Reference no: EM132468766

As mentioned in the previous part of the report, India is where Smoke's Poutinerie is heading towards its Eastern expansion. Mumbai City has been determined as its starting destination, for its growing market population, developed transportation systems, and high tourism flows. The mode of entry chosen is franchising, as to avoid the risk of debt or cost of equity. 

The menu to be launched in Mumbai will include: traditional, veggie traditional, vegetarian, and chicken. Flexibility will also be added with options of adding extra cheese curds, gravy, or any other topping; and customizing the dish ingredients to individual taste. ("MENU - Smoke's Poutinerie - Global Domination of Poutine", 2019)

Section 2

SWOT Analysis of the Market

Strengths

Weaknesses

• Low cost of living. India's gross domestic product per capita in 2017 is $7,166 compared to North America's 2017 is $59,926.
• Well-educated and cheap labour
• English as an official language
• Large population
• Corruption
• Poverty & illiteracy remain a problem among India's population
• Inadequate & Poor-quality infrastructure cost
• Weakening labour laws

Opportunities

Threats

• Giant domestic market
• Rich agricultural resources
• The opening policy of India government for foreign firms
• Growing of middle class
• Unstable political environment
• Inadequate environmental safety zones
• Growing food inflation
• Global competition. Competition between many other firms who also tried to enter the Indian market.

III. The product   

A. Evaluate the product as an innovation as it is perceived by the intended market

1. Relative advantage

One relative advantage to be noticed for poutine when entering Indian market is the Indian tastes towards fast food in general, and fries in specific, given its fruitful market. The potential the fast food market of India holds is quite big, with just 2,700 fast food outlets for a population of 1.2 billion, with nearly 65 per cent of the population under 35 years of age. ("McDonald's Is Looking To Woo Its Indian Customers To Breakfast", 2020) 

Moreover, a survey by Food Talk India indicated that 73% of respondents reported to love potatoes the most when fried and rated their affection for potatoes as 5 on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being hate and 5 being super love). Another interesting same-sourced finding is that Indian consumers would love for potatoes to be given its own identity, after years of acting as the sidekick in most meals. (News, 2020) 

2. Compatibility       

It is obvious that the main ingredients of poutine include potatoes, a very common kind of vegetable in India. Potatoes are now processed in every cooking methods such as boiling, baking, roasting, frying, etc.,in nearly every kitchen in the country. (Sampathkumar, 2020). Hardly a day passes in an Indian household without potatoes being part of at least one meal: it fils samosas, vada pavs, and morning poha. By 2013, the average consumption of potatoes

per capita was 24 kg per year in India, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. ("How potatoes and chillies conquered Indian cuisine - Firstpost", 2020)

3. Complexity   

Complexity refers to how difficult it is for new consumers to be familiar with new products. ("5 Characteristics Of An Innovation - Smashing Magazine", 2020).  In this term, poutine is not a complex dish to learn how to enjoy, compared to other food of the same category (fast food). For instance, it is just easy to pick up as already-popular fast food like deep-fried chickens, yet way more portable. Other than a quick full-load calorie shot, Canadian poutines also offer the portability of a street food thanks to its lightweight and simple packaging.

4. Trialability

Trialability is the extent to which customers find it easy to try a new product, thus embracing its innovative value. ("5 Characteristics Of An Innovation - Smashing Magazine", 2020)

Regarding this characteristic, poutine is flexible enough to be offered in trial sizes, samples, and events. The more experience consumers have with the food, they are more likely to pick up a new favorite brand. While trial-sized poutines are small packages offered at a low price to get consumers started with the dish, samples should be distributed for free with every new flavours launching, for instance. Sponsored events, campaigns, and competitions should offer free samples to boost trialability of the product.

5. Observability

Observability involves how visible the benefit of using a new product is to consumers. ("5 Characteristics Of An Innovation - Smashing Magazine", 2020). For poutines, its rich content of calories (approximately 1422 calories per servings) should be able to immediately satisfy a hungry stomach. ("THE DISH: Poutine has double the trouble of the infamous KFC Double | The Star", 2020). As poutines are always served hot, and should be consumed while still hot and crispy, consumers should take in enough calories for a snack, or even a full meal. 

B. One of the major issues we might face while taking our business to the Indian market is customization of the menu. We will have to work a lot on our menu aspect since it will be a whole new specially catered menu without the use of pork or beef. In our traditionally poutine we use beef stock with a mix of chicken stock. But since beef is banned in India

Smoke's Poutinerie will have to work and improve our recipe accordingly whilst maintaining our taste, quality and standard. Another factor that we will have to consider is the pricing strategy, a classic poutine (snack size) cost $4.99 which is roughly ?270. We will be targeting the middle class in Mumbai for our business to flourish and the price is too expensive for them to afford it on a daily basis.

IV. The market

1.Geographical region(s)

Mumbai is the largest and most prosperous city in India with the most significant population in the world.

Its location determines the success of fast food. For this, the most crowded places in the city are suitable. It's excellent if large business centers are located nearby.

During lunch, there will be a lot of customers. Also, you can serve offices and homes with the food-to-door service (UBER Eats). It is also ideal if the location of fast food will be near universities, train stations or houses. 

There is no single rule for choosing a location, however, if we are not talking about a destination place, where customers will travel exclusively purposefully. Still, about a format designed for traffic, then we should give preference to the first line of main streets and crowded places.

2.Forms of transportation and communication available in that (those) region(s)- 

Logistic transportation operations (moving goods from suppliers to recipients, packing, marking packages, storing goods in intermediate warehouses, collecting and disaggregating shipments, etc.) are carried out in a specific sequence that corresponds to the technological transport process, depending on the characteristics of which the choice of transportation method is made delivery technology and particular route. (Sharma, 2017).

Multimodal transportation will be the best kind of traffic to India (Mumbai) because the point of departure to the destination using more than one mode of transport. For the organization of

sour cream transportation, transport infrastructure enterprises (terminals, freight stations, etc.) can be involved that perform the function of connecting links between different carriers. Multimodal transportation can be performed without the participation of such enterprises, in which case the goods are transferred sequentially from the carrier of one type of transport to the carrier of another(Directorate General of Shipping, n.d.).

Standard features of multimodal transport are the following:

1. When delivering goods, more than one mode of transport is used in concert.

2. The multimodal transport operator arranges transportation.

3. Relations between the transportation customer and the intermodal transport operator are regulated on the basis of one contract (Badvar, 2015).

3. Consumer buying habits

a. Product-use patterns

The consumer habits of the population are determined by several significant and many small factors. The most potent factor that determines what and how much a community or individual can afford to buy is income. But this factor is far from the only one. Having the same pay, different population groups are very different from each other in other ways.

The simplest example is young people with a small amount of money, and older people are also quite poor. Nevertheless, in the consumption of goods, services, and especially cultural values, the differences between these groups are fundamental. Therefore, another influential factor here is the psychographic characteristics of various population groups (Markets, 2018).

The next factor that significantly affects consumption is the infrastructure created in the country, which includes distribution systems, transport communications, the ability to use the Internet, telephone, and the availability of vehicles.

Smaller factors affecting consumption include geographic features, climate, population mobility, specific situations in a given country or region, and much more.

b. Product feature preferences

Potential consumers of fast food restaurant products and services are residents from 12 to 49 years old.

Also, for this project, the primary consumers of Fast-food services are motorists and their passengers, truckers, as well as other residents with middle and lower than average incomes.