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It has often been reported on the television and in the national press, that the UK’s fastest growing and most popular food is ‘an Indian’. With an ever growing multi-cultural society being integrated into the UK and a general interest in eastern cultures, I have decided to set up and run a business venture which will concentrate on the quality/ top end of the Indian restaurants market. The venture will be sited in the wealthy west London area. Whilst there are over 100 Indian restaurants in the area (www.ask.co.uk) which all claim to offer quality food and service, I want my restaurant to be a true Indian Experience, not the place to go after a night at the pub.
From lunchtime, until 10pm it will be an exclusive eating experience,
following which the nightly entertainment will start with traditional
Indian dancers performing artistic pieces until midnight. 12 midnight
onwards it will become a night club with an array of tantalising belly
dancers.
Company vision
The vision is to make the Indian Experience unique, to ensure that the
brand values mean exclusivity, quality, service and eastern
experience.
Objectives
o By 2010 there will be an Indian Experience in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh as well as London
o By 2020 there will be an Indian Experience in each of the major cities in the UK.
Competitor analysis
On the restaurant side there are a number of high quality Indian
restaurants, charging mid to high range prices (www.ask.co.uk ,
www.lastminute.com/entertainment , www.e-bay.com/indian restaurants)
. Many of these have a ‘tie in’ with a local hotel, or hotels to offer
tourists a complete package. The Indian Experience will only tie in
with hotels such as The Savoy or Claridges.
The eastern dance club side is I believe a unique differentiator. The
main competitor would be Stringfellows www.stringfellows.com .
SWOT
Detailed below, the perceived current key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
Strengths
o Indian food is the UK’s favourite food.
o Organic and fresh food only will be used to ensure that the
qualities of the meals are as high as possible and that the menu can
change weekly and in line with seasonal requirements. Organic and
fresh foods are currently in favour, especially given the Sudan 1
problems of late
o Entrepreneurial vision and bags of energy.
Weaknesses
o Newcomers to the market, so lack of experience,
o Unable to pay the best salaries to staff at the start.
o I am an inexperienced manager.
Opportunities
o Corporate and business lunches, both in house and to be delivered to clients site if requested.
o Exploitation of the current thurst within the TV viewing public of Fly on the wall documentaries.
o Development of eastern dance evening and belly dancing programme.
Threats
o The recent Sudan 1 food crisis is likely to affect the British
people’s confidence in the Indian restaurant business, although at this
time there are no figures to suggest any trends, it being such a recent
event.
o More established Indian restaurants, in the same area, may use a
counter attack strategy i.e. raise advertising, and lower prices and so
on and copycat tactics.
o In addition to the set up costs, the ongoing costs of staff and food are going to be high.
The way forward
Target Product/ service offerings Place Price to client
Business 1.Corporate/ boardroom lunches/
events Office/ Restaurant
External venue of choice £40 per person head cover for 3 courses
Wealthy Locals 1.Lunches/ evening meals
Restaurant £40 per person must leave by 10pm.
Men/women with above average income 1. Stag/hen nights (on different evenings)
2..Belly Dancing evenings
Restaurant All inclusive (except drinks) meal and entertainment packages from £80 per person.
TV and Film Fly on the wall documentary for TV covering set up
issues and to opening night. Restaurant /dance area Clients on
opening night to be made aware of the camera crew. Most clients
invited, so no cost to them
Wealthy Tourists 1. city attraction packages Restaurant 2
choices of cost packages, either meal before 10pm , or meal and
entertainment after 10pm
Marketing/ time scales/ costs
As an entrepreneur, financing the venture is going to prove difficult,
with a high bank loan to cover the cost of purchasing/ leasing the
venue, payment of staff and the food/ adds on costs. A degree of high
cost advertising must take place, in order that we gain first mover
advantage in this area, before more established restaurants add the
addition features, such as eastern dance and belly dancing, which are
our differentiators. It will be the evening services that create the
most profit, whilst the daytime lunches will help during any slack
periods in the weekday evenings. A budget of £350k has been set aside
for these activities.
The development of the site will take up to 13 weeks, 15 will be
allowed for contingencies. The venue will have a magical/ mystical
feel such as one gets when they are entering the Palace of an Indian
Maharaja. Internal fittings/ dressings/ drapes etc will be of a
sumptuous nature. The look and feel will be replicated across the
chain as it grows. This will incur a high initial cost, but is an
essential expense.
A burst strategy, using the AIDA (Attention, Interest Desire Action)
approach, will be employed which will consist of many PR angles such as
- Reciprocal marketing/ alliance companies. Set up an
alliance with quality hotels and eastern dance organisation such as
www.bollywooddreamsdance.com that provides event performance services
covering all areas of Indian dance. Free or relatively free.
- Press
release to all London newspapers and lifestyle magazines, emphasising
fresh and organic food and unique club experience. Low cost.
- Commissioned articles to be written and placed in GQ magazine and Men only. Journalists’ commission.
- Invite
quality press and food guide journalists to partake of the Indian
Experience, and give them our undivided attention. Give each a goody
bag. Good articles are worth their weight in gold.
- Hire an
agent to invite celebrities to the opening night to give credibility –
paid for on this occasion by the Indian experience. Give all attendees
a goody bag. High cost.
- Invite high calibre business men
and traders to the opening night and offer a free bottle of champagne
to each for coming and a goody bag to take home. High cost.
- Invite the mayor of London. Medium cost.
- Employ
a ‘mystery shopper’ to partake on the night, to not only feedback their
opinions, but to solicit the opinions of others. The feedback will be
available the next day and immediately available for PR purposes.
Low/medium cost.
- Offer an Indian Experience as a prize on a national TV show. Low cost.
- Try
and partake in as many restaurant/ food oriented TV and radio shows as
possible to keep the Indian Experience fresh in peoples mind. Own Time.
- Create
a fly on the wall documentary to show trials and tribulations of
setting up and then launching the Indian Experience. Sell to TV,
probably channel 4.
Free and Low Cost Marketing Tactics - ongoing
Low cost and time only marketing tactics will be exploited, total budget £25k
- Create a web-cam image of the restaurant and place on
website dedicated to the Indian Experience and its product and service
offerings. This can be done relatively inexpensively.
- Reciprocal
marketing/ web sites. To link the website with 2 way links to
regularly used / searched for sites such as www.cuisinenet.co.uk,
www.indiansearch.co.uk/regions/london (‘Britain’s finest online guide
& directory to restaurants and take always’),
www.london-eating.co.uk and other such similar sites. Often free to
register.
- E-mail marketing. Register with as many domains
as possible e.g. www.ask.co.uk, www.google.co.uk etc using as many key
descriptive words as possible. Reregister every couple of months to
keep on the first page of results. When the website is created, I will
ensure that key tags are placed within the programming text, this
enables spiders (search engines) to pull the information into a search
field, also must be re-iterated regularly again to appear on as many
searches as possible. Free or relatively free.
- Mobile phone marketing. www.themobilefoodguide.com ‘provides reviews on mobile phones.’ Low cost.
- 2nd
Fly on the wall. documentary, the Indian Experience, first year.
Filmed by a freelance worker who does the work for nothing, but then
gets all the profits from the sale of the film to TV. Win/win
situation as they get the TV fee and we get the coverage.
- Relationship
marketing. Keep up to date with key and regular clients, contacts,
alliances, invite occasionally as personal guests, good service will
always be talked about and a side effect – more customers.
- Press releases at regular intervals during the year to remind people of the Indian Experience.
Time, People Cost
Thorough planning and a clear project will be utilised to ensure time
scales and budgets adhered to. Whilst initial marketing and set up
costs high, it is expected that restaurant takings for the period to
10pm will be around £60k per day, with an offset of £35k against
costs. The evening services will expect to see income £100 - £200k per
evening against costs of around £50k.
In all, a good prospect for the future.
Bibliography
Bridge, S., O’Neill, K., Cromie, S. (2003)
“Understanding Enterprise, Entrepreneursip and Small Business” 2nd edition (Macmillan)
Caeson, D., Cromie, S., McGowan, P., Hill, J. (1995)
“Marketing and entrepreneurship in SME’s: An Innovative Approach” (Harlow: Financial Times, Prentice Hall)
Johnson, G., Scholes, K. (2002)
“Exploring corporate strategy” 6th edition (Harlow: Financial Times, Prentice Hall)
Porter, M (1985)
“Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance” (New York, Free Press: 1985)
www.ask.co.uk
www.bbc.co.uk
www.bollywooddreamsdance.com
www.cuisinet.co.uk
www.e-bay.co.uk
www.google.co.uk
www.guardian.co.uk /travel
www.indiansearch.co.uk/regions/london
www.lastminute.com /entertainment
www.london-eating.co.uk
www.stringfellows.com
www.themobilefoodguide.com
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