Read the case study below and answer the questions that follow.

Fostering a customer-focused dining experience through a training project La Colomba Restaurant in Sandton was established in 2015 when the owner, Mrs Marumola, obtained a business loan. After extensive marketing endeavours, the customer base was steadily rising and after three years Mrs Marumola needed to expand her business with the appointment of an additional manager, a pastry chef, a short-order cook, two dishwashers, five serving staff and one bartender. She gave each person a job description and appointed them on a six-month probation period. Her payroll costs increased dramatically, but were still within an acceptable 30 per cent of total gross income generated. The increase in costs was countered by the improvement in the businesss ability to now also cater for smaller events such as office functions and birthday parties. Mrs Marumola also updated the restaurants staff shifts so that the work was distributed evenly among staff. This ensured that no one was over-worked and that productivity was not compromised. Over the last three months, Mrs Marumola has noticed a sudden increase in complaints from customers. This could have disastrous consequences for her restaurant since she recently applied to be upgraded to a four-star, fine-dining establishment. An assessment of the nature of the complaints revealed that the serving staff did not meet the expectations of customers. Mrs Marumola knows that, in the food and hospitality industry, everything revolves around providing a perfect and exceptional experience to the customers. The level of service quality thus depends on the service quality of the staff and their behaviour. Customers want quick and efficient service and expect servers to go the extra mile. The servers are the people with whom customers have the most interaction, so they must make a favourable impression to keep customers coming back. Servers must be able to work well under pressure, meeting the demands of customers at several tables while maintaining a positive and pleasant demeanour. It was thus essential to implement a training project to upskill the serving staff. Mrs Marumola had to design a training project that provided for orientation of staff, observations and guidance through demonstration and role-play, the use of the latest electronic call technology, as well as the recognition of top employees and performance bonuses. Mrs Marumola decided to also incorporate a role-playing training approach where the serving staff are taught what might happen in real-life customer situations and how to handle these. The purpose of the project was thus to enable serving staff to become more efficient and to assist them in delivering a better service as soon as possible.

QUESTION FOUR (20 Marks)

An organisational structure defines all the official reporting lines, including the number of levels in the hierarchy and the managerial span of control. Describe the functional structure and its advantages.