Practical Experiences At The Naked Duck Cafe

About The Naked Duck Cafe

Write a report about summary of my work experience during industry training at Naked Duck Mascot.

Placement or industry training provides a great opportunity to the students in order to get the practical experiences and implement their theoretical learning on the practical grounds. This is the report that summarizes the practical experiences of the author at The Naked Duck Café. This is the café that believes in serving the customers with great zeal and respect. The vision and mission of the company suggests that it wants to develop the friendly relationship with the customers and wants to provide them great experience. The café is very proud of its staff which is claimed to be very bright and friendly in nature. It is an Australian and French cafe that also has an Asian touch (Thenakedduckcafe.com.au, 2018). The café is very reasonable with its prices and offers good quality products and dishes. The menu of the café includes healthy food such as salads, succulent cuts of meats and roasted food that is slowly prepared to perfection. It is a café that is licensed and offers the food from Monday to Friday. It also serves the customers with variety of wine and beer after lunch on daily basis. Seasonal specialty dish is also served and espresso is the major drink of the café that it is famous for. Takeaway and delivery options are also available for the customers.

(Darlingharbour.com, 2018). 

The location of the place suggests that it is located near the Mascot station and its location is also central area of the city. This facilitates the café to have greater footfalls. The coffee lovers approach this place and spare their quality time here. As far as the menu is considered, it has been analyzed that menu is divided into many parts and categories. The first part is the catering menu that involves all the platters for breakfast, lunch and dinner along with salad and drinks. Next is canapé menu that includes cold selection and hot selection. The next part is about beverages that are offered in bundles.

Theory and practice:

Hospitality operations:

Hospitality operations include all the functions that are related to the activities that are conducted at the café and its different departments (Kusluvan, Kusluvan, Ilhan & Buyruk, 2010). It has been learnt by the author that there is a hierarchy for each and every department in the café. The major functions that are conducted in the café are ordering, financial planning, supervision of the employees, maintaining cleanliness standards, maintain kitchen activities, maintenance of the inventory of the raw products required to make the dishes etc. As far as the theoretical study of the author is considered, it has been analyzed that he has learnt that every department that is kitchen, cleanliness, ordering, financial planning etc. have different teams altogether and have different managers but when the author was taking the training at the café, he realized that there was only one manager for everything. There was no HR department as such as the managers only was responsible for hiring for the staff as and when required. There was no separate department for cleanliness while the person who is serving the dishes was cleaning the tables. This is somewhat different from that the author has leant in theory. This is because management is very much important in order to implement the theoretical concept practically. In theory, contingencies are not being considered which can rise in daily practical routine.

Hospitality Operations

Marketing management:

When marketing function is concerned, it has been analyzed that the basic concept that has been learnt by the author are promotional strategies, discounting offers etc. marketing is the concept that deals with informing, persuading and convincing the customers to buy the products or the services (Hollensen, 2015). In terms of café, hospitality is the service that needs to be promoted by any means. Some of the strategies that have been learnt by the author are marketing mix, promotional mix, strategies etc. As far as The Naked Duck marketing strategies are concerned, it has been analyzed that most of the café uses the social media strategy to make the people area about the services and the dishes available in their café. There are many sites like Facebook, Zomato etc. where the company has made its page that can be followed by the people and the customers and they can get the updates for the new dishes and the discount offers from there. It has been analyzed that marketing is concept whose theory suggests that it helps in making the people aware and it has been read by the author that there should be a social media marketing or digital marketing department to handle the dame but in this café, there are no department for this as well. The executives and the manager of the company only deal with the things and maintain the SEO ranking of the café. This suggests that there is no particular division of the department and the work is done as per the skills of the individuals.

Management issues:   

Self-management:

Self-management can be defined as the concept that drives the individual to manage the things own his own. It helps in managing your own self and this requires the individual to know about his own strengths and weakness. In case of self-management, it has been analyzed that author has evaluated himself as the one who has managed the things with gradual progress. Initially, the author has found that he was not able to manage the table cleaning and arranging the buffet for the breakfast and generally guest appears before the arrangement. The author took the initiative to manage the things himself and then estimated the timings of the customer and the number of customers who come for breakfast daily. This information helped him in allocating his time to both the activities such as cleaning of the tables and arranging the breakfast buffet. This suggests that the author is capable of managing himself and can get a good score in self-management aspect. More incidents can be mentioned here with regard to self-management. The author majorly faces the issue of communication. It has been analyzed that The Naked Café is located near to the station and thus people with different culture and languages come there. This made it difficult for the author to communicate with the person who does not know English. The author has tried to learn some of the other languages also that are related to his industry and communicate with the guest using the same. This enhances the customer’s satisfaction level and also the communication between the staff and the customers. As discussed that The Naked Café is very much customers oriented and wants to be friends with the customers. Learning the vernacular language of the customers helps to develop a friendly relationship with the guests.

Marketing Strategies

People management:

As a student, it is required by the author to work for each and every department so that he can get the knowledge of every function performed at the café. People management refers to management of the employees who works in the organization (Michie, Sparrow, Cooper & Hird, 2016). It has been analyzed that The Naked Duck café lacks the HR and people management department. Only the store manager of the café is responsible for doing the same. Author has also got the chance to work with the personal management function and the supervisor for the author was the store manager of the café. It has been analyzed that when the author was working for this function of personal management, he realized that it is the very big issue and managing the staff which does not have clear roles is very difficult. He found that there is no clarification of roles and responsibilities of the employees. The people who are engaged in cleaning are also taking the orders and sometimes arranging the buffet as well. This makes it very difficult to manage and allocate the tasks and activities. However, author realized that the store manager is managing the things very intelligently. He used to make a list of tasks on weekly basis and circulate the same in all the employees so that they can have the idea that what work has to be done by them. The author has realized that not only the organizational strategies but the managers have to make their own strategies at their level in order to manage the things properly.

Leadership:

Leadership is the ability to influence and guide the other individuals. In order to learn about the leadership concepts, it is required the get the clarification about the differences between the management and the leadership (Northouse, 2015). As discussed in the above paragraph, it has been analyzed that manager of the café has took initiatives from his own side, this comes under effective management. Leadership is about developing the person as an individual and management is about managing the things in order to get the best outcomes (Antonakis & Day, 2017). The author has seen many incidents where the manager of the store have shown his managerial as well as leadership skills. It has been observed that when any of the new staff members has been recruited in the store, the managers first of all tries to make him comfortable at the worker and the train him with all the skills that are required for him to work and perform his tasks. A good leader always tries to motivate the employees working under him and this is what happens to the author when he was under his training and internship period. When the author was working under the store manager in different disciple, it has been analyzed that the manager always helped him and motivated him when he was down at times. This is because the things and processes were very new for the author.

Processes:

Processes include all the function that occurred in the organization. It has been analyzed that in the case of The Naked Duck café, there are several processes such as order taking, serving the dishes, taking the bills, kitchen process, cleaning etc. all these processes require the management of people in the organization. It has been observed by the author that people management process is very weak in the company and it is required to make strategies and departments in the stores so that the process of task allocation can be easily done. At the time of feedback, the author shared this issue with the manager and manager has given keen attention to the feedback.

Conclusion:

Placement is the very important part of academic phase of the student. This is because it provides a great opportunity for the students to apply their theoretical concepts on the practical grounds. The author is really thankful to the institute to provide such opportunity and the café management to support him in his industrial training program. The author has realized that he has implied may theoretical aspects to the café but he found great difference between the theory and academic knowledge than the practical implication and actual job performance. The author has successfully able to complete his internship with The Naked Duck Café. The store manager of the café has helped him learning many practical training and he has found that contingencies are the main factor that affects the daily decisions and routines of the café. The importance of management and effective leadership was the major aspect whose knowledge can only be gained on the practical ground and cannot be understood with the theoretical learning.

References:

Antonakis, J., & Day, D. V. (Eds.). (2017). The nature of leadership. Sage publications.

 Darlingharbour.com.(2018).  The Naked Duck.  Retrieved 20 January 2018, from https://www.darlingharbour.com/eat-drink/the-naked-duck/

Hollensen, S. (2015). Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson Education.

Kusluvan, S., Kusluvan, Z., Ilhan, I., & Buyruk, L. (2010). The human dimension: A review of human resources management issues in the tourism and hospitality industry. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 51(2), 171-214.

Michie, J., Sparrow, P., Cooper, C., & Hird, M. (2016). Do we need HR?: Repositioning people management for success. Springer.

Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.

Thenakedduckcafe.com.au. (2018). The Naked Duck – Australian and French eatery with Asian twist.  Retrieved 20 January 2018, from https://thenakedduckcafe.com.