Introduction
The proposed plan is to start up a fast-casual restaurant business to operate under the name Grape Restaurant. Being a business that deals in preparing foods and drinks, the restaurant also offers other additional services like buffet service, self-service, Chinese banquet service, and waiter services. Additionally, it provides various categories of organic foods like Crunchy Snack, Chocolate Mint, Chip Cookies, Organic Greek Yogurt with Honey, best fruit snacks, among other farm-produced foods. Based on the nature of a casual restaurant, it is to offer more quality food that other competitors or fast food restaurants. The food products and drinks are freshly prepared and with organic ingredients, which is good for human health. Additionally, the business is to adopt counter service to enhance its efficiency in terms of customer service.
Situation Analysis
The business is situated under the extensive hospitality industry since it deals with food preparation, among other related services. Hospitality is one of the fastest-growing sectors globally, with the United States recording revenue of 218 billion U.S. dollars by 2018 from the hotels (Darsin et al., 2019). Globally, the hotel or hospitality industry is among the fastest-growing sectors, with many hotels and restaurants being set up both locally and internationally. It is also supported by the growth of other related industries like tourism, which has increased the demand for more hospitality services, thereby encouraging people to invest more in the industry. By 2017, the global hotel industry’s size was estimated to be over 570 billion U.S. dollars. This has made it to be one of the wealthiest industries in terms of revenue collection.
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Competitors
Grape Restaurant is to face stiff competition from other related business organizations within the industry. There is high competition within the industry, which may stable restaurants using their strong financial base and popular brand image as an advantage over other new competitors. Some of the conventional competitors that the business is to face include, Cosmos, Herb-saint, and Joe’s Garage.
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Cosmos Restaurant
It is one of the major restaurants in Minnesota County. It is well known for its award-winning wines.
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Strength
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Cosmos’s strength relies on its quality, whereby it serves high-quality food products that include roasted turkey, lamb, or beef with lashings of gravy. Additionally, customers also have a choice to choose from a variety of vegetables like the fluffy Yorkshire puddings and the crowning glory of any roast potatoes, among others. The business also has a sharp brand image that also attracts more new clients without much being spent on marketing.
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Weaknesses
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The business weakness relies on its customer service, whereby it does not have a strong strategy to enhance its operational services in terms of customer care. With more clients at the venue, there is a high possibility of delay and queue being experienced.
Herb-saint
This is one of the major restaurants in Minnesota country that was established in the year 2000
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Strength
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The business is well known for its fair prices, which has made its products, mostly the wines, highly affordable. This has enabled them to attract more consumers since people like to spend less but get quality service or products. Additionally, it is situated in a busy junction at St Charles Ave, New Orleans, making it open and easily reachable to clients.
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Weaknesses
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They deal with popular products that are common in the market, mostly among the competitors. It does not have a robust financial base or has limited funds to finance a strong market campaign.
Joe’s Garage
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Strength
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The restaurant produces a variety of products that include fast foods, organic products, and local meals. This has enabled them to attract more customers since they can meet many people’s demand and preferences. A strong brand image supports the restaurant that it has achieved through extensive marketing activities. This enables it to attract even outside consumers apart from the locals.
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Weaknesses
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The organization has a weak financial base to maintain the entire food brand readily available in all the intermediaries. Additionally, it has poor customer care service with some clients likely to wait for a log before being served.
The pier charts below show the three ordinary restaurants’ current market share within Minnesota country where the proposed business is to be set. Joe’s Garage, Cosmos Restaurant Herb-saint,
Opportunities and Threats in the Industry
Opportunities
Based on its nature as one of the fastest-growing global industries, there are various opportunities that the business, Grape Restaurant can use in achieving its success. For example, there is increased growth in the tourism industry, which has facilitated more hotel services within the country. This is an opportunity for a new restaurant to gain clients.
Additionally, the business is to offer high-quality products in terms of health. The products are to be produced or made by using organic ingredients, which is good for human health compared to fast food, which contains a high amount of salt, fat, and even additives. This will make the products readily marketable, thereby giving the product an advantage within the industry.
Threats
In terms of threats, the business is to face stiff competition from other well-established restaurants like the Cosmos, Herb-saint, and Joe’s Garage, which has a strong brand image and significant market share industry.
Target Market
Concerning the target market, the Grape restaurant is to serve customers who require accommodation and meals. Based on the proposed marketing strategy, it is aiming to attract local, national, and even global customers. Based on the set affordable pricelist, the business is open to even low-income earners who can come and get hospitality services. It expects the closest consumers to be the local Minnesota residents where it is to be situated. Based on the promotional activities, the business serves national and international consumers from different geographical backgrounds. Clients can either be individuals or even cooperates who require service for their staff members. The only possible characteristic that distinguishes these consumers form the rest of the population is that they prefer quality food concerning human health. Most of the clients are expected to be driven or attracted by the quality of the products.
Based on the target market’s emerging needs, the target clients require hospitality services from hotels or restaurants that produce quality products that are not harmful to human health like fast foods. In terms of evaluation criteria, the target market will determine the kind of products to purchase concerning both the functional and psychological benefits that they offer.
Positioning
The proposed organizational products and services are to be perceived through marketing that will involve promotional and advertisement activities all over the country. It is through these activities that their uniqueness to the competitors’ product will be made aware. Additionally, there will be various gifts and offerings awarded to the free actives. This will help create more awareness of the quality of the restaurant products since the citizens will have to evaluate by themselves and make references hereafter physically.
Product Strategy
In terms of branding, the organization is to apply the use of paperboards in packing its food products to enhance effective product strategy. Both beers, among other beverages, are to be filled through the use of aluminium. This will make the products more attractive and in good condition of consumption. To attract more clients so that the organization can gain enough market shares within the competitive industry, it offers some additional services like home delivery to its clients. The consumers will be allowed to make the purchase online and have the products delivered to them at their doorsteps.
Product Life Cycle Strategy
The organizational products are to be sold under one brand name, labelled ‘Grape-Flavor,’ a combination of the restaurant name and the term flavour means of good taste and high quality. They are to be packed in paperboards labelled Grape-Flavor. This will make it easier for identification within the market. It will also create marketing or promotional activities more effective since they will have one brand name significant.
Distribution Strategy
The grape restaurant is to apply the use of two methods of distribution channels. The first one is direct distribution. The consumers will have to come to the restaurant and collect the products by themselves or make the purchase and have the products directly delivered to them in their various residential. Alternatively, the organization will also use an indirect distribution channel. It will have to involve using multiple intermediaries with a right brand image from where it will be able to distribute the products to them, and they sell them to final consumers (Bollweg et al., 2018). Some of the intermediaries used in making the products readily available to the clients include Aldi, Meijer, Publix, and Hy-Vee. The organization will, therefore, increase its production in terms of quantity to ensure the intermediaries do not run out of stock of their products.
Promotion Strategy
In terms of promotional strategy, the organization will use physical and online marketing strategies to reach out to the target clients. Concerning physical marketing, the organization will organize roadshows through which it is to promote its products. Additionally, it is to use public posters in an advertisement.
The grape restaurant is also to use an online platform in marketing its products. It will apply the use of various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram form, where it will reach out to the large clients who are the online users (Kingsnorth, 2019). Additionally, the marketing team can also engage some celebrities or people with public figures in the promotion. They will have to post the organizational products on their social media accounts. It is appropriate to use online stores of most celebrities since they have numerous followers who are likely to be part of the restaurant customers. In terms of promotional goals, the marketing team will have to use simple appropriate messages that describe the quality of the products in terms of health benefits and its favourable prices that will attract more people since the majority like to spend less on quality items.
Price Strategy
Based on a start-up business’s pricing objective, the Grape restaurant will apply a competitive pricing strategy as introductory pricing. In this instance, the restaurant is going to have to set prices that can ensure it increases its sale and, at the same time, matches its competitors (Kienzler and Kowalkowski, 2017). Based on this, it will have to settle on affordable prices that are slightly below that of its competitors and attract more consumers. However, the prices have to be appropriate so that the restaurant can gain back its production cost plus an additional profit.
Reference;
- Bollweg, L., Lackes, R., Siepermann, M., & Weber, P. (2018). The Role of E-Intermediaries in Local Retail Hyperlink Networks: A Hyperlink Network Analysis. Proc. MKWI, 514-525.
- Darsin, J., Rosner, J., Urdaneta, C., & Yepes, M. (2019). Marriott International: Exploring and Understanding Disruption in the Hospitality Industry in South Florida. Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (1947-2900), 11(1).
- Kienzler, M., & Kowalkowski, C. (2017). Pricing strategy: A review of 22 years of marketing research. Journal of Business Research, 78, 101-110.
- Kingsnorth, S. (2019). Digital marketing strategy: an integrated approach to online marketing. Kogan Page Publishers.
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