In The Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote, “All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.” Sun Tzu

Strategy and tactics are the foundation of your hospitality business, but are often confused, and/ or seen as static decisions made at a point in time and forgotten about.

So, what are they?

Strategy, briefly, is your overarching means of achieving profit.

Your grand design.

It incorporates your mission, your philosophy, and the core structure by which your business will achieve it’s primary goal – to be profitable.

it may include high levels of service, premium ingredients, elegant and expensive fit outs, and high average spend, or it may include low priced, high sales velocity, lower service and cheaper designs.

When boiled down to its essence, your strategy can be captured in your distribution to costs – Labour, COGs, Operating expenses and Pricing.

Tactics are how you go about achieving your strategy.

How do you achieve the high average customer spend that your strategy defines as ideal?

How do you design your layout and service model to optimise sales velocity, how do you design a menu that means a qualified chef isn’t needed in the kitchen.

How do you adapt to fluctuations in revenue or demand.

BUT

what many restaurant operators get stuck on is trying to force the not quite right strategy through their weekly tactics, instead of iterating their strategy.

Strategy is ultimately built upon assumptions. Forecasts, anticipated costs and predictions.

And sometimes, tactics are not equipped to make up for the short fall when strategy gets those predictions wrong.

Sometimes, instead of accepting low profit, or decrying that staff are inefficient, or the tactics are failing, it’s the strategy that needs to be reviewed and adapted.

Peiso can show you how.

Ivan Brewer