O la la

1. Company background O la la is a pastry shop which started to work in 2011. Company’s name came from the French phrase “O la la” which means surprise, disappointment, commiseration, distress, annoyance... any moderately strong reaction to something that was just said or done. Their company is too young in the Macedonian market. They have small shop in City Trade Centre in Skopje and have about ten employees. Their target audiences are the kids and women and for that their signature colors are the pink and white. They decorate their store in old fashion style to give their customer place where they can feel comfortable. Place like a new, cozy spot for intimate conversations enveloped in the aroma of freshly baked pastries and sweets. O la la’s trademark is the preparation of delicacies in front of its visitors. Their goal is to show that there is nothing secret with their customers. O la la’s slogan is “The true cookies” because they used natural ingredients for their cookies, not artificial. They promote their company through online media (their Facebook fan page and their website) and they use the old best model of promoting the word of mouth. Also, in every 60 days they promote new cookies or cake to attract customers to go in their store to try it and promotion materials like: mini menus, business cards, vouchers, etc. O la la also offers you to organize your wedding, formal and birthday cakes and pastries and also they organize the slightly part of the catering for big companies.

2. Analysis 2.1. 5 Forces 1. Threat of new entrants – O la la needs to find a way to differentiate and maintain the loyalty of their customers, because if they don’t see the other pastry shops like competitors, but also have customers who are satisfy from them and they can also recommend them to their friends and use their products. 2. Threat of substitutes – Celebration cakes are those that you can buy from the supermarket, other pastry shops or home made efforts. Also, some people instead of cake and cookies they can serve ice cream and put sprincles on it and serve to the customers. So, O la la has to have something totally unique to offer involving skills that others don’t have. 3. Rivalry – there are a lot of people that make celebration cakes in Skopje local area. However, few of them have the level of skill that O la la has. So their rivalry will be low when it comes to achieving the quality (which the customers are already aware for that) of cakes that O la la creates and the level of personal service that O la la offers. 4. Buyer power – because of the substitutes available, customers may believe they have the power to drive down prices. However, if O la la concentrates on adding value and letting people know why O la la’s the best option, then the perceived value goes up and people will happily pay more. Also, by concentrating on selling direct to consumers as opposed to supplying cafes, for instance, power is maintained further as O la la has more customers buying fewer cakes 5. Supplier power – the amount of money O la la makes on each cake depends a lot on the cost of making them. Ingredients, equipment, premises, electricity, etc can all vary in price. O la la works in own store, so it has no rent to pay. However, O la la can’t control ingredient costs or electricity bills. All O la la can do is shop around and allow a healthy margin to account for unexpected increases.
2.2. 7Ps
1. Product – O la la has so many kinds of cookies and cakes of French taste, American taste etc. They offer products which makes in front of the customer eyes.
2. Price – The price is counted in that way that they count all their costs that are involved in making for one of their product. They price is pretty high for the Macedonian market.
3. Place – To taste the cookies and the cakes you can go in their store in City Trade Centre in Skopje and also in two restaurants in Skopje.
4. Promotion – their promotion is thought online media and the old way through word of mouth. To see what kind of products have you can see in their web site and on their fan page on Facebook.
5. People – The employees of O la la are people who are interviewed by the general manager and work about 1 year in this company. The company has 10 employees. Their customers are the kids and women, and also have a man who buys their product for their woman and kids.
6. Process – The customers are inform through their web page and fan page on Facebook and also about they believed in word of mouth. If the customers are satisfied with their products they will tell to their friends and bring them to the store to try their products.
7. Physical (evidence) – They have promotions on their fan page on Facebook like discounts for all their products like happy hour and if you go in the store that they give from 20% to 50%. Also, they have vouchers and also they organize caterings and serve their products to attract more customers.

2.3. SWOT analysis 1. Straights a) New, different and healthy varieties if cakes and pastry have been introduces which give O la la benefit of product differentiation. b) Experienced staff is hired who help O la la in providing healthy sweets to their customers c) Ambience of place and the feeling of being in these place while enjoy when the customers eat the cookies of O la la , it’s their pleasure experience that give them an advantage over others. 2. Weaknesses a) Their products are perishable and needs to be sold as soon as possible to gain maximum profit. The customers will also prefer fresh products. b) Limited menu can be seen as a weakness c) Lack of experience: will face stiff competition from local players d) Lack of products for vegetarian and diabetic people e) Place of the store f) Lack of promotion 3. Opportunities a) Expansion of product line b) To have promotion with sample of their cookies in Macedonia scare. c) Potential to become a premier sweet provider in the City d) Growing Market: Pastry shop is growing at fast speed and the demand of quality item never is ending 4. Treats a) Competition – homemade cakes by the housewives b) External changes c) Price war d) Product substitution

3. Diagnoses of the problem O la la has many problems that have to be solved. The biggest problem of O la la is they didn’t promote so much their products and have customers who they didn’t know about them. One of their problems is that they didn’t see any completion on the market. Also, they didn’t make product to catch their all target public. Their prices are given on already branded products from different countries and not get the standards of our country that our customers can allow to buy them.

4. Solution for the company If they want to stay longer on the market they have to promote their products more because we know that in our country most of the people go in pastry shop to buy Macedonian cookies like ekler, tulumba, etc. So, they have to create a method and to know customers that if they go to pastry shop they didn’t have to look only for Macedonian cookies, but also on the market has cookies like their product and have chance to try different cookies which are already brand in more of countries. They have to put the prices for Macedonian standard, or if on their accounts stays that the prices are low, they have to show people what one of their cookies contains and maybe they will buy them in that price. Like we all know most of the customers are not looking how the cake is decorated, but how it tastes. Most of the customers also look to find cake which is good and cheap. To get that, they can buy a cake in supermarket or to order in some housewife who makes tasty cakes and is recommended from their friends. So, if they didn’t see competition in any of the exciting pastry shops, their competitions are housewives which made cake in their taste and maybe they already try it. Because of the situation nowadays in our countries, most of their target audience works late, so they can make special offer to make cake and cookies in their receipt. In other words, they have to have possibility to offer the customer self making cake or cookies. O la la has to make cookies for vegetarian and diabetic people to cover their whole target public. Some of their vegetarian customers don’t eat eggs or drink milk, so they can make cookies that they can eat like chocolate chip, peanut butter etc. For the diabetic customers also have to make cookies like diabetic date squares, oatmeal cranberry cookies, etc.