quality. The option of syndication ownership would allow for Porcini’s to maintain the level of control of the restaurant chain’s service operations as a whole. Recommendations It would absolutely be a recommendation for Porcini’s to opt for the syndication ownership as a growth option. Because of Porcini’s plans for the Porcini’s Pronto locations, and the obvious existing need for brand recognition within the market that they are trying to enter, Porcini’s is almost obligated to pursue other options of ownership. Syndication ownership allows the restaurant chain total control of their operations; which gives Porcini’s the ability to achieve their goal of profitably providing a limited selection of Porcini’s standard menu at moderate prices, without jeopardizing the company’s reputation for great food and service quality (Gadanecz, 2004). Having control of an important aspect to the company’s success, such as operations and service management, will allow Porcini’s to focus on improving their “rapid, quality service” strategy. One technique that can be added to this system would be including a queue discipline to their Porcini’s Prontos locations for customers (View figure 1). A sophisticated dynamic queue discipline identifies a delay cost rate and the rate of customers served per unit time (Dharmawirya & Adi, 2011). A system such as this focuses on maximizing the benefits for customers plus providers (Dharmawirya & Adi, 2011). This is something that definitely correlates with Porcini’s rapid, quality service strategy and would allow them to ultimate goal of maintaining exceptional quality service.
Conclusion
Because of the ever changing condition of the economy and the trends that effects the restaurant industry, it is imperative that a company such as Porcini’s carefully and strategically analyze pursuing any growth and ownership opportunities. With today’s restaurant customers, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that if they have a great service experience somewhere, they’ll continue to patronize that place. In the same token, those same loyal customers will quickly cease to patronize a place where they feel as though they aren’t receiving the same high level of service and quality that they’ve typically been receiving. This is why it is paramount for Porcini’s to opt for whichever ownership and growth opportunity that allows them to maintain what has consecutively been their competitive edge within the restaurant industry; that is high quality service and food.