Yellow Tie Hospitality Management on Fast Track
Introducing the big cheese – Mr. Karan Tanna, Founder CEO of YTH
The journey from engineering automobiles to engineering menus.
After receiving a B.E. degree in Automobile Engineering, Karan Tanna commenced his professional journey with General Motors India. Later, he also took up the opportunity to serve as a consultant with McKinsey and Co.
After 4 years of work experience with multinational companies, Karan chose to follow his heart – or should we say stomach – and stepped into the Food & Beverages sector.
Excerpts from Interview with Mr. Karan Tanna, Founder And CEO of Yellow Tie Hospitality ;
- Current challenges?
Ans: The current challenge we have is to juggle between lot of brands and have a very clear cut brand positioning amongst all. Though we have different teams for each brand however it becomes very difficult to treat each brand extremely independently specially for the top management it’s a little challenging to switch from one brand to another. We are encountering this challenge by making different environment/ different teams and different MIS discussion forums to make sure that each brand is treated independently not only in terms of the treatment of the brand positioning but also every brand should be financially treated independently.
- Expansion plan?
Ans: We are looking at a total count of 50 stores by the end of 2018 and by the end of 2019 we are expecting to reach the total count of 100 stores by extending our portfolio to multiple brands mainly by acquiring the start-ups in food service industry. We want to extend our expertise and experience to those companies that need us the most. We want to partner with the brands that have achieved good unit level economics and potential of growth through franchise but are unable to grow due to lack of expertise knowledge in this field. Our vision is to make multiple national level brands and take Indian brands on global map.
- Who is your competition (or who comes closest to being your competitor?). What is your USP… key differentiators…
Ans: We believe we have no direct competitors in the category that we function. Yellow Tie is a franchise management company. There are lot of companies in India that open their own brand & give franchises. But there is limited focus on supporting & managing franchises. Our USP is that at Yellow Tie, we have a very strong backend infrastructure in terms of experienced teams, supply chain & warehousing, R&D centre and a state-of-art turnkey software to manage our franchises. Right from location & premise search to building their stores, recruitment, training, time-to-time new product introduction, social media & brand marketing everything is managed by us which leaves the franchise owner entrepreneur to focus only on delivering last mile consumer experience. This entire eco-system & partnership makes the franchise stores & hence the brand sustainable. We focus on doing what we are best at, which is providing the brand support, background and the standards, SOP, recipe cards as a tool for franchise owners to follow and they do what they are best at doing which is managing the store in entrepreneurial spirit which is best in that region. This makes our brand very different as well as sustainable.
- What is your business goal? Please mention other businesses, if any?
Ans: Our vision is to make multiple national level brands and take Indian brands on global map. The mission of the company is to establish immense amount of franchise management capabilities so that the entrepreneur taking franchise of our brands gets all the required support from the brand & their investment become successful, sustainable & their entrepreneurial journey of a franchise owner is hassle-free as far as the intellectual property capabilities to run a restaurant is concerned.
- Please mention awards/recognition, if any.
Ans:
- Karan Tanna featured in Forbes 2016 – 30 under 30 list
- Featured in Top 50 Food Entrepreneurs of India
- Please mention interesting incident/s (for anecdotal value) encountered during your entrepreneurial journey.
Ans: There are lots of incidents that keep on happening in the entrepreneurial journey and every single day you need to motivate yourself to keep going. Some incidents are funny, some are demotivating some of them are sad but that’s the enjoyable journey of entrepreneurship. I would like to mention one particular incident which basically changed my perspective towards the restaurant & hospitality industry. In my first venture, Goodies we were serving veg as well as non-veg menu and by mistake we served a non-veg chicken chilli instead of a jain chilli to a gentleman who was strictly jain and very adamant about it. He created a huge scene and also went to the level of abusing and threatening us to take us to court. I felt very bad and angry also but my senior staff helped me to keep calm and later I understood that in this industry there is no scope of being short-tempered, angry or agitated. The guest has all the rights to give his feedback, complain and many times when religious sentiments are hurt also shout. This made me more and more guest focused and I always pushed for excellent guest service in all my restaurants and guest delight.
- Please mention the name, age, educational background and previous work experience of all the founders.
Ans:
Founder CEO: Karan Tanna
Age: 31
- Previous organization
Period from: June 2014
Period to: November 2015
Company name: Crazy Buns Hospitality Pvt. Ltd.
Designation: Director
Role: Crazy Buns Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. Owns stakes in Quick Service Restaurant brand “Kutchi King”, which is based out of Gujarat and owns over 200 outlets (as on June 2015). Crazy Buns Hospitality is also exclusive Master Franchise of Kutchi King for outside of Gujarat.
- Previous organization
Period from: April 2011
Period to: March 2012
Company name: Mckinsey & Company
Designation: Research Analyst
Role:
- Managed purchasing process, turnaround and cost saving measures in Indian Oil and Gas Company.
- Looking after localization, cost saving, planning purchasing purpose, organization set up/hierarchy structure for a major aircraft engine manufacturer.
- Analysing different cost/data analyst projects for various amenities.
- Previous organization
Period from: July 2008
Period to: May 2011
Company name: General Motors
Designation: Assistant Manager
Role: Purchase of Body/Exterior parts for all General Motors platforms in India.
The above interview was conducted by Journalist Prashant Kapadia