Advice You - Business

Believe it or not, over 90% of all menus are leaving money in the table for a number of reasons. In fact, based on my experience with restaurants over the past 20 years, the measurable impact of this loss ranges from $.25- 1.50 for every me

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

an served in the restaurant. Based on the number of meals sold in most restaurant companies, this adds up to a lot of lost dollars!

The following list highlights the top ten factors which contribute to this huge loss of income. Use this ch

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

cklist to determine how your menu stacks up.

1. Does the menu primarily have a creative orientation? When revising the menu, is the primary consideration the look of the menu (design, size, format, color, etc.) If the answer is yes, your

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

menu is guaranteed to be losing money.

Rather, is it most important to first develop a well planned merchandising and marketing strategy for the menu? After this strategy is determined, “creative” should be used to support the strategy.

2

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

Is the menu democratic? Do all product names and their descriptive copy have equal appeal? To be most effective, there needs to be a product “continuum of appeal” which reflects what we want or need to sell. All products may taste good, bu

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

some need to be communicated as being more desirable. In other words, those products we want or need to sell should sound better than those we do not.

3. Also related to point #2, is there a clear priority for what you want to sell? We hu

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

mans can process a limited amount of information and because most people prefer not to spend a lot of time trying to figure out the menu, it is critical to determine what you want or need to sell. In fact, all products should be prioritized

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

from most preferred through least preferred.

4. Do you view the menu as real estate? In fact, the menu is the most important real estate the company owns, since it will generate the overwhelming majority of the company’s sales and profits.

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

A very important part of the menu strategy is to assign appropriate units of real estate to the individual tenants, (i.e. products) on the menu. Obviously, important tenants receive premium real estate, while less important tenants receive

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

poorer locations.

5. It is amazing that most menus do not answer the basic questions that guests want answered:

- What’s really good?

- What are the restaurant’s signature items?

- What should I order right now?

How well does your menu

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

answer these questions?

6. Can the guests read the menu quickly and process its content efficiently? Or, is the menu difficult to navigate because it contains too much information, is overwhelming, confusing, or even too stimulating? Agai

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

n, because of the inherent processing and time limitations discussed before, the menu needs to help the guest process its content, not make it more difficult.

7. How focused is the menu? Are the most important categories and products clear

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

y emphasized? A good way of understanding this point is to view the menu as needing to have a tour guide built into it. When the menu has a clear cut starting point, then the tour guide leads the reader through the menu on a very definite a

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

nd strategic review of the menu. Without a tour guide, the reader will certainly get lost and have a difficult time appreciating your restaurant/menu’s most unique features/products.

8. Do you copy the competition? Whether it is the type o

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

style of menu, design characteristics, or even products and merchandising, there are hazards involved with this approach. Remember the statement that 90% of all menus have problems? Then why copy other menus when they have such a high prob

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

bility of being “wrong”? You can gain more by developing a strategy that reflects your restaurant’s uniqueness rather than copying somebody else’s.

9. Check out the following rules of thumb and see if they apply in your restaurant:

-If yo

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

u sell entr?e specials, do they represent at least 20% of the entr?e menu mix?

-Do 20% of your guests order and appetizer or dessert with their meal?

If the answer is no to either question, your menu is underachieving.

Please note: these

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

guidelines apply to casual and dinner house restaurants. With higher priced concepts, the percentages should be even higher.

10. Finally, how are products listed within their specific categories- in one single column or in two or even thre

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

e columns? “Primacy” and “recency” are psychological principles stating that people are best at processing information that they see first or last. These principles can be best applied when using single columns. Using multiple columns decre

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

sed the likelihood of definitively predicting and influencing what information the guest is processing.

So, how did you do? Did you find room for improvement in your menu? How much opportunity does your menu have to generate profit dollars

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.adviceyou.org.ua/article/26539/adviceyou-Is-Your-Menu-Leaving-Money-On-The-Table.html">Is Your Menu Leaving Money On The Table?</a>

BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.adviceyou.org.ua/article/26539/adviceyou-Is-Your-Menu-Leaving-Money-On-The-Table.html]Is Your Menu Leaving Money On The Table?[/url]

As your cleaning business grows, one of the first things you will need to do is hire employees. But before you put that ad in the paper or start interviewing prospective cleaning employees, you should have a written job description that specifies the duties of the position.

Have you lost potentially good employees because they have failed to understand and failed to fit into your workplace. The difference between a new employee being a success or failure is often down to how he or she is welcomed in the first few days and weeks. Here are 15 tips on how to welcome your new emplyees.

This article expresses the turn-around underway in how US companies will regain our position as the number one economic engine in the world.

Tags

Links

Advice You - Is Your Menu Leaving Money On The Table?

Related Articles: