Overview
We all prefer to spend some quality time with our families, friends, and colleagues to take a break from our daily busy schedules. One of the best ways is to go for an outing at a perfect place to enjoy some delicious and fulfilling meal.
In a country like India, food lovers can find a lot of eating places and one of such famous restaurants to enjoy delicious food is none other than “Barbeque Nation” which is a complete package of elegancy, variety (in terms of food), and affordability. This is a place for all types of party lovers such as those who want to through a party to dance and fun time, looking for a place to sit for long conversations, food lovers, etc.
Barbeque Nation comes under India’s one of the leading casual dining chains and has adopted the “over the table barbeque” concept to facilitates guests with grill option of their own barbeque and that too at their tables. The menu of the brand includes both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes that are mostly as per Indian cuisine. Also, the seasonal preferences of customers are used in introducing new dishes. The place is well articulated and arranged for different types of celebrations as well like office parties, birthday parties, anniversaries, kitty parties, and many more. Different famous food festivals are also organized at the restaurants of Barbeque Nation so that customers can experience different Indian and International cuisines.
A Brief Background and Growth Journey of Barbeque Nation
India’s leading restaurant chain Barbeque Nation was originated in 2006 by one of their Promoters Late Sajit Dhanani who was the brother of the current Managing Director of Barbeque Nation.
Sajid Dhanani who handled the popular hotel chain “Sayaji” in Indore, once experienced complaints from customers regarding cold appetizers during the cold weather of winters in 2006. To resolve such complaints, he came up with the idea of making an experiment to serve a table of customers with a “live grill”. This encouraged Sajid to establish a separate Barbeque Nation restaurant. The first branch of the restaurant was opened in Pali Hills in Mumbai. After that, the restaurant witnessed massive growth by opening 18 more branches in a short duration. Further, 23 stores were opened by the brand in FY 2017-2018.
In the year 2014, the concept of “Kulfi Nation” was introduced by Barbeque Nation in its every branch. This is a kulfi counter that facilitated customers to select from 8 kulfi flavors.
Further, in 2015, “live counters” were opened by the brand at its outlets in which food as per the preference of customers would be cooked by the chef.
Today, the brand is operating 138 outlets across India, 1 in Oman, 5 in UAE, and 1 in Malaysia.
-YoY Growth of Barbeque Nation
Business Model of Barbeque Nation
Key Activities
Dining of Food and Beverages
Barbeque Nation is indulged in offering different varieties of both vegetarian and non-vegetarian starters along with main courses, a famous dessert innovative menu. Their services are prompt and the dining environment at their restaurants is also very casual and pleasant.
Different food festivals are organized by the brand on a periodic basis at their restaurants in which customers are offered Indian, Fusion, and International cuisines. Different beverages, desserts, and north Indian dishes with kabab are also served to customers.
Marketing and Promotional Activities
Barbeque Nation is indulged in various marketing and promotional activities and the brand launches different promotion campaigns on regular basis. The brand has adopted below types of marketing strategies to promote and advertise its products and services:
Influencer Marketing
As a part of the influencer marketing strategy, the brand has collaborated with food bloggers. For instance, to promote its Punjabi Food Festival campaign by the name “Jatt Set Go”, it came into collaboration with famous food blogger Gurpreet Singh aka Mister Tikku who is a social media influencer and he has great popularity and high relevance among the audience. This helped the brand to promote its new dishes and remain in the audience through different social media channels.
Social Media Marketing
Barbeque Nation runs different campaigns and contests on different social media platforms as part of its social media marketing strategy to attract more and more customers. For instance, they promoted their campaign “Jatt Set Go” on different social media channels in which they ran the “Ask Makkhan” campaign that attracted a huge mass audience.
Video Marketing
The brand uses video marketing as videos are considered a highly engaging tool and give better results in attracting an audience on social media sites. For example, Barbeque Nation was able to generate more than 3 lac views in a short span on promotional videos of the “Makkhan Singh Makkhan Lagake Chala Gaya” social media campaign.
Offline Promotions
Barbeque Nation also utilizes different offline promotional marketing tools to promote its brand and products. For instance, the campaign of the brand “the Punjabi Food Festival” had different stages and one of them was Makkhan Singh (Mister Tikku) surprised customers by visiting outlets of the band and indulged in casual conversations with customers related to food and entertained them by different fun activities.
Customer Segment
The target customer segment of the brand includes below types of customers:
Baby Boomers
This includes customers generally in the age group of 57-75 years.
Millennials or Generation Y
The majority of customers of Barbeque Nation are millennials. Customers within the age bracket of 25-40 years fall under this category.
Generation X
The age group of these customers is usually between 41-56 years.
Generation Z
These groups of customers are counted under the newer generation and the age group of generation Z customers is between 6-24 years.
Value Proposition
Diversified Menu
Barbeque Nation offers a value proposition in its “All you can Eat” menu and in addition to this, it provides best-in-class service as well to customers at their restaurants. The customers of the brand mostly come from a group of family, colleagues, or friends. Therefore, the brand has a diversified range of menus to fulfill the food preference of customers in a group. A specially curated menu is also designed specifically for kids.
Fixed Price Dining
The brand offers an “all you can eat” concept at an affordable fixed price in which customers can enjoy a variety of delicious food at a reasonable price. Also, as the perception of customers is more value for money, so, fixed price dining is a great choice of relatively bigger groups.
Attractive and Casual Dining Environment
Barbeque Nation’s value proposition also reflects in its distinctive and attractive “DIY (Do-it-yourself) cuisine along with the concept of cooked-at-the-table. In the DIY cuisine system, it allows customers to create dishes of their own choice and as per their individual tastes by offering both fun and flexibility to mix and match a vast variety of non-veg., vegetables, condiments, and sauces. “Live Counters” are there to allow customers to get the food cooked according to their choice.
Regular Innovation in Menu
Barbeque Nation does innovation in both technical aspects and enhancing customer experience by introducing new items in the menu in a more delicious and attractive way. A great example of their menu innovation can be seen in their different 7-8 counters including vegetarian lice counter, live jalebi counter, daal counter non-vegetarian live counter, live soup counter, etc.
Key Resources
Website
The operations of Barbeque Nation are managed through its website i.e. www.barbequenation.com. The website contains all information related to different locations where the brand’s restaurant services. Also, there is a detailed menu available to display different food options and today’s menu tab is there in which customers can see the menu list of a particular day. They can also reserve tables online through the website.
Mobile App
The mobile app of the brand in BBQN App through which, customers can avail all services i.e. from browsing the menu to reserving the table. Using the app customers can also locate the nearest outlet of Barbeque Nation as well the coming ones. App facilitates customers with browsing the menu that includes all their favorite items and also, the newly launched dishes.
The brand’s Food Festivals details are also available on BBQN App and it also includes various discounts and offers. To avoid a long waiting queue, customers can book a table through the app.
Information Technology (IT)
IT systems of Barbeque Nation are one of the important resources of the brand as these systems are used to closely monitor the feedback of guests through their internal GSI (Guest Satisfaction Index) which is an important aspect for monitoring the performance of all restaurants of the brand.
The integration and collation of Barbeque Nation’s different functional areas such as sales, accounting, purchase, inventory, HRM (human resource management), project system, reporting, etc. are handled through their IT systems. Also, IT systems are used for monitoring various aspects of their business such as budget planning, tracking inventory levels, effective operation of the business, product allocation to different restaurants of the brand, etc.
Employees
The workforce of Barbeque Nation is one of the major resources of the brand. Employees of the company are well trained and carry the required skills and expertise in their domain. By considering employees as a key resource, Barbeque Nation has different work-life balance programs and employee benefit policies for employees. There are different celebration programs that the brand organizes for employees to increase their morale, encourage them for achieving targets, enhance retention, etc.
Customer Relationships
SMS Communication
To manage effective communication with customers, Barbeque Nation uses an SMS communication facility. Communication at various events is made with customers by delivering SMS to them. A few of such events are as mentioned below:
- SMS for Reservation confirmation is received by the customer once he/she reserves a table at the restaurant.
- In case of cancellation of the reservation, SMS for reservation cancellation is received by the customer from the brand.
- Barbeque Nation also notifies customers with SMS related to any ongoing updates and offers.
Through the above SMS facilities, the brand maintains effective communication with its customers. This results in better customer satisfaction and an increase in the rapport of the brand as customers are able to get continuous updates for their bookings and any ongoing offers through a secured SMS facility and this makes the operations of Barbeque Nation both seamless and reliable.
Smile Club
Barbeque Nation has a loyalty program “Smiles” which provides complementary benefits for customers as a part of its customer relationship activities. Through this loyalty program, customers are allowed to earn smiles every time they enjoy the cuisine at the restaurant. Moreover, these smiles can be redeemed on the next visit of customers to any outlet of Barbeque Nation. So, customers can earn smiles while enjoying their favorite meals, and each smile earned by customers is counted as a rupee. In this way, customers are rewarded to bring a smile to their faces.
Call Center
The call center services of Barbeque Nation are available to help customers with their queries. Call center executives are there to attend to customer’s calls and to assist them in the booking schedules. Also, they help customers in sorting out their queries related to new offers, discount vouchers, outlet details, or menu details.
Customer Care Helpline
Barbeque Nation has a customer care helpline service to serve its customers in a much efficient way. Through the helpline, customers are assisted by customer care executives who answer the queries of customers and also, ensure fast solutions to different issues of customers. For this, a dedicated helpline customer care number of the brand is available where customers can reach out to solve any issues related to services, provide any feedback, lodging complaints, and/or gather detailed information related to the product and services of Barbeque Nation.
Key Partners
Investors
Lead Investors such as CX Partners, Jubilant FoodWorks, and Alchemy Capital Management are the key partners of the brand.
Key Channels
Print Media, Television, Boards
In order to generate awareness and promote its products and services, Barbeque Nation uses different print media resources such as newspapers, magazines, and others. Also, the brand runs promotion campaigns on television as well.
Social Media
Barbeque Nation runs different campaigns and publishes advertisements on different social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Hotstar, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, etc.
Cost Structure
The main components of the cost structure of Barbeque Nation include the cost of consumption of food and beverages, expenses related to employee benefits, and other operating expenses.
FY2020, the brand spent INR 2,752.97 million on the consumption of food and beverages, INR 1,778.63 million on employee benefits, and INR 1,776.51 million on other operating expenses. (source)
Revenue Stream
The revenue model of the brand is shown in the below flow chart:
Barbeque Nation reported total revenue of INR 7903.58 million in FY2020. Out of this total revenue, revenue from operations was INR 7870.52 million and other income stood at INR 33.06 million. (source)
