TURNING THINGS AROUND

By: Mr. Vicente L. Gregorio - General Manager, Int'l. Family Food Services, Inc. (Shakey's)

There are few things more exciting, more challenging, and more rewarding than the concept of doing a “turn around”. The idea of positively turning things around, whether it involves one’s own personal circumstances, a firm’s performance, or the state of any organization, has always captivated the minds of many people.

TRUE AWARENESS – THE STARTING POINT

Turn arounds always begin with a clear realization that you are in a rut! Unless this truth is accepted by the key people involved in the turn around task, any attempt to improve the situation will be half-hearted and weak and, therefore, doomed to fail from the beginning. Turning things around requires a certain energy and commitment that can only come from being in such a critical state or in a “swim-or-sink” situation. These extremely difficult situations create an adrenaline rush that serves as fuel for the turn around initiative.

After enjoying over two decades of tremendous success, Shakey’s found itself in this beleaguered situation. For consecutive years, the company experienced major declines in sales, profitability, and market share. This vicious downward spiral prompted the Board to make drastic changes in order to address the issue. With this realization, that the state of the company was no longer well, Shakey’s took its first major step in the journey to turn things around.

VISIONING & PLANNING

Once an awareness of the present dire situation exists, the next key step is to set a major captivating goal and create a plan on how to achieve it. Not having these would be like finding yourself in the center of a burning building and be frozen in fear not knowing what to do. The result would be disastrous and fatal. This important process allowed Shakey’s to develop a new and simple goal. We wanted to be the BEST… period. We believed that to be the best in our category, and in the minds and hearts of our target market, was a goal that would not only turn around things, but would also allow us to achieve things never achieved by the company before. Our team did not want to just reverse the situation but instead, regain the leadership position Shakey’s enjoyed before.

This step of developing a major turn around objective and creating a very good plan for it, allows one to harness and focus on that new found energy and produce quick and meaningful results. Without these two, the strong desire to turn around things will vanish into thin air and will be replaced by a feeling of hopelessness for many. Our new vision to become “The Leading and Preferred Pizza Restaurant Chain” gave our team a clear sense of direction and the concrete plans we created gave us a strong sense of purpose needed in our turn around mission.

MAKING THINGS HAPPEN…GETTING THINGS DONE!

Now, knowing you’re in a mess and setting a new course to overcome the situation is a fine start, but unfortunately it’s not enough. It can only have meaning if the key people involved in the turn around project strike a covenant to really make things happen and get things done…ASAP! Many turn around efforts failed because what needed to be done was not done. They either failed in properly executing the designed plan or, when the situation required it, failed to make the necessary changes along the way. All managers in Shakey’s, whether company or franchise employees, are made to understand the need to properly execute operational plans with a strong sense of urgency. With the new and clear direction, the team moved quickly and decisively to get immediate results and develop a momentum for the turn around. Every day and every peso counted. This kind of effort can only happen with teamwork, a situation very difficult to achieve. Even now, Shakey’s continues to find ways that would help create a well-oiled, highly trained team, capable of consistently producing high quality results. The double digit growth in sales and profits for the past consecutive four years is solid proof that our team has achieved a good degree of teamwork and that changes we made have worked.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

There is one more very important rule to remember about turning things around. Once started it must not stop. It is imperative that continuous improvement is done to ensure long-term recovery and, more importantly, so that one does not turn around downward as fast and as dramatic as it was on the way up. This concept, also now commonly known as KAIZEN, is needed to fight the tendency to relax and counter the strong inertia brought by initial successes. In Shakey’s we now make it a point to always find “the better way” and we keep on questioning the status quo. We do this by really listening to the consumers, our employees, our franchise partners and suppliers. We always study the new trends and new available technology. Every product, system, program, design and operating procedure is developed with the objective of doing things better than before and to provide the best possible results. We purposely hire, train, and keep the best people and encourage them to initiate and to take risks. Every Shakey’s employee is guided by our mission to exceed expectations and, therefore, “WOW” everyone. Shakey’s has applied these “Kaizen” and “WOW” concepts since 2003 and our patrons, our employees, our business partners, and even our competitors, have noticed the changes.

PERILS

A word of caution, a turn around task is not without perils. Along with turn around projects comes much pressure created by the need to continuously improve and raise the bar. Sometimes, others will not want to change or be unable to cope with the changes. Others succumb to the constant pressure. It is inevitable, no matter how much you want to avoid it, some casualties will happen along the way. To find the strength to go through this difficult situation, one needs to go back to the very start….the knowledge that turning things around for the better will benefit the majority. Truth be told, our team believes that the successes Shakey’s enjoyed the last four years is in fact the easy part. The next stage where we want to sustain this double digit growth rate for another 2 .. 3.. perhaps even another 4 years will be several times more difficult. Despite this, our team sees it as a new and very worthy challenge - one that can produce WOWING RESULTS! This is the beauty of a turn around project! It is so exciting! It always gives the chance for people to dream and envision things and then, provide the opportunity for people to share the same vision, work hard as a team and, together…..make it happen!