Critical Success Factors affecting the Restaurant Industry: Insights from Restaurant Managers

This study identifies, prioritizes and ranks a list of critical factors that impact consumers’ perception of the restaurant industry from a restaurant managers’ perspective. A mixture of the modified-Delphi method and multi-criteria decision-making method, the best-worst method (BWM), is adopted to achieve the study aim. The integrated approach has been employed with the help of seven experts from different units working under Hyderabad Restaurant Industry, India. The study identifies five main and twenty-five sub-categorical factors impacting consumers’ perception of restaurants. In particular, the study offers insights into the restaurant business after implementing a new taxation system (i.e., GST). The ranks showed that 66% of restaurants success depends on two critical factors, that is, ‘food quality’ and ‘cleanness and ambience’. The top choices can be improved by emphasizing the ‘use of fresh ingredient’ and ‘use of regular cleaning and sanitization’. The findings provide managerial and policy insights to direct efforts and resources more efficiently.