January is generally the time executives and managers get together for some team building exercises, review the past year, flesh out the objectives for the coming year. This retreat should be somewhere off site that mixes business, social, and personal growth into a two or three day sojourn.
A method of analysis called SWOT, “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats” is very helpful. The retreat is a high level examination of the opportunities and challenges the business will face in the coming year and laying a solid foundation moving forward into the future. Too often in the day to day of running a restaurant, the management team loses focus and needs to step back and take a breath. What are our customers telling us, what is our concept, what need are we filling, what are tomorrow’s customers asking for?
SWOT analysis is an ongoing process that restaurateur’s should incorporate into their schedule if only to step back in an organized fashion and critically exam everything.
