Restaurant Distribution Strategy

• Restaurant operators and managers
• Restaurant and hotel franchisees and franchisors
• Managers of hotels with full-service restaurants or grab-and-go offerings
• Analysts at large foodservice chain organizations
• Grocery store and CPG managers

• Restaurant Distribution Strategy Certificate from Cornell’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration
• 40 Professional Development Hours (4 CEUs)

As the restaurant industry adapts to new customer demands and market conditions, the rise in digital technologies and the convenience they foster has led to significant changes in the way restaurants distribute their products and manage their brands. Increasingly, restaurant operators are turning to the addition of distribution channels to stay competitive and efficiently recognize and address gaps in their offerings.

Distribution channels describe how a product gets from the operation or producer to the consumer. The most common distribution formats for restaurants have traditionally been takeout, delivery, and catering, but advancements in technologies have expanded these models and even added others, like ghost and virtual kitchens. Other options that have become more popular for restaurants are gift baskets and subscriptions, wholesale and consumer packaged goods, and off-premise concepts. Faced with this kind of variety, operators need to critically consider whether or not to adopt a given distribution channel into their business strategy and understand how that format will impact its operational and strategic goals.

In this certificate program, you will analyze modern restaurant-customer interaction and evaluate new opportunities afforded by digital technologies such as online ordering, reservations, and customer ratings sites and other user-generated content. You will also identify the motivations and trends behind changing customer expectations and assess the business fit of different distribution formats for a particular operation. To further explore how the addition of a distribution channel could impact the operational aspects of a restaurant, you will evaluate the role menu design and floor plan layout play in the implementation of a new strategy. Finally, you will turn back to your customers and evaluate how you could use your strategies to build and enhance customer loyalty. By the end of the program, you will be able to assess the strategic and operational opportunities and costs of adopting a new distribution strategy.

The courses in this certificate program are required to be completed in the order that they appear.