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Writer's picturetarekhaydar

Short term gain Vs long term pain !

I have shared yesterday a post on my linkedin about how greedy business people are becoming . In a world of instability where wars , pandemic crisis , poverty and more are hitting almost in every country , people have to be more considerate and support each other more than ever . Yet we see the greed and "me" before others is almost in every corner .


Let me share some examples that can explain better what i am referring to , especially in Food and beverage and Restaurant business.


I am in contact with many of my previous colleagues who worked with me in the past and many if them are informing me that either didn't get their salaries at all for few months or that they are getting 40% of a monthly pay yet they have to work for the whole month , that is undertood if the business is not making enough cash flow and revenues but rights have to be reserved so that all dues have to be paid whenever conditions do change to better. BUT to have a business owner showing off during interviews and on social media that his business is doing better than last year for the same month before Covid hits the economy and at the same time his employees say that they didn't get paid for months ! That is the maximum of greed and inhumanity . This same owner will definitely suffer bigger losses sooner or later when all his staff will leave him and once his numbers starts to decline and his business close.


On the other hand side we have the property owners who are refusing to reduce rents or give free rent for few months especially during months when Restaurant business was closed due to lockdown! So these owners are living in a different world as they don't care how would a tenant pay the rent knowing that their business was closed but they just care to receive their money, a tenant have invested almost all their resources in this project and they have rent and payroll and other expenses that they still have to pay even if business is closed but property owners simply want the rent to be paid regardless of tenant pressured situation ! That is another greedy example.
Let's take another situation , we all know that most of the restaurant business is nowdays surviving on delivery mainly and very few companies around the world do have their own delivery portals from where clients can place their orders so majority and that is more than 95% of restaurants have to depend on help from third party portals to list their restaurant on those websites and start generating some business from online deliveries. We all know that cost of sale for majority of restaurants is 30% and above plus staff payrolls not less than 25-30% and rent in good scenarios 10-15% we still didn't talk about franchise fees if restaurant is a franchise nor about other expenses related to hygiene , cost of delivery boxes and bags and stationary etc... Here delivery portals are charging 25% to accept delivering from restaurant to client! So how on earth would any restaurateur make any profit ! Many restaurant owners are keeping their restaurant business listed on these portals as they say some cash flow is better than nothing even if at the end they are not making any profit , while these delivery business owners can make profit somewhere between 12 and 15% and breakeven point could be even at lower % depends on volume of restaurants subscribing and we all know that almost all F&B businesses are subscribing to these delivery portals so the question is why these are insisting on 25% and not supporting restaurant industry specifically at these tough times ? Again the call of Greed applies to these businesses.

Going back go my title , if a restaurant business is going out of business because all employees are leaving for not paying their salaries , and restaurant owners closing down for not being able to pay rent to property owners as well as hefty delivery fees to online delivery portals , as a result it will be difficult for property owner to find new tenants or might have to reduce rents to new occupant , and delivery portal expenses goes higher due to less restaurants subscribing to their portals which means result will be bad for all and everyone are losing in this equation Vs supporting each other from the beginning and being considerate until whole economy bounces back. That is my message is not to think short term gains that will turn to long term pains for all parties.

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