Acknowledgement

We would like to recall with gratitude, the tremendous support and encouragement, which we received from our honourable faculty Mr. Nurul Hasan Khan. As an Instructor and Advisor to the report,he made critical reviews of our work as we progress through each stage, provided valuable insights and academic training to improve the quality of the work. We are grateful for his stimulating guidance and encouragement during the period of preparation this project. Without his guidance, this would simply not have been possible.

We would also like to thank the manager(please include name) of Mainland Chine for their suppoer in conducting this research

Executive Summary

Table of Content

Part 1

Introduction

Company Profile

Basic information

Mainland China, located in Uttara, Dhaka, is an outlet of the international Chinese restaurant chain owned by Speciality Group based in Kolkata, India. The Dhaka outlet is the chain's first international restaurant outside India, it is their first revolving one and the first such one to be at the topmost floor of a 14-storied high-rise. The other concerns of Speciality Group are Sigri, Oh! Calcutta, Flame and Grill, Machaan--all serving different cuisines.

Geographical terriotory:

Currently Mainland China boasts 41 other outlets throughout India in cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and so on. In Bangladesh, The chain plans to open operation in Gulshan, banana and Chittagong soon.

Background:

Mainland China opened in Uttara on February 7, 2010. It was a soft opening, following the management’s belief that rather than big promos and publicities, it is the word-of-mouth which speaks volumes for an establishment.

Originally, Mainland China opened its first outlet in Mumbai in 1995, with the desire to provide the most authentic Chinese cuisine of five-star value at non five-star price. Following this success of the service and quality of food, Mainland China soon entered the cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, Chennai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Nasik, Ahmedabad, Baroda and Chandigarh.

Mission and Values:

• To consistently provide world class cuisine and experience at a rational price. • To create a dining experience whose uniqueness lies in its elegance and refinement which is brought alive by caring and personalized service in a warm and vibrant environment. • To provide a unique dining experience at a rational price and to continually improve our food products, services and business processes in anticipation of the ever changing and evolving guest expectations and thereby ensuring their continued satisfaction. • To ensure high standards of safety and hygiene at all times.
Chief chuisine:

Mainland China serves authentic cuisines from Guangdong, Hunan, and Sichuan by their master chef. The principle of their cuisine is "harmony in contrast" which stems from the principle of Yin and the Yang. This reflects by way of combining contrasting flavors such as sweet with bitter, sour with sweet, sweet and spicy and so on. The same goes for the combination of colors and textures of the ingredients. The challenge is in creating the "harmony" in each of these dishes on the menu.

Ambience and décor:

As one steps into the place, one is bound to be awed by the ambience and the style. Located at the topmost floor of the 14 story block at Uttara, (Siam Tower, Jashimuddin Avenue), the restaurant offers a magnificent view of a slice of the suburb. The circular shaped restaurant has its inner segment revolving. So, it is indeed a very different experience for anyone to relish food while having a round trip of the skyline. The life-size statues of the three Chinese Warriors are their signature features, which stands high in almost all their outlets. So are every piece of cutleries, crockeries and other features, which are identical in all their outlets.

Awards won:

‘HT City 2008 Award for the Best Chinese restaurant in Delhi and NCR’; the ‘Coca Cola Golden Spoon award’"; Telegraph Food Guide Awars for the best Oriental Restaurant in Kolkata.

Literature Review:

Cuisine Restaurant marketing is both an art and a science. There are many issues that relate to the Cuisine restaurant marketing but the top most priority should be given to the issues as given below.

BRANDING: A brand is a promise. It's what customers, employees (Internal Customers), vendors, the media and all other key constituents come to expect in dealing with a Cuisine restaurant. Brand-building is closing the gap between what is promised and what is delivered. A strong brand is one that has alignment between the promise and execution. It's not something that only happens when you advertise, and it's not that people recognize your logo or recall your advertising.

POSITIONING: Positioning is an underleveraged restaurant marketing component. Positioning is the place that is held in the customers or prospects mind relative to the competition (the cheaper choice, the higher quality choice, etc). Effective positioning involves incorporation of Unique Selling Proposition (U.S.P.). It's a point of differentiation that the competition either cannot or does not claim. An example is Burger King versus McDonald's. If Burger King can convince us that a flame-broiled burger tastes better than a fried burger, they've won the war because McDonald's will never go into all 14,000 stores and rip out fryers to install char-grilling pits.

DUE DILIGENCE: Cuisine Restaurant marketing doesn't happen in a vacuum. Effective Cuisine restaurant marketing must be built on a foundation of fact and knowledge about the market, the competition, the customers, the Internal Customers, financial history, marketing history, the industry, and outside forces that will impact the business. Cuisine restaurant marketing has to factor these considerations into the overall strategy. Not even Coca-Cola can afford to market to everyone all the time, so effective market research and due diligence can help one be more effective in their Cuisine restaurant marketing efforts.

MENU MIX: Every six to twelve months, it is necessary to conduct an analysis of the menu. This will include profitability analysis and competitive menu analysis. To keep the menu fresh, relevant, and profitable, one will need to know specifically how each item on the menu is performing and also how it stacks up next to the top competition.

TRAINING: Marketing, human resources, operations and training are inextricably connected. It is known that great marketing will just kill a bad operation faster. That's because if people are sent into an operation that is performing at a B- level or below, people will have a bad experience and businessmoney would be better spent on operations improvement rather than marketing. Training is a vital component of Cuisine restaurant marketing for this reason. The training will have to go beyond just employee orientation. An on-going program is needed that constantly improves and evolves staff competencies. It's also a good idea to include a restaurant marketing component in the training program so that there are ambassadors to help the business’s sales-building efforts.

There's 5 ways to increase sales for a Cuisine restaurant:

Sales-building is so much easier when you know how it works. And fortunately, the methodology is much easier with the following definitions. Every effort you could make to build sales, falls into one of just four categories.

NEW TRIAL: These are first-time customers buying from you for the first time. They will establish their opinion of your company during this first purchase and decide what percentage mindshare to award you in the future. New trial is the most expensive of the four sales-builders as acquisition costs are typically 7-10 times more costly to execute than the other sales builders. However, it is impossible to increase frequency, check average or party size without customers to start with. After a customer base has been established, however, it is advisable to focus considerable efforts on the sales-builders listed below.

FREQUENCY: Is how often existing customers return to you for future purchases. Frequency is generated by developing enduring relationships and loyalty among customers. While it is rare to disagree that frequency is important, an alarming number of businesses fail to appropriate the needed mindshare and resources to developing successful programs. Consider that the average Pizza Hut loyalist purchases a pizza every 30 days. If Pizza Hut can get this group to purchase just one more pizza in those 30 days, they'd double their sales.

CHECK AVERAGE: Often refers to the total purchase for each transaction. In this instance, however, we are referring primarily to per person check average - the amount each guest or customer spends at purchase. Check averages can be built through price increases, suggestive selling programs, effective internal merchandizing, and through add-ons or upgrades to name but a few techniques. Just have to make sure that the increase in check average remains consistent with overall positioning strategy.

PARTY SIZE: As the name would suggest, Party Size refers to the number of people in each party. Do customers primarily visit alone, in groups of 2, groups of 5 or more? Whatever the number, you'll want to devise programs that encourage customers to bring more of their friends with them for each visit. Examples of programs include bus drivers eat free, birthday clubs and refer-a-friend tactics. Encouraging party size turns customers into advocates and enlists them as part of sales-building team.

The STAR FACTOR

It’s a tried and true method – to keep the eatery “hot” and popular to do that invite local celebrities in to dine on the house, take a photo of them with the owner, have them sign it and display the framed photo on the wall. If someone famous walks in, make sure to keep a camera handy by the register.

Deliver some food to popular personnel (cookies, brownies, whatever) and ask them to leave a signed photo to put up in the restaurant.

Expense of marketing Cuisine restaurant

There are several rules of thumb and ratios in the Cuisine restaurant industry and there are some for Cuisine restaurant marketing as well. A typical Cuisine restaurant should allocate 3% - 6% of sales to marketing. It's also a good idea to allocate this money proportionally to sales volume. Meaning, if July is the busiest month, you should spend a proportionate amount on your Cuisine restaurants marketing budget in that month.

Fish where the fish are biting. Some Cuisine restaurant owners look at slow periods and think that's when they need to spend money to drive sales, so they spend a big chunk of cash trying to build a happy hour business and forgo building on top of their busy periods. Fact is, there is a reason people aren't coming in from 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM and one will be sending valuable marketing dollars down a black hole if he try to build this period. Of all the restaurants in the Bangladesh probably only 5% of them are busy from 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM. Marketing can't change behavior; it can only influence existing behaviours. Spend your marketing money where it will have the best return for your restaurant.

Usual Cuisine Marketing

It's sad really, but 80% - 90% of Cuisine restaurant marketing budgets are spent against new trial - getting a new customer to visit for the first time. This is the least effective place to spend money. The majority of new trial efforts are spent against mass media advertising, which is costly and has dismal return on investment. The fact is, new customer acquisition is 7-10 times more expensive than building restaurant sales through increased frequency, check average and party size. But restaurant marketing isn't always about what's most effective, more often, it's about what everyone else is doing. Restaurant operators see that their competitor is on television or in the yellow pages or on a billboard and that they should be too. They do this without regard for what's working. Restaurant owners have to wear so many hats that sometimes they just do what's easiest - they write a check for mass media advertising and hope for the best. Mass media is often more about feeding ego than driving sales. It's also impossible for most companies to compete in a toe-to-toe battle with the big Cuisine restaurant.

Examples of good restaurant marketing tactics

There are literally thousands and thousands of marketing tactics that one could employ to lift sales at Cuisine restaurant. This causes many restaurant operators to think that there is a silver bullet out there that they need to find. There are no silver bullets. One hit wonders may be out there to give you a big spike in sales, but those are rarely sustainable over time. Great marketing is about solid operational execution, effective positioning and the cumulative results of marketing inside the four walls of the restaurant and in the immediate trading area - not taking over the airwaves. That being said, some good examples of successful cuisne restaurant marketing tactics are email marketing, bounce-backs, affinity marketing programs, publicity through event marketing, partnerships with other local retailers and, of course, internal merchandizing such as bathroom signage and menu merchandizing.

Measuring the effectiveness of Cuisine restaurant marketing

If you cannot prove the dollars you spend persuade people to do business with you, you should not advertise. If you can't see a direct relationship between marketing and increased sales, your marketing isn't working. Compare the variances, period over period, for sales and marketing expenses to determine a correlation. It's amazing how frequently it is found that there is absolutely no correlation between sales and marketing. Because the actual relation is between each taka spent/invested and sales which shows a positive return on investment that could be measured. Before the measurement wasn't there, so it was hard to say with absolute certainty if the advertising was working or not.

Marketing Cuisine Restaurants being difficult ensures competitive advantage.

Effective restaurant marketing isn't easy. It takes a lot of careful research, analysis and testing. It's also ever evolving, which makes it even more difficult to master. The most difficult part is that restaurant owners are in the restaurant business, not professional marketers. But don't be discouraged. It's not all gloom. The fact that effective restaurant marketing is difficult to master is what can give you the competitive advantage. Resist the temptation to change everything at once or to go it all alone. You can start small and build your marketing competencies over time. In the beginning, do simple programs so you can execute them well and measure the results. And if you're not sure if your current marketing is working, save the money until the dollars invested persuade customers to buy more and buy more often.

Part 2

Objective

The general purpose of this research is to estimate what makes restaurants that serve foreign cuisines popular in Dhaka city. To investigate this, the popularity of a restaurant, “Mainland China”, would be analyzed. Based on this analysis a generalized overview would be provided.

Careful review has revealed the following objectives:

• To identify the customer base (consumers versus non-consumers) of this restaurant

• To identify the attractiveness factors of the restaurant

• What role authenticity of food plays in the success/failure of the restaurant

• Service and quality of the management and staff, specially needed to serve foreign cuisines

• The relevance of pricing versus household income in choice of restaurant

• The relevance of ambience and additional services

- Scope and limitations

Exploratory Research

When a researcher has a limited amount of experience with or knowledge about a research issue, exploratory research is preliminary step. The purpose of exploratory research is intertwined with the need for a clear and precise statement of the recognized problem. Exploratory research designs provide qualitative data. Usually exploratory data provides greater understanding of a concept or crystallizes a problem rather than providing precise measurement or quantification. It is inexpensive and fast. Because of the low number of respondents involved, these exploratory research methods cannot be used to generalize to the whole population. Exploratory research is conducted for three interrelated purposes:

(1) Diagnosing a situation,

(2) Screening alternatives

(3) Discovering new ideas.

To know and to understand the problem better, we conducted an exploratory research. Our exploratory research includes secondary data analysis, pilot study and focus group interview.

Secondary Data Analysis

We have looked into various secondary data to get insight about the problem. We have gone through the web resources related to what makes that serve foreign cuisines popular in Dhaka city. After going through several internet journals we have found out that people had varied choices and preferences about the restaurants .

Pilot Study

Pilot study is a collective term for any small scale exploratory research project that uses sampling but does not apply rigorous standards. A pilot study is a precursor to a full-scale study used to check if all operational parameters are in check. A pilot study can refer to many types of experiments, but generally the goal of study is to replicate the full scale experiment, but only on a smaller scale. Pilot experiments are also used to reduce cost, as they are much less expensive than the full scale system. If there is not enough reason to provide full scale applications, pilots can generally provide this proof. We conducted a Pilot study to know whether our research is going in the right way or not.

Focus Group Discussion

We wanted to arrange a focus group discussion to gain more information about the problem. But our focus group discussion could not appreciate by Mainland China manager. He did not want interview their customers. So for focus group discussion we get insight information about the preferences of customers form manager of Mainland China Restaurant .

Survey Research Methodology

Our main focus was on survey because we had to find out about the behavior of the consumers (target population) using a representative sample. It was the best research methodology for us because it was relatively easy and fast way to get accurate information although survey errors were possible such as random sampling error, non response error, administrative error or systematic error. On the other hand, experiment was too expensive and time consuming so it was unfeasible for us to do. We also could not use secondary data as no such previous research has been conducted from where we can get the information. However along with the survey we had conducted observation in order to better understand the problem at hand.

Problem Definition
People have divergence in their preference. The taste of every individual is distinctive and it differs by age, gender, life style, personality, income, social position and etc. As a result, the preference of females regarding their preference of foreign cuisines is also idiosyncratic. More over, as time passes on, a change in their preference is easily visible. Due to the change in preference as well as different reasons like attractiveness factors of the restaurant, role authenticity of food plays, service and quality according to serve cuisines , price vs. income, and other relevant additional service .

Hypothesis

From the problem definition we have come up with a hypothesis which is “ Producing cell phones based on the preference of the female customers along with the variety will increase the brand loyalty of the females of Dhaka city.”

Operational Definitions

We collected information through survey questionnaire for this research project. We asked customers of different age, occupation and income levels to fill up the questionnaires.

Relevant survey population

We visited Mainland China Restaurant in Dhaka city to identify the reason behind the popularity

Sampling unit

Our sampling unit consists of the 50 customers of Mainland China restaurant of Dhaka City and we considered every individual as a single sample unit.

Demographic variables

We kept a wide category of age having different ranges below 25,25-40,40-50 and 50 and above . We considered this division keeping in mind that the preferences might differ age wise. However due to all the categories being different psycho graphically, we did expected variance in the responses

Research Design

We designed our research processes according to the requirement of the subject. We used a logical and sequential process to find and interpret the nature of the problem. At first we used the Explanatory Research method to discover the problem. Our exploratory research includes secondary data analysis and pilot study. For the purpose of pilot study for our research we conducted focus group discussion. Focus group discussion gave us an idea about the problem and what the customers of Main land china Restaurant think. We did not arrange a Focus Group discussion of some members representing different segments. Because the Mainland china authority did not want to that. We basically interviewed the manager of Main land China. Then we went through our Problem Discovery and Problem Definition part. After defining the problem we went to the research design part. Here we decided who will be our respondents and how will we select them. We made sure that our respondents represent the greater population which we are trying to indicate. Then we developed a questionnaire for conducting survey and pre tested it on a smaller group of our target respondents. After correcting the questionnaire we conducted survey with the final questionnaire. We gave the questionnaire to Mainland China restaurant and they conduct the survey behalf of us. Finally, after conducting survey we used the statistical software (SPSS) to analyze the gathered data and find relevant information to prove or disprove our null hypothesis. We tried to find out ANOVAs, regression, frequency etc . We interpreted these data and made some recommendation on these findings

Part 3

Findings

Recommendation

Conclusion

Appendix &Bibliography