Opening up Kazakh restaurant in Oxford - Research Paper Example

 Opening up Kazakh restaurant in Oxford This project tries to analyse the important factors and their impact in determining the success or otherwise of a proposed Kazakh restaurant that is to be opened at Oxford Introduction A Kazakh restaurant in Oxford might at first glance seem too long a shot that can possibly be a commercially viable venture, but a closer analysis of all the parameters and variables that can influence the outcome leads the analyst to form a different opinion. The key to commercial success of such a venture, however, depends on a few crucial assumptions. The first and foremost assumption is the venture is being promoted by a few Kazakh students who harbour the dream of making it big someday. These students not only put in their time in managing the enterprise but also double up as cooks and in some cases waiters too. The basic idea is to keep revenue expenditure to the minimum till the restaurant expands to a size where outside labour becomes imperative and the cash inflows also reach a level where such revenue expenses can be met without much difficulty. The second assumption is there are no full-fledged Kazakh restaurants in and around Oxford (though there may be restaurants that serve Kazakh dishes). This rules out immediate competition from a similar eatery though competition from other eating houses of Central or Far Asian origin remain a potential hurdle that could be crossed only through sound brand positioning and brand building techniques. Mission Statement Any enterprise needs a mission statement that justifies its existence and encourages stakeholders to strive towards achieving it. A Kazakh restaurant in Oxford should do well to have a mission statement that not only does justice to the region’s marvellous cuisine but also highlights the legendary hospitality of Kazakhstan. (Johnson, Scholes, & Whittington, 2005) Name and Logo Once the mission statement is formulated, a proper name for the establishment has to be coined – a name that instantly recalls some unique feature of Kazakhstan. One good name might be ‘yurt’ – those cone shaped tents that were once the principal form of residences of nomadic Kazakhs. A photograph of a modern yurt complete with all modern amenities – ones that tourists frequently come across in Kazakhstan – might serve as a very potent logo of this restaurant. This will not only encourage Kazakhs residing in and around Oxford to throng this place to get a feel of home away from home but also lend an air of authenticity that might wean away a large number of non-Kazakh customers from restaurants serving Afghan or Chinese cuisine or those serving the ubiquitous Indian curry. Decor and Ambience The decor inside the restaurant should try to match the insides of a yurt – complete with felt drapes, wherever possible, and the general ambience should try to recreate the legendary warmth that Kazakh hospitality is famous for. Exquisitely designed dastarkhans (Kazakh tablecloths) adorning each table and implicit promises of a sumptuous konakasy, a special dinner that Kazakhs prepare to honour their guests, would automatically overwhelm the guests who would become instant converts. The waiters must be properly educated in Kazakh form of hospitality and the way they welcome a guest in their own country. They should never forget that asking too many questions to a guest is considered extreme impoliteness in Kazakhstan. Thus, they should never be more voluble than they are required to and allow the guests to enjoy their dinner without many interjections. This will give this place a unique quality that cannot be copied by any competitor. Cuisine It is perhaps needless to emphasise that patrons come to a restaurant essentially to dine and the cuisine must be singularly superb and absolutely authentic for any restaurant to succeed. The guests should ideally be offered a drink of kumiss, a fermented beverage made from mare's milk, in porcelain or painted wooden piala (a Kazakh teacup) as soon as they settle down at a table. Kazakh cuisine essentially constitutes of meat and milk and horse’s meat is considered a delicacy. So, guests dropping into taste shuzhuk, kazy or karta should never return dissatisfied. Those who prefer sheep may order steaming kuirdak and almost every client would sometime or the other order at least once, besbarmak, made form boiled horse or sheep meat, and is the most popular dish in Kazakhstan. The promoters must ensure that these dishes are prepared without a fault and retain the authentic Kazakh flavour to ensure a loyal clientele. Applying SWOT Analysis to locate the critical success factor for the business Strengths There will never be a shortage of Kazakh students as 3000 of them come every year to Oxford University and Ivy League Universities of United States thanks, to Bolashak scholarship. Thus an assured clientele of expatriate Kazakhs will ensure that the restaurant is never fully empty. As labour will be provided to a large extent by the promoters, the possibility of heavy overhead expenses of a revenue nature is discounted. The absence of a competitor will ease a lot of tensions for the promoters. Weaknesses Absence of professional personnel in their ranks might ultimately work to their disadvantage. Almost every Kazakh student in Oxford comes on Bolashak scholarship that stipulates that the recipient must return to Kazakhstan for at least five years after studies are over. Thus there will always be a turnover among student promoters and it might be a problem to locate a suitable replacement once a promoter leaves. The student promoters obviously will not be able to pool in large amount of funds as capital and the establishment will have to continue on a shoestring budget for a considerable period of time. Opportunities It can venture into other forms of catering such as take away and home delivery, especially for students during the time of terminal examinations when they bury their noses in their books and hardly have any time to either cook or come down to restaurants for a leisurely dinner. They can use the restaurant to market other ethnic Kazakh products. This will have a two-fold benefit – firstly, it will attract people who would not have otherwise stepped inside the eatery, and secondly, it will become a secondary source of revenue and provide some relief to the cash strapped promoters. Threats Constantly rising cost of inputs and eventual entry of new competitors Shift in preference of consumers from Kazakh cuisine to other ethnic varieties. (Martins & Terblanche, 2003) Important External Factors Affecting Business A modern management tool for analyzing factors that affect external macro environment is known as PESTLE analysis. It consists of following factors: Political The political climate has very little relevance in this case as the establishment is relatively small but the promoters must ensure that the eatery does not degenerate into a meeting place for undesirable and criminal elements, especially Islamic religious fundamentalists having common roots in Kazakhstan. Economic The current economic scenario is bleak with almost all economies of the world experiencing a downturn. But students will never resemble households in their attitudes and approach to cost reduction through self cooking. Thus the economic scenario will not have that much effect on the sales level of this restaurant. (Lynch, 2005) Socio-Cultural These and similar ethnic outlets have become urban meeting places where westernized middle class prefer to be seen and regularly visit to retain and further their professional network. (Pearce & Robinson, 2007) Technological If the promoters can make their restaurant Wi-Fi enabled and can provide facilities to patrons to burn CDs of their choice, this new Kazakh restaurant will be able to further propagate its up-market and exclusive image. Installing Wi-Fi facilities and CD writers do not cost a fortune but these two together will surely cause a lot of additional revenue from highly pleased and satisfied patrons. (Haag, 2006) Legal This eatery has to scrupulously follow the law of the land as any violation might lead the promoters into massive trouble that might even result in cancellation of their scholarships. Environmental The restaurant can never afford to be on the wrong side of the law and thus has to meticulously follow all procedures laid down by the environmental authorities, especially those related to waste disposal which the restaurant will have in large volumes as it will substantially consume meat and other animal products while preparing food. Any business needs to perform both SWOT and PESTLE analysis to properly understand the interplay of various internal and external factors that affect the success of a business and it is absolutely essential to formulate effective strategies to counter their adverse effects, if any. As the restaurant needs to expand and attract non-Kazakh clients on a regular basis if it wants to survive, the promoters must think up some suitable strategies of brand positioning and brand strategy that will provide a greater exposure to this Kazakh eatery. Brand Positioning A brand is said to have a strong position when it has a unique, credible, self-sustaining, and a valued place in the mind of customer. This position or impression in the mind of customer usually revolves around some uniqueness, either in quality of service or quality/benefit derived from the use of the product that helps the brand to stand apart from the crowd of competing brands. All organizations must highlight the points of difference and points of parity with competition and must attempt to create a special image of it that cannot be easily replicated by competition and this is the only way, brands can immune themselves from the continual onslaught of rival brands. (Ries & Trout, 1982) This new restaurant should constantly try to project an image of an eatery that provides authentic Kazakh cuisine at affordable rates. It is only in this way the restaurant will be able to retain its grasp over Kazakh expatriates while gaining in stature in the eyes of local residents of Oxford who are open to taste foreign food and way of life. This inherent desire among local British population will be further stoked by introduction of British waiters and food description in English in the menu card since consumers identify more with values and beliefs within which they have been born and brought up. Cultural anthropology transports a brand to a more humane and a more intimate level where customers start bonding with the brand at an enhanced stage of personal feelings. (Elliot & Davies, 2006) Management of this Kazakh should interact more with indigenous customers and, either by asking them directly or closely observing their internal interactions while they enjoy the food in the restaurant, try to gauge what they like, what they do not and what they would like to be incorporated in the fare dished out and incorporate subtle changes to accommodate these desires as long as they do not violate the basic authenticity of Kazakh cuisine. In modern consumerism, brands are no longer consumed merely for functional reasons; consumers tend to construct and maintain an identity through consumption of a particular brand as say Apple or Coca Cola. This new restaurant, in its own small measure, will be able to provide an ambience where local British citizens will be able to enjoy authentic Kazakh cuisine without being exposed to the jarring experience of too much of foreign culture and create a similar fellow feeling among patrons as all owners of Harley Davidson feel among each other. (Wills, 1975) Brand Tracking Brand Tracking has become one of the important tools to measure efficiency of investment made on creating a brand and such measures have assumed additional importance where management wants every pond to generate maximum return. Brand tracking, however cannot be complete unless a comparative measure of competitive brands is also available which makes it easier for the management to not only ascertain relative strength of its brand, but also to perform a SWOT analysis with respect to prevailing competition. This, however, is not an annual exercise and it should be conducted on a continuous basis to ensure the brand does not lose its appeal. (www.marketingevolution.com, 2008) There are at least six different ways of tracking a brand and they are: Brand equity research Buying related trade data from agencies that specialize in collecting and collating such data Some companies like Intel regularly conduct price/value research within its brands and share the results of the research with its vendors regarding the quantum of premium its products command at a particular point of time. Such a research helps Intel to determine prices for its products in such a way that the corporate sales turnover is maximized. There are certain bases as market value, brand profitability, price premium etc. that can be considered while valuing a brand through a projected discounted cash flow under two possibilities – licensing a similar brand or building an own brand and comparing the net present values of such inflows under the two situations. The other modern way to track a brand and its health is to compare the impact of each element of branding mix on the overall health of the brand. The relevant data that includes among other details, expenditure on each constituent of the branding mix and percentage of market share controlled by the brand, is thoroughly analyzed and correlated through statistical and neural network techniques to arrive at a meaningful conclusion that can be acted upon by the top management. Use of Balanced Scorecards technique (www.mudvalley.co.uk, 2008) In case of the new restaurant which does not have any competition, the only feasible option is brand equity research where the British clientele can be asked to give their sincere opinion about everything that is on offer – right from the décor to the food and the service and incorporate as much as possible those suggestions as long as they do not compromise the authenticity of the cuisine. Impact of Internet On Company’s Brand Development The importance of brand loyalty in this era of breakneck competition cannot be overemphasized and the benefits that are reaped by a company from having a dedicated band of consumers have also been repeated by every marketing expert on numerous occasions. The scope of increasing brand loyalty and creating a life time revenue potential has become even greater with the advent of B2C (business to consumer) business model that depend largely on ecommerce loyalty that is possible through internet. (Porter, 2001) Most marketing experts are of the opinion that e-loyalty is basically an extension of conventional brand loyalty that is expressed through internet and it depends (very much like conventional brand loyalty) on the oft repeated criteria of reasonable pricing, quality product, timely delivery, customer support etc. (Reichheld & Schefter, 2000) In e-business the consumer cannot touch or feel the product and neither can he look into the eyes of the salesman while making a purchase and the only medium of interaction between the seller and the buyer is the seller’s website. So, the seller must be very particular about creating an attractive website – one that does not dazzle the visitor but generates trust and speaks a language that the visitor can easily comprehend – and ensure that it is hosted in servers that provide easy and immediate connectivity as it has been found by an elaborate study (Szymanski & Hise, 2000) that convenience and site design are the two major factors that determine customer satisfaction and loyalty. This new restaurant can reach out to a larger cross-section of customers through an attractive website where its dishes can be temptingly advertised and orders can be accepted. This will attract lots of time-starved customers, especially the students, who would love to take away their dinner parcels that would be ready and waiting at the time mentioned when the order was placed through the internet. Use of co-branding to promote the restaurant A recent phenomenon in marketing has been co-branding where two or more companies club together their marketing strengths in joint marketing effort. (Blackett & Boad, 2000) Compaq and Mattel collaborated and pooled their expertise in their chosen fields to produce and market a line of interactive hi-tech toys. Bacardi and Coke combined their expertise in joint marketing exercise in Europe where Bacardi could penetrate larger markets as this was another way of drinking the white rum while Coke got a boost in sales as it got endorsement as ideal mixer from none other than Bacardi. In India Ariel and Whirlpool combined together in a co-branding campaign where Ariel reinforced its image as premium washing medium and Whirlpool as premium washing machine. Similarly, in order to make up their late entry in iced tea market, Nestle and Coca Cola decided to unite and share their respective strengths where Nestle created and marketed Nestea while Coca Cola distributed it. Though Nestea is strictly not co-branded (Coca Cola gets only a small mention at the back of the packet) it is surely an example of how market players can reap benefits by collaborating. (www.management-hub.com, 2008) As mentioned earlier, this new Kazakh restaurant can also think about co-branding, maybe soft furnishings like drapes, table cloths and the like from Kazakhstan , for further promoting the restaurant. Reference Blackett, T., & Boad, B. (2000). Co-Branding: The Science of Alliance. Palgrave Macmillan. Elliot, R., & Davies, A. (2006). Symbolic Brands and Authenticity of Identity Performance. In J. E. Schroeder, M. Salzer-Morling, & S. Askegaard (Eds.), Brand Culture (pp. 155-168). London: Taylor and Francis. Haag, S. (2006). 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