Summary:
A proposed business model for establishing a successful dessert shop in Shanghai, China. Facts about other fast-food ventures in China are also presented.
Executive Summary
This proposal is the investigation of how to establish a dessert station successfully. Nowadays, the market become more and more competitive, from literature review, we find that to establish a successful dessert shop is not as easy as it used to be. Lowe profits and strong competitions make many shops bankrupted at the end. Some foreign brands are much stronger for having lots of loyalty customers. They are the reasons why entry and build a new successful dessert shop is very difficult in Shanghai.
During the project, we insist on the SMART principle, which are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time. Challenging is another principle in our project. On the other hand, there are many benefits can be got from this investigation. Having a clearly outlined research not only benefits ourselves, but also the business we have decided to do. In addition, another major part in the proposal includes the research design, which is mainly talking about three ways that we will use to do our research such as secondary research, questionnaire and observation.
In the project, the charts and graphs will be used to help us to collect data and analysis date, because the graph is easy to understand and shows clearly what the data means. Timescale help us to decide on the viability of our research proposal. It will be helpful if we divide the research plan into stages and this can also give us a clear idea about what is possible in given timescale. Gantt chart provides a simple visual representation of the tasks or activities that make up research project, each being plotted against a time line. More things of the project in details as following:
Problem Statement
Our research question is How to establish a desert station successfully? The reason for choosing this topic is that we are always attracted and drooled at the mouth by various desserts. We also realized that not only we but also children, young people and even a part of elder people can not say "no" to these lovely desserts. We open this dessert station to make friends with these people who also like desserts as much as us and let them enjoy the best desserts.
Another reason is that the profit for selling desserts is quite high. Usually, the price for a dessert is much higher than its cost and a well-know dessert brand can sell in a extremely high price, the typical example is Haagen-Dazs.
The Research Objectives
To identify the location of the sweets station
To examine the market share and competitors in the same industry
To find the favorite dessert that customers may like
To determine the appropriate price that customer can be afford
To establish cuisine style for consumer
To describe suitable customer service requirement
To identify AD/promotion needs
To identify the market segmentation based on customer age/lifestyle/benefits towards behavior
Literature review
This literature review divided into two sections, one is from the dessert area, and another is focus on the bread shop.
Different from other countries, in china, dessert shop is a new fashion food shop appears in our view. Ten years ago, when KFC and McDonald entry into the Chinese food market, they just open the shops for fast foods. A slowly decisions made that twelve years later; they began to open the dessert shops in some big cities. Shanghai, the economic and trade centre of China, has attractive more and more investors to invest money into this fashion place. Four years ago, Haagen-Dazs appeared in our view. Later, more and more dessert shops established. At the end of 2004, more than 100 dessert shops opened. But from the information, more than 80% desserts shops are foreign companies, such as Haagen-Dazs, KFC and McDonald. On the other hand, nearly 90% dessert shops are located in city centre. Focus on the young customers, especially with high salary person, dessert shop has become a popular food spending in Shanghai, just like the advertisement of Haagen-Dazs, "Because in every one, the ice cream is a perfect temperature, ready for you to enjoy." But on the other hand, there has some bad points that dessert shop business should be improved. First is the choice. In shanghai, there are fewer brand or dessert shops you can choice. Second is the price. Haagen-Dazs set the high price for the customers; many customers finally give up buying. Third is the shop location. In shanghai, more than 70% people living outside the city centre, but more than 90% dessert shops located in the city centre, it is inconvenient for customers to buy. Fourth is the dessert varieties are not enough. In McDonald's dessert shops, the dessert choices customer can select are only six. KFC has the situation with McDonald. Although Haagen-Dazs give more choices, the price becomes an obstacle.
Dessert shop business in Shanghai has developed quite well. According to their sales information, we can conclude that more and more customers like to but the desserts. But on the other hand, some obstacles let dessert business can not development faster. In foreign countries, dessert shops always sell the dessert with the bread and cakes, but in Shanghai, only Starbucks have, but Starbuck's main business is not dessert.
On the other hand, cake is also a main dessert for dessert shop. But different from the western dessert shops, in Shanghai, cake is made by the bread shop. There have got many bread shops in our city, and customer can see in everywhere. To compare with the dessert shops, there have some characteristics of bread shops. First is the strong competition. Because there has many competitors in this business, in order to attract customers lower price even non-profit competition let many small bread shops bankrupted every year. Next is focus on the competitors. There have both domestic and international company for bread shops, and they have set up good reputation for society.
From literature review, we find that to establish a successful dessert shop is not a easy job. Strong competition with lower price, probable let many investors refused to invest money on. So for our job, is to take the advantages and experiences from the dessert and bread shops, and let he cake and ice cream together, to create a new food fashion for our customers.
The benefits of the study
We have chosen the topic that we believe is the most practical and which we will enjoy to do. Also we can ensure that our hearts and heads are both in this research project, because all of us are very interested in this topic. We have already borrowed many relevant books from the libraries or from our friends, and we are still collecting lots of new information about how to run a dessert station well. Besides this, we have another very important reason why we want to start this business is that we have already have some academic knowledge. This is due to our friend, who is working in a bread store. We believe that after this project we can depth of our knowledge and enthusiasm at this field and also it is a good opportunity to display by ourselves. It's not only good for us, but also good for our business, because we often go to some different dessert stations, and we have already done many comparisons about their price, taste and style. We have much more knowledge in this area, so we can do it better than other topics, and we may probably make more profits from this study in our business.
The Research Design
After making sure the research objectives of our project, we decided to use 2 major types of research to get the data that we need. They are secondary research and primary research.
We may choose 2 ways to do our secondary research. First, we may surf on net to find some information that is helpful for our project. Second ways for us to find the secondary data is to borrow some dessert books from other dessert stations. Using secondary research may saving money and time for our project.
Primary research is another types of research that we will use when we doing the project. It is mainly includes observation and questionnaire 2 ways. The result we get after doing the observation may be more reliable. We will come to some dessert stations to eat dessert and to make comparison in order to get the useful information to answer our research question. Also, we may do our survey by using the delivery and collection questionnaire. The reasons for us to choose questionnaire is that the questionnaire is a popular method of collecting responses to simple questions. Also, we can be easily to take data and then using on numerical analysis.
This whole research will be implement during the week 6~ week 8. We've decided to invites 200 people to do our questionnaire. These people have been divided into 4 groups: 15~20, 20~25, 25~30 and more than 30 years old. Only one requirement for them is that they must eat the dessert within the 6 months.
Data Analysis
During my project, on the data the analysis, we can use the best way to display information is graphically. Instead of showing users a series of rows and columns of data, the graph can easy to understand and easy to be clearly to find how the data is represented to be summary information of report. The graph has about 7 types, which are Area, bar, column, and line graphs, Pie chart, Scatter graphs, stacked graphs. Do this project, we almost use pie chart, Area, bar, column, and line graphs and Scatter graphs. Because Pie chart typically show one series of data points with each data point displayed as a percentage of a whole. For example, the pie chat can show different people different test means how many people like our dessert average on total number of people and so on. Scatter graphs show data points with their x and y coordinate. Typically you use scatter graphs to show the relationship between two sets of numeric values. On Area, bar, column, and line graphs are conceptually very similar. They differ only in how they physically represent the data values--whether they use areas, bars, columns, or lines to represent the values. For example, how many people like our dessert, how many people like our food and how many people like our ice-cream and so on. Upwards, those are all the aspects to analysis the data in my mind and promise that if you can use graph, you must be easy to understand my project results quickly.
Schedule
The whole project includes 36 tasks, which allocate to 7 members to do these tasks. The schedule have gantt chart, critical path network, work breakdown structure. The gantt chart shows the tasks that are responsible by each members, and also the time of every tasks. The duration of the critical path is 18. The work breakdown structure determines the relationship among 36 tasks. More details see the appendix I, II, III.
Peer Assessment
Allocation of marks for this component will be based on assessments provided by each member relating to the performance. This assessment will take place near the time when the completed report is due for submission.
Extent to which the group member proposed ideas and contributed to ways and means of tackling the task.
Contribution made in the construction and development of topic objective.
Contribution made in the development, definition, and construction of the survey.
Involvement in proofreading, printing, dispatch and follow-up of the survey
Contribution made in relation to the analysis, findings and conclusions of the survey
Punctuality and attendance at scheduled group meetings
The manner in which deadlines were met for work assigned.
Attitude and motivation to the project.
Contribution to the preparation, proofreading, etc. of the final report
Contribution to the oral presentation.
The above components should be used for in class peer assessment with each member scoring class members on each component. Each component should be scored out of 10 with an overall score out of 10 to total to 100. The number of assessments should be agreed by the group. There may be some variations form the behavioral concepts listed but this should be agreed by the group at the start of the project.
Ethics
No one will be hurt during the time we are doing our research. We will find most of our secondary information on the internet and books, although a part of our information is collected by doing questionnaires in the street, we promise that the information collected from every interviewee are kept confidential. We will put all the questionnaires in a special file, and this file will be given to Belinda who is responsible for administrating all the questionnaires. When our project is finished, we will destroy these questionnaires by cutting or burning.
Our group members will also not be hurt both physically and psychologically. We will interview people in the street, but we will find some safe place, where vehicles can not pass by, for example, Nanjing Road, Time Square or Wujiang Road. When we are asking people to do the questionnaires, there of course will be somebody doesn't want to help us, even rude to us. Our group members will encourage each other and after that we will give a chance for each group members to talk about they are painful experience.
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