Q2c) Challenges and Recent Trends on Health Care

Background:

In the following analysis, I will be mainly focusing about the hospitals and clinics in order to narrow down the scope. The health care industry has already been lasting for years, it mainly aims at curing patients. In Hong Kong, there are mainly two different sectors of this industry, the public sector(Hospital Authority) which is a semi-governmental organization, and the other one is the private sector, usually clinics or hospitals operated by one, or several doctors.  

     
(public sector)





(private sector)

Challenges:

Safety

As Hong Kong is having an aging population, the major growth segment of the patients in hospitals are the senior citizen. Unlike the others, most of the seniors cannot be fed with solid food since they may choke and resulted in death. Therefore, most of the meals which are served to senior citizens are usually grind into moisturized mixture to prevent causing any accidents. Apart from the form of the food, the way that how the nurses feed them is also one of the most important key points. Accidents happened due to the nurse feeding the aged patient too fast.

Limited choice of food

Usually when a person is lack of some kinds of nutrients, he will be weak and end up getting sick. For the patients who are staying in hospitals, nutrients are extremely important for them for recovery purpose. The Hospital Authority has been facing this problem for years. Due to the huge demand, the food that hospitals provide cannot be something fancy and there are only few choices on the menus.

Trend:

Limited choice of food

As mentioned as one of the challenges in the above paragraph, hospitals tends to not providing too many choices of food to the patients. And actually this provides a lot of advantages to the hospitals which have this practice. This strategy makes demand forecasting easier since there is not much variety of food choices. Also, limited choices allows mass production and makes the process flow smoother.

Extra nutritional value in menu planning

Unlike from the past, menus in hospitals nowadays are designed by nutritionists in order to maximize the nutritional value of the food provided to patients while not sacrificing too much tastiness.

Conclusion:

We are always being taught that when we are solving operational problems, we should not only focus on the software side or hardware side, but both of them. In this Health Care industry, service quality delivered by nurses would be the software side and the menu engineering of hospitals would be the hardware part. The government should invest in more resources of keeping the nurses due to the overwhelming workload. Besides, they can focus on more about the menu engineering since usually patients usually are not in a mood of eating when they are sick.

References:
https://www.healthcatalyst.com/top-healthcare-trends-challenges-2015
http://www.forbes.com/sites/leahbinder/2013/02/21/the-five-biggest-problems-in-health-care-today/
http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201311/27/P201311270508.htm

Q2b) Challenges and recent trends on Schools

The primary service of schools is to provide education through teaching knowledge, skills, and delivering positive and decent values of judgement. There are commonly three types of schools, which are primary schools, secondary schools as well as colleges and universities. 

Other than education, schools have to offer food services to students, especially for primary and secondary schools. The following would mention the related challenges and trends on schools' managed services of food service operations.

Challenges

1. Retaining BOTH guest and client's satisfaction

Nowadays, the society has been increasingly aware of food safety and nutrition values of food. Typically in primary and secondary schools, many students would join some kind of School Lunch Program, where the schools would provide them a set of meals everyday. Guests, the students, prefer tasty food with higher food varieties. However, parents care more about what kinds of food are included in the lunchbox, like whether there are any junk food (food safety) or low nutrition valued food. They worry the lunchbox would adversely affect their children's health and puberty development.

For instance, World Health Organization (WHO) reported that eating sausage and bacon could be causes of suffering from cancer, which have classified as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1, which is same group of tobacco smoking) (WHO, Oct 2015). Schools have to face these contingency issues/ news and take immediate actions if the contracted food service providers offer such kind of food.

2. Demand for high diversity of food

There are wide food varieties today, such as Korean, Japanese, Hong Kong style, etc. Schools have to investigate children's eating habits and preferences so as to ensure they are satisfied with the food. Meanwhile, schools have to be aware of the nutrition values of those food before implementation.

3. Demand for customized food

Other than food safety and nutrition concerns, customized food with good quality is also crucial. In primary schools, all of the students are relatively small-aged. Thus, schools have to ensure food providers will cut the food into smaller pieces, preferably boneless food. As a result, children would not choke on a fish bone or food in huge size.

4. School enrollment

In recent decade, declining enrollment is a concern for education industry. According to HKSAR Education Bureau, the Pupil-Teacher Ratio in primary school have declined from around 16 to 1, to around 14 to 1 between 2009 and 2015. Therefore, it is reasonable the demand for school's managed food and beverage service would definitely decrease.

Trends

1. Contract management (Walk, 2010)

In regard to college and university students' fast pace life style, there is a trend that tertiary campuses sign contracts with branded, quick-service restaurants, such as chain restaurants like McDonald's, Starbucks Coffee, and Subway. For instance, there are McDonald's, Starbucks Coffee shop, and Maxim's in Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

The well-known brand effect could attract more customers, which is beneficial to both the restaurants and the university. Moreover, take-away services could provide convenience to university staff and students. It could stimulate their expenditure during dining time (lunch and dinner), before and after some student events. In short, the university can maximize their sales revenue by capturing these captive clientele.

In addition, the university can benefit a lot from contract management. It's because those food service providers possess their expertise in size and types of operations. The university can leverage their abundant resources and support so as to provide exceptional food services to students.

2. Increase in use of food-service carts at vantage points

Food-service carts have total flexibility in geographic mobility. Once the vantage points change, even frequently, the carts can move to the new vantage point so as to capture more customers and maximize their sales revenue.

For example, there is a coffee cart outside the lecture theater no. 17 in the Academic Building 1 at the City Univerisity of Hong Kong.

Evaluation & Conclusion

In this era of age, food safety  and health concern are of the essence. In July 2014, it was found that McDonald's China did not perform proper food processing and raised the public's attention. To prevent any food scandal, food safety is an essential element in schools' F&B managed services. Moreover, the food services at HKUST and CityU have demonstrated the trend of contract management and food-service carts at vantage points.

All in all, there are various challenges and concerns in terms of nutrition, food quality and safety. Meanwhile, contract management (or outsourcing) of food services can bring numerous benefits to the university. There is a trend of using food-service carts at vantage points as well.

References

Campus Services Office - HKUST. Restaurants. Retrieved from https://www.ab.ust.hk/cso/res_mcdonald.htm

HKSAR Education Bureau. Primary Education. Retrieved from http://www.edb.gov.hk/en/about-edb/publications-stat/figures/pri.html

Walk, J.R. 2010. Introduction to hospitality management. Pearson Prentice Hall. New Jersey. 3rd ed.

World Health Organization. (Oct 2015). Q&A on the carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat and processed meat. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/

Q2a) Challenges and Recent Trends on Airlines & Airport

Challenges on Airlines

Time-sensitiveness in food preparation. A typical airline caterer delivers over 45,000 meal trays per day. For these items to be supplied to the airlines, the caterer has to organize the operations in a way that everything is delivered and served on time given the strict schedules of airlines. Any delay in adhering to flight schedules will be costly to the airline due to the heavy penalties attached to flights that fail to meet the schedule.



Storing food in safe temperatures. Unlike regular restaurants, in-flight meals are to be consumed thousands of feet above the ground. Hence, it is a challenge to store the meals in its appropriate temperature, especially for the perishable dishes or cold plates such as fruits and salad. Failure to properly store food may lead to food safety issues.





Fig. 1. Cold plates incorporating fruits, salads and ham.





Difficulty in guaranteeing food quality. As food is to be re-heated before serving, their outlook may vary from when they were freshly prepared. For example, some green vegetables may turn yellow after being re-heated, or the meat and rice may appear to be very dry and lack of moisture, which would look unattractive and unappealing. Besides, the food may also taste blend and without much flavor after reheating as compared to freshly consumed, which may affect the guests’ perception of food quality.







Fig. 2. Dry and unattractive appearance of the meat and rice.

Difficulty in ensuring good hygiene. Unlike how meals are promptly served in restaurants, there tends to be long hours between preparation and when the food is actually served. Hence, it is a challenge to maintain good hygiene during the lead time when food is to be waited for hours before serving.

Challenges on Airport

Logistical challenges. Due to the remote location of airport restaurants, logistical challenges in food delivery is common as compared to restaurants in the city-center which is able to conveniently import food ingredients.

Limited storage area. As airport restaurants are usually small in size, storage for food ingredients is limited. Therefore, a precise forecast of demand is needed in order to avoid shortage of food ingredients.

Restrictions on disposal arrangements. Unlike regular restaurants with proper catering facilities, the wash-up area in which all the airline and kitchen equipment are washed is quite limited in size. Hence, there is not much space for clean up or sewage arrangements.

Recent trends

Preparing meals beforehand. As air travelled increased, cooking can no longer be done inside the aircraft and meals turned to be pre-made in order to serve the growing number of passengers.

Dishes made to measurements. Food has to be massively and consistently prepared beforehand in the airline catering kitchens. Dishes are to be made according to specific measurements, in which standards for preparation and presentation are unified for the chefs to follow once the recipes are confirmed.

Fig. 3. The chef is unifying the measurements of each ingredient in every dish. The exact amount of meat cuts, rice, vegetable accompaniments, and sauce are specifically counted and weighed.

Provision of optional meals. Guests are given the freedom to choose whether they want in-flight meals when booking tickets. This is especially designed for cost-conscious guests, which creates a win-win situation as on one hand, guests can pay a cheaper overall price, and airlines can also offer a more competitive price as compared to other airline companies as the cost of food preparation is reduced.

Healthier meal options. The uptick in healthy eats is a prevailing trend in the travel and hospitality industry. There are two triggering factors for airlines to provide healthier meals. On one hand, there is increasing health concern from customers, and on the other hand, the more variety of options airlines provide for their customers, the more revenue reward they can get. Hence, airlines and airports are now offering a variety of healthy meal options ranging from low-fat snack boxes sold on a flight to low-calorie options in the airport, with the inclusion of vegetarian meals as well to suit the needs of their customers.

Fig. 4. Healthy food choices provided in airports.

 In fact, a research from USA Today reveals that “15 major U.S. airports finds that 83% of restaurants have at least one vegetarian item on the menu — low in fat, high in fiber and good for your heart.” This indicates how major airports are now trying to provide healthier meal options in most of their restaurants.

Evaluation:

Before doing research, I never expected that airlines and airports will face so many challenges and obstacles in providing Food and Beverage services. Now that I learnt more about their operations, I can understand why airport meals may taste blend, or why they always serve beans and carrots instead of regular vegetables.

References:

http://skift.com/2015/05/27/savory-secrets-of-airline-catering-kitchens-serving-100000-meals-per-day/ 

http://hubpages.com/business/Airlines-Food-Supply-Chain

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/news/travel/story/2011-12-19/Airports-increase-nutritious-options-survey-finds/52076760/1

Q1) The Unique Features of Services

Challenge to please guest and client

Provide managed service is different with running a restaurant, as a managed service provider, we don't only deal with the guests who enjoy the food and beverage, but also need to deal with the client who own the place where we provide our services.

As clients in different industry may have different preference for the food and beverage provided by the managed service provider, we may need to adjust our service under the clients' requirements and regulations in order to build a long relationship with the client.

However, guests who actually enjoy the managed service we provide may have different view of the service requirement. Satisfying both clients and guests demand is a big challenge for a managed service provider.

For example, provide managed service for educational facilities, especially for primary schools and secondary schools, can be difficult. This is because the guests are mostly teenagers, who usually put taste of the food at top priority, while the clients, schools, may concern the nutrition value of the food instead.

Therefore, how to balance the aspects that guests and clients want from us is challenging.

Guests are captive clientele
For managed service providers, guests are usually captive clientele, which means they may not have other alternatives of dining.

This feature gives managed service providers an advantage in the business that they are able to charge a relatively higher price for their food and beverage. Also, as dining choice is limited, it is easy for the managed service provider or its client to advertise for their brand.

For example, managed service in theme parks usually provide food and beverage at higher price than in the market.

Also, managed service providers like Luncheon Star is famous within the guests who is captive in school and have no other alternatives.

Food service is not the primary business

For the clients of managed service providers, food and beverage is not their primary business, the aim of providing food and beverage for their guests is to enhance their experience of enjoying the primary business.

Therefore, quality of food and beverage may not be the biggest concern of the clients of managed service, and hence they may not be willing to input too much capital and resources in food and beverage area. This is one of the reason why they prefer using contract management to provide food and beverage in their business to reduce cost.

For example, in airline industry, food and beverage is not the major service they provide. Although it also provides food and beverage to enhance the quality of their service and to give customers a better experience, food and beverage provided tend to be simple, uniform and have limited choice.

Produce food in large quantity

Ability to handle large quantity of food production is important in managed service as there are often constant groups of guests to be served in a period of time.

Therefore, a large quantity of food is needed to be produced and delivered. Batch cooking is a common way to achieve large demand of food in short period of time.

For example, in military area, the dining periods of soldiers are uniform, which means that all of them are likely to dine at the same time, demanding a large quantity of food in a short period. This is one of the challenge for managed service providers.

Volume of business is consistent

As mentioned above, source and number of guests and their demand of food is relatively more predictable in managed service. With this advantage, the managed service provides are able to have better estimation and allocation of time and resources in their business so the operating cost can be reduced.

In order to have better estimation of demand of service, some managed service provider, for example service providers for educational facilities, may ask the guest to decide whether they want to have food and beverage and what kind of food and beverage they want in advance.

Conclusion

After the research for the unique features of managed services, we further explore different real life examples of the features. By studying the real life examples, we found out the benefits that a managed service provide may get and challenges they may face. For example the cost reduction due to better estimation and the difficulty to balance guests' and clients' demand. It gives us a better understanding in this chapter.