1 Executive summary
This report discusses the feasibility of opening up a Public Kitchen which is served for college students in China. It is necessary to use several management research tools to assess the feasibility, such as PESTLE, Porter’s Five Forces and Cash Flow, based on those researches, it seems that this business could success and have much developing space to improve itself in the future, for example, adding more recreational facilities in ‘Our Kitchen ’ to attract more customers.

2 Introduction
The reason why I choose China as the target market is that I come from China and I am more familiar with the Chinese market than the United Kingdom’s, especially Chinese colleges and students.

When I arrived at my new dormitory in the University of Birmingham, I was shocked by the big and bright kitchen for 15 students. There is no public kitchen in Chinese colleges, so almost all the students must have three meals in one or several crowded canteens or order takeout every day. As a new graduate from a Chinese college, I could realize that some students are eager to cook for themselves or host a party with their friends. What they calling for is a comparatively private and comfortable environment. At the same time, I know economic environment around Chinese colleges well. Thus I come up with an idea that launching a public kitchen for college students and it could be a brand new food service in the market of Chinese colleges. Moreover, if the idea were to come true, I could get sense of accomplishment when I am doing something more to improve the quality of life of Chinese college students.

My business idea which will be explained later in details is setting up a company named ‘Our Kitchen’ to prepare a public kitchen for college students in China. There are three parts in this report. Firstly, PESTLE Analysis, Target Market and Porter’s Five Forces Analysis are applied to analyze Chinese market and Unique Selling Points of the public kitchen. Secondly, more details are showed by a cash flow and a marketing plan instead of a financial analysis. After a conclusion, some recommendations are given about this idea. 3 China Market Analysis
3.1 PESTLE Analysis
Because of rising employment pressure, the Chinese government has a series of policies to encourage graduates to start self-employed companies. All the students who graduate within two years could enjoy several preferential policies. For example, they can pay registered capital in installments, get professional training for free and obtain petty loans with an easier procedure. Through these policies, self-employed graduates cost less than before and their time is saved. What is more, a number of large cities’ government have implemented more attract policies, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing. (Beijing aggregation preferential policies to support business students http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2014-06/20/content_2705253.htm) (Students start right time employment exemption Deal: http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2014-04/18/content_2661944.htm)
Every self-employed graduate could enjoy those preferential policies to start their business.

Figure 1: Chinese profit food-service sector value: $ million, 2007-11

China is developing in almost all industries with a considerable achievement. From figure 1, we can see that the Chinese profit food-service sector value increased persistently from 2007 to 2011. Thus the industry of food service has an optimistic outlook, people may not satisfy the current quality of food service and are willing to try some fashion and high-level services.

There are some social impacts of the public kitchen for university. First of all, a statistics based on 738 teenagers between 13 and 19 years old showed where they spent mainly money on last 12 months, as the first one, food and beverages accounted for 89%. Obviously, we can see the importance of food to Chinese young people (Mintel 2013).

Country Statistics - Private Healthcare Expenditure (Absolute)
Date of Extraction: 20 August 2014
Figure 2: Country Statistics - Private Healthcare Expenditure (Absolute)
Date of Extraction : 20 August 2014
© MarketLine

Figure 3: Changes in consumer eating habits in the past 12 months, May 2013
Base: 3,000 internet users aged 20-49
Source: QQSurvey/Mintel
In recent years, Chinese pay more and more money and time on the private healthcare with the development of economy, which means that Chinese take their health status more seriously than before. Besides, over half of people tend to pursue healthier eating habits, such as low-fat food, fresh fruits and a balanced diet. Those two figures illustrate that Chinese prepare for the life-style differing from the past and eating healthier plays an important role of that. Fortunately, taking part in the public kitchen is an effective way to ensure the health of meal by the means of cooking by ourselves.
In the next place, Chinese college freshmen could learn cooking skills in the public kitchen. Currently, under the pressure of entering colleges, most of the Chinese high school students’ life is full of massive homework and examination every day, even after school. On the weekend, they also need to attend one-on-one tuition for the preparation of National University Entrance Examinations which will decide whether they can attend famous university (Mintel 2013). While Chinese young people spend too much time on study, generally, parents handle the other things for them so that their children do not have time to improve their abilities of being independence. In the statistics of ‘what importance of qualities you want in current life’ based on 750 teenagers between 13 to 19 years old, 82% of them thought being independence is the most important (Mintel 2013). Furthermore, the meaning of going to university for a person is learning knowledge and mastering skills to become more and more mature, so the university students should not keep studying all the day and ignore other skills of the life. The public kitchen is a chance to change the situation a little.

Figure 4: Personally owned mobile phones (smartphones and basic phones), by age, September 2013
At last, with information technology being applied widely, a private party on the subject of cooking or food is feasible and easy to be carried out based on widespread mobile social network. In fact, modern people cannot live without mobile social network, even lose the connection for a while. In China, a majority of young people have a mobile phone, and more and more of them prefer smartphones (Mintel 2013). What is more, while Chinese teenagers lost their interest in blogging, one of a popular web 2.0 application, social networks based on real life are more attractive for them, such as Renren (similar to Facebook), Weibo (similar to Tweet) and WeChat (similar to WhatsApp). One of these application, WeChat has more than half (52%) market which is exceed Weibo (30%) (Mintel 2013). And all the social networks have their apps which can be downloaded into smartphones, hence it is necessary and useful to use those apps of mobile phones to advertise and make appointment of our services, especially WeChat. In addition, there are a lot of apps about recipes, such as ‘4000+ delicious home cooking’, ‘low fat recipes’ and ‘my recipe book’ which can teach our customers how to make a nice meal easier and more convenient. In fact, it is excited for our clients to upload their photos of food they cook in our private kitchen onto their social network, which is win-win way to advertise us.

3.2 Target Market
The public kitchen has its specific customers, all of them have similar demographic factors such as higher-than-undergraduate education level, low income or supplied by parents, no matter which gender they are and what nationality and race they are born with. In the psychographic part, they may prefer a healthy life style and cooking by themselves sometimes. What is more, people who do not satisfy with the canteen of school may have demand for a kitchen, for example an African student studies in the China might miss food in the hometown which is not very common in Chinese canteen. In addition, while some people like drawing, swimming or dancing in their leisure time, a part of people take cooking as their interests, and kitchen could be a part of their life when they want to practice cooking skills and share homemade food with friends.

3.3 Porter’s Five Forces
3.3.1 Rivalry
The most direct competitor of the public kitchen is canteen of university. The motivation of canteen is service for students and teachers and non-profit. Moreover, the government subsidy is provided to universities to support their canteens every year(Gov.com: http://english.gov.cn/2007-12/30/content_847571.htm). So the price of meals in the canteen are cheap enough for students. And some universities often offer additional money into poor students’ meal cards of canteen as the hardship fund. (Gov.com: http://english.gov.cn/2010-11/21/content_1750077.htm) Furthermore, canteens are always built in the campus, thus convenient location will attract many students.

But there are still some disadvantages of canteens. Firstly, during the meal times, canteens are always crowded by students, it costs people a long time waiting in line. Hence the poor environment may make students waste their time and appetite. Secondly, the dishes in the canteen are mass-produced which may bring about both not delicious and changeless dishes every day. Lastly, the opening time of canteen is limited, students can not get food whenever they want.

Restaurant could be a rival as well, but the difference between restaurant and public kitchen is the former offers the ready-made dish while public kitchen is just provided a room for students to cook by themselves. Obviously, the advantage of restaurants is convenience. However, many small restaurants near the university do not have business certificates, and there are a lot of scandals about swill-cooked dirty oil be used to cooking. Food safety is still a challenge in China (Mintel 2013). Additionally, the prices of restaurant are higher than cook by self.

3.3.2 Substitution
Fast food is also a good choice for lunch in the school which can save lots of time. The sale of fast food always increased healthily, and already got CNY725.1 billion with a 9% grown in the 2013. Chinese customers choose fast food, because it is easily and fast speed, especially in the cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou (Passport 2013). And more and more customers prepare takeaway or delivery order service instead of dine-in. There are a lot of delivery order restaurants with all-day service in China, a famous example is Kungfu which has its business all over Guangdong province (Passport 2013).

3.3.3 Buyer

Figure 5: Current financial situation, by age groups, March 2014
Base: 2,000 internet user aged 20-49

In the market of the public kitchen, almost all the customers are students who have less or even no income, but their consumption levels are based on the financial situation of their family. The data in the figure 5 shows that more than 73% people between 20 to 49 years old have discretionary spending, and the 40-49 age group has the highest money which is enough for supplying their children in the universities. Although the purchasing power of individual customer is not very strong, the quantity of customer is enormous. For example, in 2010, the totality of student in the Beijing Institute of Technology is 26358, 862 of them are international students. (http://english.bit.edu.cn/AboutBIT/FactsFigures/index.htm) Moreover, the public kitchen is a new kind food service, hence the loyalty of customer is weak, and customers may choose other competitors and substitutions of the public kitchen. In short, the power of buyer is strong.

3.3.4 Supplier
The most important equipment of public kitchen is electric appliance, such as refrigerator and microwave. There are many famous company sell that in China, and almost all of them have a great discount during the holiday. Therefore, public kitchen has more than one options when choose this supplier. Moreover, it is not difficult to find labor, because a lot of university student want to get a part-time job in their leisure time. Furthermore, a large amount of apartments are registered in the intermediary agent of Liangxiang University Town, waiting for people to rent. Thus the power of supplier is weak for the public kitchen.

3.3.5 New entrants
However, the public kitchen is a kind of new service in the food service market with low recognition, for example, parents might worried about the safety of their children when they cooking by themselves out home. New service meas more business space to develop and more opportunities to succeed. Additionally, the requirement of starting a public kitchen is easy to achieve, thus, maybe more and more new competitors will get into this market to open a public kitchen in the other University Town. All in all, the difficulty of new entry is moderate.

4 USP There is no public kitchen in the Chinese university, so almost all the students must have three meals every day in the canteen. If students get tired of the changeless dishes or miss the open time of the canteen, they have to go to some restaurants outside the campus which is expensive. What is worse, some of the restaurants have quite small scale, even do not have business permits, where maybe use something unhealthy during the cooking, such as oil in the gutter. Furthermore, many students like to cook with their friends to celebrate festivals and birthdays, because it is more meaningful than go to a restaurant optionally. The public kitchen for students is not only a new convenience and healthy life style, but also a good opportunity to improve the independence of students which cannot be provided by restaurant and canteen. 5 Cash Flow A sum of start-up capital will be need to launch the public kitchen to purchase equipment below: Four microwave ovens, four ovens, four fridges, six hobs, six extractor hoods and filters, six kitchen mixer taps, six double-bowl insert sinks, one integrated dishwasher. Kitchen worktops, kitchen cabinets and doors. The pots, the bowls, the plates and other cooking utensils. The business of public kitchen will begin with a negative cash flow position, because of the capital equipment, staff wages and advertising. The rent of a 150 square meters apartment with four rooms and two living rooms in the Liangxiang University Town is about RMB 2,800 every month. Another important expense is staff wages, the opening time are 10:00 to 22:00 from Monday to Friday with one hour unpaid lunch break and 10:00 to 20:00 in the weekends. The full-time staff should work from 10:00 to 18:00 in the workdays, the rest hours will be the duty for one part-time staff. Another full-time work’s working time is Saturday and Sunday with two hours break every day. Hence every staff would not work more than 8 hours per day, and the salary is 10 RMB every hour. The public kitchen has two small kitchens and two big kitchens, each kitchen would be used for four hours per day. In addition, the living room and shopping service would be provided once a week. The income could be different, according the diverse days in the 12 months. But the public kitchen will be affected by summer holiday and winter holiday, because there are less students in the school during the holidays, the opening time should be decreased to six hours and four hours in the workday and weekend respectively to prevent loss. Therefore, all the outgoing including staff wages, advertising, utilities, and owner’s wage would be cut down. 6 Marketing Plan 6.1 Product The public kitchen is a new kind of food service which provides customers a room whenever they want to cook and book it 30 minutes before. There are two small kitchens and two big ones with different pricing, and customers can also use a living room with extra money, if they want. Another additional service is that we will buy food materials for customers according their shopping lists, if they do not have time to do that. For long-term customers who book a kitchen more than 10 hours totally, refrigerators and cabinets can be used to deposit their materials for free. 6.2 Place The public kitchen will be set up in the Liangxiang University Town, in the southwest of Beijing, where be built several universities with a lots of our potential customers. And the opening time is 10:00 to 22:00 in the weekend, and 10:00 to 20:00 from Monday to Friday. 6.3 Price The price of small kitchen is 15 RMB each hour, and 30 RMB for big ones, what is more, customer will enjoy a 10% discount, if they book more than10 hours(include 10). The extra cost of using living room is 100 RMB and helping customers to buy food material is 30 RMB. 6.4 Promotion The public kitchen will pay more attention to ‘below’ line when advertisement for itself, because its customers are very specific. It is very necessary to set up homepages of the public kitchen in the WeChat, Weibo and renren.com, because of their high popularization among Chinese student. Besides, passing out leaflets with QR code on them in the school campus is also an effective way to improve its recognition. What is more, sponsor several student activities, such as singing contest, sports meet and new year party. 6.5 People One full-time and two part-time staff will be hired, all of them are responsible to the owner of public kitchen. The full-time staff mainly in charge of booking and arranging kitchen for customer, and shopping according the need of customer sometime, the main job of the part-time workers is cleaning. 6.6 Process Customer could make an appointment 30 minutes before they arrive, then the staff of public kitchen should arrange an available kitchen for them. All the equipment, such as pots, stoves and sink will be cleaned and cutlery will be put into disinfect cupboard, after every day. There is a feedback notebook for customers to write their suggestions down. 6.7 Physical Evidence Products from IKEA which have both nice-looking appearance and economic price will be used to decorate the public kitchen, and every kitchen will be designed with different colors and styles such as Mediterranean Style with blue wall and white cupboard. Moreover, the uniforms of public kitchen are maid outfits for female staff and house keeper outfits for male staff to provide a sweet environment for customers. 7 Conclusion With the rapid developing of Chinese economy, more and more Chinese people improve their living standard, like pursuing healthier life style and costing more time with what they really interest in, cooking by self is one of the way to achieve that, but it is not easy for university student in China, because there is no public kitchen in the Chinese University Campus. “Our Kitchen” provides a new food service for students who need a kitchen in their daily life, no matter the gender, age and nationality. To begin with a 121600 RMB debt, this business also be effected by seasons easily, but the income would a little more than outgoing with a appropriate opening time. Although the owner’s wage is not more than 2000 per month, ‘Our Kitchen ’ is still a feasible business idea, according to the cash flow which shows that the this business could earn money when not count the debt of the beginning. Hence, a 122000RMB investment could change the negative situation to positive one. 8.Recommendations 8.1 Short-term: Carry out a market research in the target market to improve service according to the result. 8.2 Mid-term: Make more creative advertisements to attract customers. Collaborate with a supermarket which can provide a discount for the customers of ‘Our Kitchen ’. 8.3 Long-term: Provide more discount and free gift to customers according to the income. Add more recreational facilities in the ‘Our Kitchen ’,such as table tennis, karaoke and home theatre system