How Can Renaissance Coffee Shop Build Upon their Marketing Mix in Order to Increase their Sales?

How can Renaissance coffee shop build upon their marketing mix in order to increase their sales?

Contents

Action plan: Preface: Acknowledgements: Problem identification: The current market share:

Action plan:

Activity	Date	Place
Conduct an interview with the Cafe manager to gather primary data about the business	15th August 2014	Pioneer Mall, Renaissance coffee shop
Visit the ministry of trade to gather secondary data about the industry	20th August 2014	Lesotho, Maseru, The ministry of trade and cooperatives
Draft an outline of the project	21st August 2014	The library
Write up the first draft of the project	25th August 2014	The library
Submit the first draft	2nd September 2014	School
Receive a critic on the first draft	5th September	School
Revise and improve the project	6th September 2014	Library
Revisit the working premises of the cafA© for further data collection	10th September 2014	Pioneer Mall, Renaissance coffee shop

Preface:

Research Question: How can Renaissance coffee shop build upon their marketing mix in order to increase their sales? Hypothetical framework: Renaissance coffee shop is a modern day cafA© specializing in serving rich, nutritious and yet affordable meals, mostly focusing on sandwiches and hot beverages. The cafA© hosts a broad customer base, ranging from working middle class individuals to high profile personnel such as the king, His majesty king Letsie III. The coffee bar faces fierce competition from well established international conglomerates such as “WIMPY” and “SPUR”. These multinational corporations hold two great advantages over Renaissance coffee, firstly, they benefit greatly from their track record as they have been established for many years now. Secondly, they benefit from economies of scale of advertising, since there are hundreds of outlets throughout the world, the contribution of each is significantly low. I am on a mission to apply the knowledge I have acquired from my business and management studies course to draw up a proposal that will help Renaissance coffee build upon their marketing mix in order to increase their sales.

Acknowledgements:

• Mr. Thatho Pontso, firstly for sharing his vast knowledge of Business with me, to make it achievable for me to work on this project and secondly for guiding and motivating me, giving me the courage to complete the project.
• My parents for the support they have shown me till this far.
• The management of the coffee shop for allowing me access to their books and accounts, as without them this project would have not been possible.
• The stuff at the coffee shop for their views, comments and overall cooperation.

Problem identification:

Renaissance coffee shop first opened its doors in November 2009. It was opened collectively with the Pioneer mall and has since been the under dogs, relative to its closest competitors. As part of my data collection I will mainly rely on primary data. This will include surveys ang questioners to the management, staff and the public at large. I prefer using primary data because I can get more accurate and reliable results. The surveys and questioners will be tailored to address the issue at hand of marketing. However I will also make use of secondary data such as the business accounts and records. I also intend to obtain further secondary data from the ministry of trade about this particular industry on a national level. This will help me realize just how much potential the business has to grow. In assessing the market share, sales, income statements from launch date and primary data were obtained and assessed. These reports show exactly the position of the business. Expansion is indispensable to a business’s success. A company will inevitably, at some stage seek to develop. This development may well be organic or peripheral, to attain higher sales and returns, improved economies of scale, and bigger market share. Organic growth is when a company increases its operations with in-house funds such as preserved profits or selling assets. Whilst peripheral growth is when expansion is funded with money obtained outside the company, this might be through a loan or selling a share of the company. Equipped with a rising economy, expansion is a widespread incident in Lesotho, in all industries. As such, this branch of the assignment draws up a marketing plan for the cafA© to be a cut above the rest

Investigation:

The marketing mix is a set of manageable, strategic marketing tools that a business make use of to create a preferred response from its target market. It involves everything that a business can do to manipulate demand for its products or services. It is also a tool to help marketing planning and execution. There for in other to later be able to make suitable suggestions to the business on how to alter their marketing mix, I had to establish their current market position in respect with their closest competitors. I conducted a survey within a population of hundreds of people who do their shopping at pioneer mall, taking only a sample of 50 people which are potential customers due to the lack of resources and time. My survey questions were as follow:

1. How often do you eat out in a month?
2. Favorite restaurant in town?
3. Have you been to Renaissense?

If they have been:

4. What was your experience like at Renaissense?
5. How likely are you to recommend it to someone else?
6. Any suggestions for improvement?

If they haven’t been there before:

7. Have you heard about Renaissense before?
8. What keeps you going back to your favorite restaurant?

My survey results: How often do you eat out in a month?

4 or more…	3-4 times	1-2 times	Only once
10	25	10	5

What is your favorite restaurant in town?

Spur	Ocean basket	The Sun hotels	Renaissance	Other
20	10	15	3	2

Have you been to Renaissance?

Yes	No
23	27

What was your experience like? (Sample population is now 23)

Excellent	Good	Acceptable	Bad	Poor
3	13	4	3	0

How likely are you to recommend it to someone else?

Very likely	Likely	Maybe	Not really	Never
3	13	4	3	0

Do you have any suggestions for improvement?

• Two of the customers recommended a wider menu, with more divers dishes
• The 3 with bad experiences complaint about moody waitresses
• Others suggested that the service could be made quiker.

The current market share:

With competition severe as never before, businesses discover the necessity to grow, either through the two possibilities I have pointed out, organic or external growth. This is to strive for being the market leader in the particular industry. Renaissance CafA© has not been left behind, the management decided to expand the businesses operations by opening a second outlet at the Maseru mall. As still part of my research, I also interviewed the 2 of the waiters/waitresses at the restaurant in other to help me later when giving an evaluation: My survey questions were structured as follows:

1. What is your greatest strength as a server?
2. What is your greatest weakness as a server?
3. What is your favorite part of serving?
4. What is your least favorite part of serving?
5. Why do you think you are valuable member of this stuff team?

The results I obtained: Waiter 1:

1. “I have been a waiter for several years now, so even when things get hectic like having a customer over flow or just being really busy, I am able to remain calm and hopefully help others do the same, not that I am any less busy, but I know that focus and teamwork are the key to successful waitering.
2. “I am probably a bit too reluctant to ask for help.”
3. “The constant challenge. every day is something different. Each shift provides me with new challenges and the ability to try and improve on how I handle them. Tips are also a huge motivator, the more the customer tips, the more attention we normally pay to him or her *giggles*
4. “Bad or no tips, any other answer would be lying.”
5. “I am a quick learner and a team player. I believe on each shift I contribute a lot to the work done here.”

Waiter 2:

1. “I believe that I am able to deal with all the moods the customer has, patience and a soft heart are vital here. Otherwise you might find yourself in a fight with the customers.”
2. “My greatest weakness would be… I can’t think of any, I enjoy my job”
3. “My favorite part would definitely be good tips and customers that treat waiters wish respect and integrity.”
4. “My least favorite part would be also bad tips after giving a really good service, however I always try to give my best so that every customer leaves the best he or she can do…”
5. “I see myself as a team leader, for I am able to do my job well and hell others with theirs too, I also try to always motivate my colleagues.”

Data analysis: In this research project, I will be using Marketing Mix, with the 4 Ps model as my data analysis tool. I chose the marketing mix because it is ideal and crucial for determining a product or services offer. I will also be applying the Ansoff matrix. The Ansoff matrix is a strategic planning tool that provides a framework to help business strategies for future growth. Marketing mix:

• Price- since Lesotho is a third world country, with a struggling economy, I think the business should consider the loss leader pricing method in order to attract customers and increase market share, then maybe later when they have a well established market they can convert to Marginal-cost pricing.
• Product- since the business is dealing with competition from global companies with menus that are prescribed by head offices overseas, the business can take advantage of this by altering their menu to offer more indigenous dishes of which the American based companies cannot offer
• Promotion- since the business is struggling, advertising on media platforms will not be possible as this will cost the business significantly, but rather I believe the business can practice alternative methods such as: using free social networking sites such as facebook, or they can start organizing special events such as karaoke nights to gain popularity.
• Placement- I believe the business should place itself as a premium brand rather than a bargain. This is because completion is high in that sector, with the town seeing more fast food outlets than ever in history.

Ansoff Matrix: The Ansoff matrix crucial strategic planning tool that helps devise strategies for future growth, I will be using it in my research project to help me devise plans or suggestions on how the business can actually grow in the future. This tool consists of the following;

• Market penetration
• Market development
• Product development
• Product development

Based on the data I have collected through the surveys and research I conducted, I believe the business should apply market penetration and product development. The reason why market develop and diversification would not work is because market develop requires a lot of capital as the business is required to venture into new markets; this is followed by intense promotion of which the business cannot afford. While diversification is the most risky strategy because both product and market development are required. In this case of a restaurant, product development is significantly cheaper than in other industries, the chef should just be more experimental and the customers can be used as testers through special offers such as “chef’s special” References www.wikipedia.com www.managementhelp.org www.contentmarketinginstitute.com www.sba.gov

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