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‘THIS is
it,” Sheila Ramos thought, as Francorp head Samie Lim
walked and sat across her.
Ramos,
chief executive of Tokyo Tokyo Japanese fast-food
restaurant, handed Lim a business card and shook hands
with him.
“I guess
this is not a social visit,” Lim said.
“I guess
not,” Ramos said, smiled and signed a contract with
Lim’s group, opening Tokyo Tokyo’s doors not only for
diners with predilections for Japanese food, but also
for investors as franchisers of a two-decade-old
restaurant business.
“Actually, there were already some inquiries on how to
put up a fast-food restaurant like ours but I felt we
were still too small a player in the market then,” Ramos
told BusinessMirror two months before she leads the
formal launch of the company’s venture into franchising
as a business model.
But
Tokyo Tokyo Inc. couldn’t be considered small today: it
already has 55 company-owned branches in eight major
cities that have served 20 million shrimp tempuras,
three million pork tonkatsu orders, and more than two
million beef misono orders.
More
than half of these were cooked up inside a
400-square-meter operations space under a parking area
in
Makati City’s
business district in 1985 and a kitchen nearly 40 km
away in Cubao, Quezon City.
Currently, Ramos takes command from the company’s
$2-million commissary and administrative offices on a
2,000-square-meter lot in Mandaluyong City.
Going
into franchising, she says at the company’s
headquarters, makes sense if the company has this asset.
“We now
have the organization and the system to begin finding
new people to work with; we have the economy of scale,”
she explains.
Looking
out the glass window backs up her claim: before lunch,
three refrigerated trucks are backing up on a raised
dais as workmen in white aprons tug cartloads of shrimp
through plastic curtains.
Below
the conference table where Ramos sits on a black leather
seat are more than a dozen applicants, dealers,
suppliers and one business partner. And it was just an
hour before lunch time.
The
company promises good yield for an investment of between
P9 million and P12 million, the financial requirement
for a Tokyo Tokyo franchise.
That
amount, she says, includes the franchise fee, leasehold
expenses and working capital.
Actually, about P4 million to P5 million would go to
construction expenses, Ramos clarifies. “The other half
would go to leasehold,” she adds.
Ramos
says, on average, return of investment would be around
four years.
“If
you’re not spending for leasehold, that could be within
two years and anything in excess would already be your
net income,” she claims.
And like
other franchises, Tokyo Tokyo Inc. would be holding the
hands of the franchisee until such time the business
relationship matures, Ramos pledges.
“Franchising is like a marriage, no?” she says, adding
that entering into such a long-term relationship with a
virtually unknown knocking on her door has been, “for
the longest time, my biggest fear.”
But
rather than getting a joint-venture partner, Ramos
concedes franchising is more an attractive option.
Likewise, she feels expanding via a public offering is
too much a loss of control and that Tokyo Tokyo isn’t
ready for that yet.
“My
gosh, that’s too big a decision,” she says.
Nonetheless, two months before the formal launch, Tokyo
Tokyo already has two to three “suitors,” Ramos reveals.
“But we’re still open for proposals,” she quickly says.
An
interested franchisee, she adds, would show that passion
for service. An experience in running a business,
especially related to food, is a plus.
“A
background in operation would really help because this
would be a long marathon,” Ramos says, adding that the
franchisee should look into operating the restaurant at
least for more than a decade.
Apparently, these are mostly the values that Ramos
exudes as CEO of the country’s first Japanese fast-food
restaurant. She counts everything, from the packets of
whole pepper corn to the bottles of water supplied to
each store.
“Before,
I visit every branch, but when we grew big, I focused on
research of new products,” says Ramos, who’s credited
with bringing the hibiscus red tea as a popular drink
that has become synonymous with Tokyo Tokyo.
Try as
she might, however, she can’t sell the tea in bottles.
“It
doesn’t taste quite right without ice or really cold,”
she says. We agree.
Likewise, bottling is an added cost.
The
restaurant also became popular with its offer of free
rice refill.
On
unseasonably warm days when students take their lunch,
men in red haori, or hip-length kimono, go about a Tokyo
Tokyo restaurant lugging a basket of rice and offering a
dollop to customers.
These
are some of the elements that Ramos says she looks for
when she finds time to visit a branch, especially those
outside Manila, once every quarter.
Ramos is
also passionate about training, making sure most of the
nearly 3,000 employees of Tokyo Tokyo upgrade or enhance
their skills.
When
asked if the decision to go into franchising was because
of the entry of other Japanese fast-food restaurants,
Ramos says no.
“Competition is good but we’re also confident because we
already have a wealth of experience, the network and
trust of suppliers, and a system,” she says.
Ramos’s
business also now has a steady market: young upwardly
mobile professionals who grew up with Ramos during the
pop culture of the ’80s, and yuppies of this century who
prefer to eat outside their homes.
Most of
the latter are in call centers, who, Ramos says, make up
Tokyo Tokyo’s current revenue base.
Also,
the economy favors the traditional business of fast-food
restaurants since consumption levels remain high.
But for
Ramos, the only reason that remains is her passion for
running a business.
*****
WANT TO
FRANCHISE? HERE’S HOW!
1.
Draw a
map of the proposed site for a Tokyo Tokyo restaurant
2.
Prepare
a comprehensive résumé (with colored 2x2 photo)
3.
Contact
Tokyo Tokyo Inc. franchise manager Jay Mercado at
746-2429 and 746-2141 or via e-mail
- tokyotokyocircle@gmail.com |
