Red Robin operates more than 550 casual restaurants in the United States and Canada. The burger-focused company, based in Greenwood Village, Colorado, has been struggling with sales declines in a difficult business environment. Consumers today have many alternatives to cooking, including a wide array of restaurants and services that will deliver prepared food. At the same time, restaurants have difficulty limiting the cost of labor, for two reasons. First, the minimum wages paid to many restaurant workers have been rising, and second, the demand for workers has been high, as reflected in several years of low nationwide unemployment rates. Under the leadership of former chief operating officer Guy Constant, whose background is in finance, the company decided to meet the competitive challenge with a focus on labor costs. They announced what they called a team service model, which involved having employees perform a wider variety of tasks. Instead of having bussers clear tables alongside servers, the servers would take orders and clear tables. And the restaurants' hosts would also handle carryout orders when customers came to pick them up. Along with these changes, the restaurants cut back on the number of workers scheduled for shifts. These moves did indeed reduce the cost of labor as a percentage of sales. The problem was that sales also fell, posting quarterly declines almost every quarter for four years, dragging down profits with them. Constant acknowledged that the changes in staffing had made it difficult for restaurants to maintain consistent quality. Trying to compete by emphasizing low-price deals only made the profit situation worse. Constant eventually was dismissed, and his boss, chief executive Denny Marie Post, also was replaced. Other performance metrics also signaled trouble. Following the switch to the team service model, customer wait times increased, and so did the ticket time: the number of minutes from submission of a diner's order ticket to delivery of food to the table. The number of people who left before being served jumped 85% in one year. At the same time, the company was having more trouble keeping employees. It had many open positions for managers in the restaurants. Red Robin brought in a new CEO, Paul Murphy, from his previous position at Noodles & Company to turn around the company just as it was reporting its first quarter of sales gains in a year and a half. Murphy has been focusing on quality improvements in the food and service. Instead of lowering costs by expanding employees' responsibilities, the company intends to focus on how technology such as handheld devices to take orders can bring efficiency to restaurant operations. The chain also is improving schedules so that the busy hours are more heavily covered by staff. The company also is testing more generous pay for managers. Although this raises costs, Murphy notes that attracting and keeping experienced managers is associated with better restaurant performance, including financial performance. With regard to food, Red Robin has been expanding its arrangement to sell Donatos pizza in its restaurants. At the same time, Murphy aims to cut the number of menu items by 10% to streamline service and also to investigate new ingredients to improve the appeal of menu items in line with what customers are seeking from Red Robin's competitors. And he has set a goal to build loyalty while shaving costs by enticing customers to order direct from the company's website, rather than through a third-party delivery service. Early results have been positive, and not just in continued sales gains at stores open at least a year. Customer visits were still down, but customers were spending more per check, and sales have been increasing for catering and delivered food. Traffic in restaurants with Donatos pizza on the menu have actually seen an upswing in the number of customers. Murphy reported that manager positions have been fully staffed and there is lower turnover of hourly employees. The result is more experienced employees, who are better able to handle the traffic and keep customers satisfied. Ticket times have gotten shorter as well. Despite stores being shutdown in some states for several months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Murphy has predicted steady growth in revenues, as the initiatives to improve service take off. Page 55 Questions for Discussion 1. How do you think Mary Parker Follett would have addressed the challenge of improving productivity in Red Robin's restaurants? Would her approach have helped the company? Why or why not? 2. Give an example of a type of problem management science could solve for Red Robin. What limits, if any, do you see on the ability of management science to help Red Robin's managers solve business challenges described in this case ? 3. Apply the theory of dynamic capabilities to the situation at Red Robin. How well would you say management has performed at sensing, seizing, and transforming? Would you describe Red Robin as dynamic? Explain. Sources: "Message from Our CEO," www.redrobin.com, accessed July 27, 2020; A, Lucas, "Restaurants Take Aim at Improving Manager Turnover Rates," CNBC, www.cnbc.com, January 16, 2020; N. Restaurant News, www.nm.com, January 14, 2020; Red Robin, "Red Robin Gourmet Burgers Reports Preliminary Revenue Results for the Fourth Quarter Ended Decer Operations Chief Leaves Company," FSR, January 2020, www.fsrmagazine.com; J. Maze, "Red Robin's