Discuss in detail (keeping the artical in mind), the variousbusiness environments that Hungry Lion operates in as they have animpact on these successful operations of the business. 20 Marks

The Continent’s Progressive QSR Player

Stellenbosch-based fast food specialist Hungry Lion has foundideal footing for expansion over the coming years, owed tooptimised operations and an admirable outlook

Writer: Jonathan Dyble | Project Manager: JoshHyland

Adrian Basson is a self-described Afro-optimistic. “There’s nohiding from the fact that there are a lot of challenges in Africa,but retail is a promising sector when it comes to facilitatingopportunities, creating employment and generally building abusiness that can have a widespread impact,” he says.

“When you reach a remote town with an empty plot, the localpeople don’t often have much. But as we’ve built new stores andhelped to launch new shopping centres, we’ve been able to not onlywitness, but also facilitate the construction of new, thrivingecosystems. We’re proud to be a business that contributes to thesuccess of these societies – I guess you could say we’re acapitalist business with a socialist outlook.”

Basson, now CEO, became part of the Hungry Lion story in 2001and has seen the company come a long way over the past two decadesto be the responsible, esteemed organisation it is today.

Having opened its first restaurant in South Africa in 1997, thebusiness today proudly operates a network constituting over 200stores across South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia,Zambia and Angola, with over 4,000 Hungry Lion employees. Lookingat the bigger picture, however, such statistics only touch thesurface of what the brand is bringing to the region.

“In many ways I like to think that our product is anafterthought in what we’re looking to achieve,” explains Basson.“Yes, serving bigger portions, more chips and more smiles is key toour operations, but it’s just one part of our overriding goal –providing joy to our employees, customers and local communitiesthrough food, served with passion.”

This ethos is relatively new to the firm, becoming more of acore focus during the company’s major rebranding process thatkickstarted in 2014. Having originally been part of the ShopriteGroup, Africa’s largest food supermarket chain, Hungry Lion is nowa totally independent company in its own right with a unique brandand character.

“In the beginning, we weren’t really building a brand,” revealsBasson. “We purely sold chicken and chips at an affordable price ona somewhat ad-hoc basis. However, we eventually found ourselveswith 100-plus stores, and with the economic challenges that camearound in 2008/09, we realised that stores without a brand, astory, and an experience would fail to deliver in the long term. Itwas a case of changing with the times and we invested a lot intothe design of our stores, our product quality and consistency,together with the development of the brand itself.”

Since transitioning from being a business-centric to acustomer-centric brand, Hungry Lion has reaped the rewards with thebusiness undergoing stratospheric growth over the past fewyears.

Adding a modern twist

Moving in this re-energised direction, strategy changes quicklyfollowed for Hungry Lion, evidence of which can be found in thefirm’s increasing use and the implementation of revolutionarytechnologies.

Fast forward to today, the company now benefits from artificialintelligence, automated system checks, cloud computing and livedashboards – technologies which serve multiple purposes in the wayof driving the business forward. This together with an alwaysconnected workforce, makes executing operationally so much moreefficient.

“I’ve always had a connection with technology,” Basson reveals.“I used to work in the technology division of Compaq in London andalso formerly as the Chief Digital Officer of Shoprite for aperiod. We live in an era where we can augment the people withtechnology to do the repetitive stuff, so that they can focus onthe more human touches.”

In a space where most others in the fast food industry arefranchised and owner-managed, Hungry Lion is unique in the Africanlandscape, with almost all stores being fully-owned and managedfrom its Head Office. This is where automated systems and cleveruse of technology comes to the forefront in managing the businessover vast distances and across borders.

“With technology comes data and with data comes insight,” Bassoncontinues. “Using our systems, we’re able to see the performance ofeach of our stores in real time, have an overview of customerexperience, and execute plans to fix problems at speed and scale.These capabilities would never have been possible if we didn’t havethe right technologies in place.” With full visibility ofinformation comes accountability, since everyone can see what needsto be done and if it was done. Transparency is a crucial merit ofthese technologies, a cultural trait of Hungry Lion that isaccentuated in other ways.

Basson adds: “We have a network of area, country and regionalmanagers who act as an extension of our Head office inStellenbosch. Head office employees pay regular visits to differentregions to keep a finger on the pulse of local operations. Our areaand country managers, in turn, come to Head Office regularly forupdates to business processes, training, and meetings. Thisconstant exposure in both directions ensures that best practisesare shared and implemented to all stores quickly.”

Prosperous career planning

Combined with both these expansive technologies and atransparent, remodelled structure, Hungry Lion recognises that itsstaff are key to achieving the firm’s ongoing ambitions.

To this end, the company ensures that it provides extensivebenefits to its employees, bolstering its position as an employerof choice and equally its talent retention capabilities.

Such initiatives include the introduction of E-learningmaterials in five languages and the company’s live in-housetraining platform from LessonDesk, a comprehensive new employeeassistance programme, access to affordable healthcare for employeesand more specialised and tailored training programmes.

What’s more, Hungry Lion has a strong focus on career planning,testament to its culture of internal promotion.

“Typically speaking, joining a fast food business as the lowestlevel of employee, the pay isn’t fantastic and it’s not uncommonfor these workers to have bigger aspirations,” explains Basson.“What we’ve realised is you can either listen to and facilitatethese ambitions, or your workers will leave and look foropportunities elsewhere. We like to pursue the former, providingclear career paths for our inspirational and aspirational workers.From cashiers to controllers to junior managers to regionalmanagers, and so on, this personal growth structure is in place atHungry Lion.”

A core part of the company’s ethos, providing key opportunitiesto reward loyalty and ambition, Hungry Lion offers not just a jobbut an all-encompassing opportunity to build a prosperouscareer.

A sound, responsible outlook

Such a humble and grounded approach is not only appliedinternally, but equally externally through a number of corporatesocial responsibility initiatives.

These are built around Hungry Lion’s three-pillar CSR strategy,with the organisation contributing towards hunger alleviation,championing change in local communities and promoting skillsdevelopment.

Between February and March of this year alone, for example, thecompany provided food for the attendees of a seminar addressing theissue of domestic violence, pupils of an underprivileged primaryschool during a field trip and fire fighters in the Western Cape,while also supporting a Soweto children’s home and a local policestation’s cricket tournament for rural schools.

“It’s an element to our business that we take pride in,” revealsBasson. “We like to show that we care for our communities,customers and especially our employees and their families. There’sa lot of need in Africa from a poverty standpoint and being in thefood business we’re able to help local communities in addressingsuch issues. I wouldn’t say we have a set agenda – ad hocopportunities arise, and we react accordingly in each of thelocations that we’re based, helping to give people a sense ofpurpose and promote skills of local communities.”

Asked about a particular such initiative that springs to mind,Basson is quick to highlight the company’s efforts in supportingthe Zambian people during a cholera outbreak at the beginning of2017.

He continues: “We immediately lowered the prices of our food,ensuring people could get nutritious, safe and affordable food, wedonated money to the government that was used to help with theclean-up process. We even provided sanitation kits to our staff,helping them clean their own living environments to ensure theirfamily’s health.”

Having developed a culture that is firmly centred aroundproviding benefit to all people, whether it’s supporting localcommunities or providing unrivalled, progressive careeropportunities, Hungry Lion’s outlook is unique andadmirable.

Opportunity is a word that is creating an atmosphere ofexcitement within the company at the moment, with continuedexpansion firmly on the table for Hungry Lion after experiencingdouble digit percent organic growth over the past twoyears.

“We’ve set 20 new stores as a benchmark, but realistically thisis a ball-park figure on the conservative side,” reveals Basson.“If we can open 50 stores then we’ll do it – if we find a good sitewhere we can profitably trade, we will open. There aren’t anyspecific limitations.”

New systems and optimised procedures in place, last year’scorporate action, focus on organic growth, and consolidationallowed Hungry Lion to not only transition into independence, butequally provided the platform for the company to gear up for fullthrottle expansion over the coming years.

“We’re realistic at the same time,” Basson continues. “Weunderstand that we cannot conquer the whole continent in 2019 or2020, but the plan is to grow as fast as possible. Africa hasaround 1.2 billon people but in the next three decades this numberwill double. Further, there are 54 countries across Africa,countries that we know we’ll have a good chance of being able toexpand into, whether it be through franchises, joint ventures, orother kinds of partnerships. The opportunities are immense, and Ifeel our business is a prime example as to why it’s a great time tobe investing on the continent right now. I just hope that otherswill come and join us in the fun!”