Hbr Elbulli Case

What factors made elBulli the best restaurant in the world? Which elements of the elBulli experience create value for customers? Generally when you think of the best restaurant in the world you would expect a great location in a big city, a modern building, an excellent customer service and regularly opening hours. All of them have nothing in common with elBulli. It is just different. It is really a challenge to place a reservation at this restaurant and it is even a bigger challenge to find the small inconsiderable building which is located in the near of an abandoned village in Spain.

There is only space availability for about 50 diners and the restaurant usually is opened from April to September. So what made elBulli that special and why do they have about 1 to 2 million reservation requests each year? This restaurant offers a completely new and unseen way of serving food with creativity. They do not serve food but they serve emotions as they try giving their customers new experiences which are totally unexpected before. So elBulli has the objective to surprise the customer and not offering what they expect or actually want.There are many factors to be considered why this restaurant became such successful.

One big reason is the head of elBulli since 1987 called Ferran Adria. He changed the kind of usual gastronomy and created a completely new way for cooking. His target is not to copy the good things but to create unexpected and new recipes to inspire feelings within the diners. Another important reason is the gaining of knowledge concerning new technology and equipment. The creativity team of elBulli is always searching for new techniques and ways how to prepare food.For this purpose they even travel around the whole world.

Furthermore they use this travels to gain knowledge of as so far unknown exotic food and to get inspired by new ideas. The factor differentiation has also a great impact on the success of the company. Eating at this restaurant is actually a unique experience. At first there is a guided tour along the terrace, through the kitchen and finally they stop at the main dining room. The meal contains 35 dishes and the waiters have the task to explain what it is and how to eat this piece of art on the plate.However the team of elBulli is far from paying attention to customer needs and satisfying them.

In their opinion the only reason for doing that is to gain creativity and the results of their research are shown to the customers. Value is added as they give the diners the feeling of being the most important persons of that evening, while welcome them friendly and personally, caring for them the whole evening and giving them the feeling to be someone special as they are one of the rare people who are lucky to have this experience.Maybe they are also adding value by giving the diners this surprising feeling of unexpected taste. In general companies try getting to know what the customer wants and to satisfy this need. But elBulli makes the customer just curious and they want to be surprised by something totally different which they would never think of to imagine. Adria thinks when he will ask the customers what they want, they will always say something already known for example a good steak but that want will never be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

So this unique restaurant satisfies the curiosity of the customers without willingness to do that. Because as Ferran Adria said: “Creativity comes first, and then the customer”.2. What are the salient features of the creative process at elBulli? “Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel (i. e. original, unexpected) and appropriate (i.

e. useful, adaptive concerning task constraints). ” In order to figure out the salient features of the creative process at elBulli this definition of creativity will help to give some guidance. Securing novelty in the recipe-creating processAs Sternberg defines creativity in his book it is absolutely mandatory for a creative product or thought to be both “novel” and “appropriate”. Ardria puts a great emphasis on the first requirement as well, as he points out “Create is not to copy” multiple times.

Therefore to assure that any recipes that have been developed at El Bulli are “sufficiently novel”, there has been implemented an inspection about the novelty of a recipe at an early stage (concept-stage) of the recipe-creating process. If the inspection revealed that the concept was not novel, the innovation team would stop working on that specific idea.As the creative ideas for preparing “Molecular Gastronomy” are not falling from the sky elBulli has established an own development team which is responsible for the whole recipe-creating process. Furthermore a whole R&D laboratory has been established. With the laboratory the R&D team has been given access to a facility which provides them with all the equipment they need for creating new recipes. A high rate of creation requires a professional concept Having a suitable environment surely is a necessity but it is definitely not sufficient.

At this point the “Creativity Concept in Use at elBulli” has proven its work. It has helped to methodically develop new intuitions and techniques. Some of the main approaches of this concept are the following:

• The sixth sense – introducing a emotions such as irony, humor, provocation and childhood humor
• Deconstruction – taking apart each element of a dish and putting it back together varied texture or temperature
• Adaptation – combining existing recipes with the new philosophy creates recognition
• Minimalism – minimize elements, maximize magic Haut-cuisine versions of mass-market products – use of unusual products
• Influence from other cuisine – getting inspiration from traditional cuisines
• New way of serving food – change the way dishes are served and thus consumed
• New techniques and products – use of new techniques in cooking

What is underlined by most of the above mentioned approaches (e. g. Deconstruction, New techniques and products and The sixth sense) is that the creating work needs a lot of analysis, time and continuous improvement. Sometimes the final recipe was even just finished in the restaurant over the course of the season.

One interesting fact to point out is that there have been approaches established, that would not comply with Adria’s quote “Create is not to copy” at first glance. These are the approaches of Adaption and Influence from other cuisine, because one would think that they imply that concepts are being imitated. But it does not. It simply just stresses ne importance of the inspiration during the creative process. For this reason Adria would send some of his teams stuff members to different restaurants worldwide during the off-season in order for them to get inspired.

The different groups would present ideas and concepts gained overseas to the other groups. Presenting and discussing new ideas with different audiences assures once again that concepts are truly new (other groups have a critical look at the ideas) and on the other hand makes it possible to further grow ideas with the input other groups have to give. If one has a closer look at the second requirement Sternberg states about creativity that ideas have to be “appropriate (i. e. useful, adaptive concerning task constraints), one might see clearly what the value of dishes that even need instructions on how to be consumed is.

But obviously there have always been customers that appreciated these kinds of dishes. (Please refer also to the answer of question 1) All in all the salient features of the creative process are: the environment with the sufficient resources, the working in teams and presenting to varying audiences with different ideas to improve concepts, the acquisition of inspiration all over the world and last but not least: time. Staff was given 6 months a year without daily business so that they could be creative.3. Are there weaknesses in the restaurant operation? How would you fix them? The top flaws of elBulli as a restaurant have to deal with its business making.

The main focus isn’t on making profit as it should be with everyone taking part in the restaurant business. The elBulli restaurant itself is using 60 to 70 chefs every night (though around half of them non-paid interns) cooking and serving 40 dishes per guest every night. Add to that the additional waiters and other staff in the restaurant, elBulli has a big number of employees to pay the salary.The amount of customers is another case. Even though elBulli is having thousands, even millions of wannabe customers in their queue, they only serve 50 people per night, six month a year. The restaurant is saving from the chef wages on those six months, but also losing money from not serving the customers willing to pay.

With the customers more than the restaurant is capable to serve, another thing that elBulli could do is to raise the prizes. The average price of an paying customer stays as low as 230 Euros.With the dinner at elBulli being for most of the customers “once in a lifetime” moment, raising the prize of that moment wouldn’t do much difference. The list of people wanting to get in is so unbelievably long that even doubling the prize wouldn’t probably affect the customer flow. The queue could be a little bit shorter but they would still serve the same 50 customers per night. The technology used in elBulli is also really expensive, both the equipments and the raw materials.

The technology is expensive, but on the other hand they are necessary on creating the unseen and “untastable” experiences elBulli is aiming at.Another interesting view is about the critizism of materials used in Adria trademark “molecular gastronomy. ” It has been stated that elBulli poisons its customers with all the ingredients that are not meant to be eaten. A german food writer Jorg Zipprick who wrote a book “The Unappetising Underside of Molecular Cooking” says that Adria’s cookings are more threat to human health than a typical fast food junk. Some are going even further and blaiming elBulli dishes on causing cancer. So basically elBulli should come through lots of changes to become profitable restaurant business.

It should increase its customer flow, start to reduce its number of workers, raise the prizes of their menus and wines plus try to find less costly equipment and materials. With these changes it could work as a profitable restaurant, not needing the support of the big elBulli merchandise markets. This would be possible, but would it make any sense? A Harvard Marketing professor Michael I. Norton who has studied the case a lot states that “fixing elBulli turns it into just another restaurant. The things that make it inefficient are part of what makes it so valuable to people”.

4. What should Ferran Adria and the elBulli team do next?Can the elBulli philosophy be applied to potato chips? Fast food? As described in the Case Study there have been multiple examples for the application of the elBulli philosophy to other industries than the restaurant sector. Adria and the elBulli team have established a hotel, introduced fast food and have been dedicated to different consulting activities. Within all the projects the elBulli philosophy has been applied more or less successfully. Philosophy applied to food-related sectors Within all examples given in the Case Study the elBulli philosophy has been applied to businesses that are somehow food-related.

With the exception of the newly launched hotel, there is a pattern that can be found in any of the applications outside of the elBulli restaurant: Combination of things (flavors) that had not yet been there before. The hotel basically takes the entire elBulli philosophy and amplifies it with the fact that accommodations are offered to the customers as well. But the potato chips, olive oil and “fast good” project just combined new things or flavors. What is new in all these approaches is that the goods that are being offered are more of mass goods, than avant-garde products. They are available to a wide range of people for affordable prices.With this wider accessibility, which comes with less exclusive and less unique POS (points of sales), something of the philosophy of elBulli is lost.

elBulli is committed to deliver their customers a unique and surprising experience. The experience of consuming the elBulli dished in an exclusive environment with exclusive care by the waiters. The loss of the “whole” experience makes it very hard to transfer the philosophy to mass products in an authentic way. Therefore the elBulli philosophy cannot be shifted to mass products because the elBulli dishes served at the restaurant are considered to be art.But art is not considered to be a good of daily needs as groceries are. Thus an application of the philosophy to groceries is not really convertible.

Using a celebrity such as Adria however certainly is a powerful tool to boost sales.5. What should come first? Creativity or the customer? “Creativity comes first; then the customer. ” In the case of elBulli, Ferran Andria emphasized the value of creativity rather than the customer’s satisfaction. For him, elBulli was more of a research center or a way of making art with food rather than a restaurant aiming to satisfy the customers.

lBulli was a way of pushing boundaries of how to create high cuisine experiences. elBulli took the creativity to new heights. They created a recipe, discovered its opportunities, used it for one season and the discarded it at the end of the season. Everything had to be completely new next year and the team was experimenting all the time. Adria even goes that far and states that “more techniques and concepts have been developed at elBulli over the past 15 years than in the world over past century.

” With the question between creativity and the customer for Adria, the main focus was absolutely creativity: elBulli and its creations. lBulli was a laboratory that discovers the possibilities of cooking and inventing new ways to create different kinds of dishes. Customer was just a spectator. He “didn? t give a damn” whether the customer actually liked what the dish he was eating. Adria states that he has the best team in the world and he knows that with their knowledge and skills they certainly knew what they should do, customers opinion didn? t matter that much.

elBulli wasn? t there to please the customer. It was experimenting and customer just happens to be the one who to share the results of the experiments. “It would be boring not share our findings”.The way Adria was thinking about the role of a customer isn? t the most traditional in the field of restaurants and business. Adria does emphasize that he is not a business man but an experimenting chef instead. Studying how elBulli runs its business doesn? t make sense because there is no logic, there? s only passion.

Should Adria and elBulli have a different kind of approach? elBulli closed its doors on 2011 and is not clear if it will re-open in the future. There has been a contradictory remark about the reason for the closury. In New York Times Adria stated that the restaurant was making a half a million loss every year.The restaurant only serves around eight thousand customers per year while the queue is around million, so for example raising the price range shouldn’t be a problem. But at this case Adria thinks more about the customer than the profits and remarks wanting to serve “sensitive people, not millionaires. ” elBulli is a special case that cannot be compared to other businesses.

It is an extremist in innovation and creativity. Ferran Adria? s motto since he was a student has been “Creativity means not copying. ” He wants to create something new, something unimaginable. This may be noble in a sense but on the other hand also very expensive.Another great innovator, Steve Jobs had said that “Good artists copy, great artists steal. ” Apple has been seen as a great innovator but basically they have just imitated and combined other companies’ innovations and sold them to millions of customers. elBulli can be a success, but if they would like to pay more concern on the profit, they could grow to be phenomenal. Businesswise a customer would be much higher in priorities and creativity would be a tool to satisfy them. But seems that it is not where elBulli wants to go. Instead they want to focus on where their passion is and that is experimenting with food.

And that is something to respect.

• [ 1 ]. Sternberg, „Handbook of creativiy”, page 3
• [ 2 ]. Business case, page 4
• [ 3 ]. Derived from: Case study, elBulli: The Taste of Innovation, Exhibit 7
• [ 4 ].

  http://eater. com/archives/2009/10/12/another-euro-thinks-ferran-adria-is-trying-to-poison-the-world. php

• [ 5 ]. http://hbswk. hbs.

  edu/item/6105. html

• [ 6 ]. http://wirtschaftslexikon. gabler. de/Archiv/54807/point-of-sale-pos-v5. html
• [ 7 ].

  http://dinersjournal. blogs. nytimes. com/2010/02/12/el-bulli-to-close-permanently/