It depends on the position.
Send you a classic article, it will definitely be rewarding!
It talks about the management experience of canteen procurement in detail, which is worth learning from.
The EMBA class taught by the canteen boss to the professor from Peking University (zz)
(2009-01-21 16:37:14)
Control the kickbacks, damn It does not work if people manage people; it is necessary to control from the source; it is necessary to turn big power into small power control; it is necessary to use rules and laws to control; it is necessary to let people control themselves. ”
Running a canteen should be the simplest small business. Assume that you are a small owner of a canteen. How can you effectively prevent corruption in canteen procurement? This is a comprehensive question for managers, because any product The standards are not as complex as grains, vegetables, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, chicken, duck, and fish; the quality of any product is not as difficult to measure as the taste of meals that need to change every day; the price of any product is not as sensitive as what the employees eat every day. If you don’t believe me, try it and you can manage it. Is it a good canteen?
Canteen Management Problems
Some people may say that if I were the owner of a canteen, canteen procurement would be the focus of my management. If necessary, I could take the following measures: " Me, my wife, or someone close to me will buy it in person. "But won't you become self-employed? Can your canteen company grow bigger? How will you manage a second or third canteen? Besides, don't think that your cronies won't lie to you. , Human beings are the most advanced and changeable animals in the world. In an environment lacking supervision and restraint, your wife will hide her private money. A Shenzhen garment factory owner said to me self-deprecatingly: "Since my mother-in-law took charge. After the canteen, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law never buy food at home. "It's not enough to rely on family ties to manage a company.
"Then I will send two people to buy it, one to buy and the other to supervise. "But everyone who has managed a business knows that in a vegetable market where there are cash transactions, no invoices, and the quality and prices change every day, buyers have poor ability to resist temptation, and relying on person-to-person is unreliable, because two people can quickly Form an offensive and defensive alliance. I have seen some companies even use three people to buy groceries, with two people doing the shopping and one person doing the weighing. What’s the result? In addition to quarreling all day long, the problem is still not solved: Don’t forget, you are not running a profit-making business. If three people can do the work that can be done by one person, how can your meal costs be reduced?
“Then I will adopt a shift system, every time. The two people who went to buy it were different. "At first glance, you don't understand the canteen business. Don't underestimate the oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, vegetables, potatoes, chicken, duck, and fish that everyone knows about. Their procurement is a very professional job. If you don't believe me, ask your wife and mother. A People who don’t understand the market conditions often allow vendors to cheat on scales and bully prices. If you buy low-quality goods at high prices to prevent corruption, will your canteen business still be competitive?
"Then? The person who purchases is fixed and the person who supervises is rotated. "But how can an inexperienced person effectively supervise a person who purchases every day? He can easily perform a perfect double act with the supplier and make the supervising person deaf. Not only that, criminal psychology proves: the stricter the supervision, the more likely the supervisor will become deaf. The stronger a person's criminal psychology is, the better proof it is in prison. Buyers are stared at by different people every day. This is actually a double insult to the buyers, because the assumptions are: first, you will not only be corrupt; second, you will also be corrupt. It will drag others into committing corruption. If you are assumed like this, you will be sorry for yourself if you don’t commit corruption! How can you use your own initiative to fight with the vendors to buy cheap vegetable, eggplant and pork vermicelli?
" I will use public bidding to select the main supplier. "This is again a layman's talk. It is true that some large restaurants or hotels use a general supplier exclusive procurement system for the purchase of beverages, tobacco, alcohol, grains and oils. This is because these commodities are standard products, while vegetables, potatoes, chicken, duck, and fish are non-standard products, and the quality And the price can change every day, how can you prepare a tender? Who can predict that the price of pork will increase by 10 yuan in August, and the cucumber harvest in September will only cost 1 jiao per catty? Therefore, even if you have a general supplier, someone still needs to know the market price. Because these vegetables and non-staple food are the bulk of your canteen’s cost.
Seeing this, I think many people are starting to wonder: How can the management of such a simple canteen business be so complicated?! That’s right, because you are an outsider. If a person has really managed a canteen and managed it successfully, this problem will be a piece of cake for her or him. This is the truth that management is always concrete - laymen cannot manage experts.
Increase revenue and reduce expenditure
By chance, I met a boss who had actually managed a canteen. His words made me enlightened.
I asked him: "Who is responsible for purchasing in your canteen?"
He said: "It depends on what you buy. The vegetables and non-staple food that need to be bought every day are the responsibility of the master chef, and you don't need to buy them every day." The canteen manager buys the grain, oil, sauce, and other miscellaneous items through bidding, and I am personally responsible for the stoves, appliances, pots, pans, and other fixed assets (his definition)."
I asked again: "Big. Is there anyone to supervise the master when he goes to buy groceries?”
“No, we only supervise whether the things we buy are short and short, because many things are ordered by the master at the market and delivered by the supplier; The items are weighed and recorded by the kitchen worker."
“Aren’t you afraid that the master will get kickbacks?” I asked.
He said: "Don't be afraid. This canteen is owned by the property management company. The food quota is only 7 yuan per person per day. After deducting the staple food and other expenses, the non-staple food per person per day is only 4 yuan. The master chef wants It’s not easy to buy the ingredients to make four dishes and one soup with 4 yuan. Where can I get any rebates? Besides, I occasionally go to the vegetable market myself, so I know the market price clearly. It’s not the focus of my management at all.”
Hey. I was very surprised and asked: "Why?"
The little boss said: "When I do business, I focus on increasing revenue first, and then reducing expenditure. Because a business must have turnover first, and then profit. My The key is how to satisfy the diners. Only when they are satisfied can their company renew my contract. Only when they are satisfied can it be easier for me to negotiate with the company for food contract fees, water and electricity fees, and guest entertainment fees.”
"How can we satisfy them?" I continued to ask.
“These security guards are all young men from the countryside. They have very big bellies. To satisfy them, we must first ensure that they have enough to eat. But each person only has such a small amount of food per day, how can we let them eat? Full? Therefore, you must be careful with your budget. For example, don’t buy fresh vegetables, don’t buy high-quality vegetables, try to buy out-of-season vegetables, buy dead fish; don’t buy tenderloin, buy fatty meat. ...Buying these things is not something that ordinary people can buy. It must be a master chef. When a master chef sees cheap vegetables and meat at a vegetable stall, he can immediately imagine what to cook, so when bargaining, he can. Make a decision immediately. Otherwise, there will be one person doing the shopping and one person doing the cooking, and we will have to argue every day. Whoever works in a restaurant doesn’t know that when someone complains about the quality of the food, the master chef will definitely find the reason for the poor quality of the raw materials. This power is given to the master chef, so that he can live a poor life like the people in my mother's generation, and use a little money to find ways to make the family eat as well as possible. But the master chef is not my mother, so I have to encourage him. That's it. How to encourage? Canteen diners will rate the quality of the food every month. The higher the rating, the higher the bonus for the master chef."
Goal management: The general is on his way, not chasing the rabbit.
I leaned on the sofa and straightened up involuntarily. This unkempt little boss began to awe me. I continued to ask for advice: "But my experience is: everyone who eats is Chen Shimei, and the food cooked by the new chef is delicious at first, but after eating, it becomes annoying and the score is low."
"Then you have to analyze, what do diners care about most? The young men who eat in this canteen are not satisfied with the food, mainly because of the portion. When I first took over this canteen, they served a semi-buffet. But you know Everyone who eats at the buffet has a big eye but a small belly; they ask for as much as they can, but if they can’t eat it, they either force themselves to eat or eat it secretly. The cafeteria staff are afraid that there won’t be enough people in the back, so they try to give as little as possible, which always leads to quarrels in the cafeteria. Everyone knows that sharing a meal will definitely save money; but sharing meals is hygienic, convenient and fashionable, so most company canteens use separate meals.
But you have to look at who your diners are? If they are all white-collar workers, of course they have to share their meals. Everyone has to eat first and then eat well. So, I finally convinced the property management company to change the meal-sharing system to a shared meal system. They couldn't refuse my conditions. Eight people per table, four dishes and one soup. Dishes should be divided with serving chopsticks and eaten together. As a result, satisfaction suddenly increased by 10 percentage points.
“Not only that, if you want to spend less money to have a full meal, there is only one way - eat more and eat less vegetables. When formulating the dishes, the master chef and I tried our best to make every meal at noon and evening more enjoyable. There must be a dish with strong taste that can be eaten with rice, such as braised pork with pickled vegetables, stir-fried large intestine with pickled vegetables, mapo tofu, etc. When making these dishes, more oil, salt, soy sauce, MSG, and seasonings are required, so the raw materials must be used. It doesn’t need to be very fresh, because the price of dead fish is half that of live fish.
“You see, this is the focus of my catch. This company has used 3 canteen outsourcing services, and we are the most satisfied. Now their general manager often eats in the cafeteria. Prices have risen sharply in the past few months, and he even took the initiative to ask me if I needed to pay more. ”
I looked at him intently and thought: Managers all know goal management, but when several goals are fighting, the big goal is often forgotten. In order to prevent kickbacks, many companies put employees’ The enthusiasm is gone. This little boss is obviously a master at running things without chasing rabbits.
Managing customer expectations
The little boss is very proud to see me sincerely asking for advice. He continued: "People who work in catering are actually not afraid of complaints, because customers complain about visible problems, which can be easily corrected. The difficulty lies in the taste of diners. Teacher Huang, you are right, everyone will be annoyed if they eat these dishes frequently. That's why restaurants are constantly changing chefs and introducing new dishes. But our canteen is miserable because most employees have no choice but to eat here. So they often express their boredom about food through other things, such as food quality problems and poor service attitude. In fact, everyone has a home, and mom can only cook those kinds of dishes. Why don’t you worry? After running around outside, when I get home to eat, the food cooked by my mother is still delicious. Therefore, my canteen operation is different from others. Others hope that employees will come to the canteen to eat every day, because one more day of eating means one more day of money for the canteen workers. Any company canteen I contract, I ask the company to agree to close the canteen one day a week because my employees also need to take a break. In fact, the real reason is that I want those employees who eat in the canteen all day to cook it themselves, or go to outside restaurants for a change and compare prices, so that they know that my food is worth the money. I am 100% sure that if they spend 7 yuan anywhere, including making it themselves, they will never get better food than what I eat here. ”
I really met an expert. I don’t know which management guru said: “The first principle of marketing is to manage customer expectations, rather than just satisfying customers.” "It seems that this little boss with only a middle school education is a self-taught master.
Follow human nature and the laws of nature
I continued to ask: "Many canteen purchases make the boss think hard. , often controlled by many methods. Their worries are justified. No matter how low each person's salary is, if hundreds of people are added together, it will be a big deal if the water continues to flow over the course of a year. Why do you have so much trust in your master? Is he your relative? ”
The young boss smiled: “I run four canteens in Shenzhen. Where do I get so many relatives who can cook?” In fact, receiving kickbacks for purchases at the wet market is done by people who run canteens in companies. Why? The people in charge of the canteen are not knowledgeable, and the people in charge of the canteen are often administrative managers. They have many other things to take care of, and they cannot spend so much time in the canteen. These large companies think that they can solve the kickback problem by relying on complicated procedures, systems and person-to-person supervision. That is nonsense. The same cabbage, some were just picked from the fields today; some were picked the day before yesterday, and they are all fresh when poured with water. How do you supervise them? A pig in the water sells for 30 yuan in the morning, and after 5 o'clock in the evening it costs 10 yuan. If the purchaser wants to save you money, he will tell the stall owner to bring the remaining water to me; if he follows the rules or is in a bad mood, you will have to spend 30 yuan.
Therefore, my bidding method is always: first, there must be at least four unrelated suppliers bidding; second, there must be a new supplier; third, the winning bidder is the bidder closest to the average price of the four. Anyone who violates this rule is breaking the law, and you must explain clearly. "
The more the boss talked, the more excited he became, and I felt more and more that he was amazing. I asked him: "What did you do before? Did you come up with all these tricks yourself? ”
He said: “I am 45 this year. I served as a soldier when I was young, and then I drove in a government agency. Then I went to work in Shenzhen, but I couldn't get ahead after working hard, so I started my own business. I didn't have a lot of capital, so I opened a small restaurant in the factory area, which turned into a canteen. I have learned through the process that control requires kickbacks and relying on people to manage people does not work; we must control from the source; we must turn big power into small power control; we must use rules and laws to control; we must let people control themselves. ”
(Text: Huang Tieying and Liang Junping, professors at Peking University Guanghua School of Management)