The Operations Team aims to deliver year-on-year profitability growth through growing our top line sales and managing our operating expenses. We do this by ensuring that we are focused on delivering great customer service, great product quality and having our products available always to our customers. In addition, we ensure that our food is freshly prepared and sold at affordable prices to our customers.

The five building blocks of the Operations Division are:

1.Building People Capability

We focus on building people capability at all levels through internal development of our people as well as recruiting and growing great talent for our business. In addition, we ensure that performance management is key in ensuring that we deliver great performance at all levels in Operations. Finally, recognition is a culture in our business, and we make it a duty to recognise at every opportunity in our Operations team.

2. Customer Service

Customers are extremely important to us, so we work with our Training Team in ensuring that our team members and store management teams are well trained and coached in delivering great customer service with each transaction, every day. Our team ensure that customers will want to come back over and over through hospitable service, clean and well-maintained restaurants, quick service, and great quality products that are always available.

3. Sales & Profit Growth

Our motto is “Sales is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is king”. We grow sales by ensuring great customer service through transaction and ticket average growth; and grow our bottom-line profit through controlling our operational expenditure.

4. Financial and Process Discipline

Ensuring that great thought process and execution in all we do is important to us and this is where clear discipline comes in. We ensure that all our processes are always followed, and this delivers discipline in our financial management.

5. Operational Excellence

We drive operational standards, we build Store and Area Management capability, quarterly financial and operational audits and we deliver consistent recipes in all our restaurants.

Our Property Development & Franchising division continues to grow, with the addition of new franchise stores, the opening of new company stores and the upgrading and maintenance of existing stores. All three activities, contribute to our performance and enhance stakeholder experience for franchisees, employees, partners and shareholders alike.

We have been able to effectively manage our setup costs, despite the devaluation of the Naira and the harsh economic conditions. Among others, bulk purchase of key assets has allowed us to negotiate lucrative discounts, which has contributed to greater returns on investments.

We have and will continue to grow the capacity of both people and other resources within this division to ensure a solid, pre-emptive, responsive and effective strategic implementation plan that delivers ROI.

Our strategic focus areas moving forward include:

• Ensuring a controlling share of the number of stores in the 4 main cities in Nigeria (Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt & Kano) and franchise-out up-country locations
• Master Franchise Agreements – find franchisees for other West African countries aside from Nigeria & Ghana
• Franchise Support – with training and performance reviews, operational excellence, marketing activities and audits
• Effective Stakeholder Communication with project meetings, project tracker spreadsheet and Action Logging
• Property Management is key to our business, strict lease agreements to reduce landlord risk habitual increases in lease terms
• Implementing a lean construction cost (mainly on immovable assets/sunk cost) on sites with weak ADS assumptions

The Supply Chain Division (SCD) continues to grow and support the business by catering for the increased demand and delivery of great tasting, high quality products to our stores “On Time in Full”. Key activities that fall under SCD include:

Procurement

The Procurement function is centralised and is responsible for the sourcing and purchasing of all food and packaging products, equipment and other restaurant supplies. The mission of the unit is to provide the “lowest possible sustainable store-delivered prices” for restaurant products and equipment. To achieve this, the unit leverages on the system’s scale to drive cost savings and effectiveness in its day-to-day function.

We work closely with suppliers to encourage innovation, assure best practices and drive continuous improvement. Leveraging scale, supply chain infrastructure and risk management strategies, the division also collaborates with suppliers towards achieving competitive, predictable food and packaging costs over the long term.

Warehousing and Distribution Unit

The business operates a hub and spoke network model across the country. This is designed to reduce transportation costs, improve cycle times and reduce inventory in the restaurants and at the warehouses. Delivery of stock items to the stores are carried out through the deployment of Company-owned fleet and third-party Logistics Service Providers to ensure timely and effective distribution to the stores.

Pie Production Unit

Food Concepts operates ten strategically positioned pie production facilities around the country. These facilities are set up to satisfy our customers’ needs for fresh and tasty baked products via our Chicken Republic and Pie Xpress stores, as well as to meet the increasing demand for bulk catering requests.

Central Kitchen

Our Central Kitchen produces the spices that are used in the production of Chicken Republic soulfully spiced meals. The Central Kitchen brings to the fore several benefits such as:

• Consistency in product quality and uniformity
• Convenience
• Larger space
• Equipment and specialised appliances used in production
• Reduction in wastage and labour costs at store level

Our Central Kitchen supports all Chicken Republic and PieXpress stores, both company-owned and franchised. We produce semi-finished and finished items and deliver fresh vegetables to Lagos stores.

The Shared Services Division serves as the bedrock of the organisation as it focuses on the consolidated performance and position of the organisation, its subsidiaries, its associated companies and related entities.

The division provides the requisite support to the business and the other divisions to achieve the overall objective of maximising profitability through sales growth and reduced cost. The division is responsible for driving the overall company strategy summarised in the budgets, forecast and business plans and ensures the monitoring and achievement of the company’s overall strategy.

The Shared Services Division is responsible for raising capital to support the business strategy and growth plans, as well as to ensure the effective management of working capital, which enables smooth operation of the business.

It is also responsible for generating investment income through effective treasury operations and managing of the company’s information technology. The division ensures that proper risk management procedures are in place within the organisation to identify and manage the risks in the business and that policies, controls and procedures are in place to ensure that the organisation’s overall objectives are met.

Shared Services is also responsible for new product development, as well as, quality assurance (including both ISO and legal compliance), whilst ensuring that the company’s products are effectively communicated through marketing activities to third parties.

The division consists of the following departments: