Corner of comic cakes, the whole thing

BUSINESS IDEA

It’s a bakery business. And since there are so many bakeries around the city, it’s tough to survive. So the main idea of my C3 is to sell products and services that are clearly comic themed, such as, selling cupcakes, bread-sticks  pastries, and chocolates which are in the forms of comic characters or resemble them in some way in a very artistic and aesthetic manner.

MISSION AND OBJECTIVES

The objective is to create a niche market. The bakery industry in India carries stiff competition and due to recent price hikes in raw materials the barriers to entry have increased making it difficult for the non-differentiators to survive. So with a niche market our business will be able to grasp some of the share in the market and rule in it afterwards.

The mission is also to provide adolescents, young adults and adults with a different meaning and experience of bakery, different from what they have known until now.

The theme is simply comic, based on comic characters of DC and MARVEL comics. Collaboration with them also brings much sponsorship helps them gain their image in India.

Main emphasis is on locations or shops so as to make people realize that they have entered a comic world rather than a commonly perceived bakery.

CURRENT MARKET SITUATION

Pest ANALYSIS

POLITICAL FACTORS   

-high import duty for machinery, preservatives, raw materials

-strict government regulations for providing shelf life products

- Government through Public Distribution Scheme (PDS) distributes and sells wheat all over and Food Corporation of India (FCI) provides the major storage and infrastructure facilities.

-But FCI storage system is age old and inadequate and many studies indicated that there a significant loss and pilferage takes place from FCI run storage go downs.

ECONOMIC FACTORS 

-due to low shelf life issues 20% of daily breads are thrown out resulting low margin of profit for most of the bakery business.

-therefore, resulting in product extensions

- India being the second largest producer of wheat, saves the cost of importing high quality wheat and flour.

- Entry barrier into this category is quite high

- Indian bakery industry slowly adapting the western culture of going away from artisan bakers and towards more wrapped and specialty products in the categories like breads, cakes and biscuits, which have now become an important fixture in modern retail outlets. 

- The total bread production in the country is estimated to be 3.75 million tonnes annually growing at a rate of about 6 per cent although the organized sector is said to be growing a little higher rate of 8 per cent.

- Bakery industry growth- 10-12% within the last decade. But industry structure remains same.

-Industry going more investment in production of bread and rolls due to more and more introduction of middle class consumers.

SOCIAL FACTORS

-Using consumer insights, businesses have started to bake more and fry less. Health products are a key USP for most businesses.

- Most of the innovations in this category are focused upon the development of healthy or functional variants such as natural, functional, light or low carbohydrate and organic breads.

- Key factors contributing to the growth of processed food industry are change in socio-economic environment, newer raw materials, additives, packaging materials, indigenous availability of plant & machinery, and import polices.

-more introduction of middle class and young consumers in this category.

TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS

-High import duty on machinery

- Bakery equipment are available locally. Also bakery ingredients manufacturing business is flourishing primarily for the reason that there are many small scale operators require technical support and these ingredients manufacturers offer total solutions to them to improve their quality. In bakery industry therefore, we have a few big and many small businesses.

-More implementation of innovation due to usage of atta in place of maida, resulting to upgradation of machinery and production facilitates.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strength

-The USP itself. Consumers always expect for something different and out of the box, especially from monotonous industries like bakery

-comic shaped cakes and breads skillfully manufactured out of healthy wheat flour, fully baked.

-the idea of a C3 shop is more of a corner of comic characters and less of a typical bakery shop. Giving it a unique edge over competitors

-more employee friendly environment of business

-a special sector for chocolates (Brown Heroes), which is beyond any target market.

-more like a comic world the “cake” way..

-use of whole grains for making breads.

-much unique environment, employees dressed as comic characters.

WEAKNESS

-       High differentiation may lead to non-acceptance by many

-       Shelf life issues may hamper profits

-       High innovation leads to more investment in machinery and raw materials, more costs

-       The firm’s strategy to provide high quality low price, may hamper the brand image.

OPPURTUNITIES

-again the USP helps in grasping a huge opportunity in the market

-high differentiation may lead to more consumer favoring and market leading

-the out of the box, trendy, comic look would appeal to youth highly.

-high range of merchandise will lead to more attraction hence more sales and increase brand value

THREATS

-hike in the prices of raw materials like sugar, vegetable oil, wheat flour and milk, may hamper profit margin

-more followers of the same concept may arrive and provide stiff competition

- The government’s import duty policy for bakery machinery, preservatives and raw materials is also a cause of concern

CONSUMER INSIGHT ANALYSIS

As I visited one of the bakery shops few days earlier, they told me that customers expect new varieties every day or same product categories with variations. With a recent survey in omegele.com, it was we came to learn that people are more likely to welcome unusual and interesting ideas like this, as the business has so many product varieties to offer. But some feel that the comic theme is a bit geeky. With further research it was also learned that people would like to come for the comic feel, as they think it’s a great idea to portray comic characters through breads and pastries. People will love it when they would see a comic stripe coming as a pastry to them, and we came to know about these from the survey itself, as one of them said, “You better make pastries in comic book shapes”.

TARGET MARKET

Although our main target is the age group of 10-24, we are mainly thinking of appealing to the comic lovers’ society and who are also mad over pastries, breads and cakes. So it clearly appeals to the youth who like to think and act different.

MARKETING MIX

PRODUCT/SERVICE

The products we offer are different from other bakery products. Here, cakes, breads, brownies, breadsticks, chocolates are in the shape of comic characters and comic stripes.

Customers can literally read comics on cakes or pastries that are the differentiation we provide.

We use high quality upgraded machinery for producing the food products, high use of innovation makes us do this.

We are against the use of more preservatives; we use healthy vegetable oil and whole grain wheat flour and even atta for producing the food varieties.

We also provide merchandises such as T-shirts, C3 special addition comic books, cups etc.

-employees in the shops dressed and serving as comic characters, to provide more liveliness of the theme to customers.

PRICE

Our pricing strategy mainly leans towards quality leadership. We are mainly planning to sell the theme and the quality to the target market and gain advantage.

We will have a value based pricing.

We would like to provide an excerpt from the menu

Blade of brown (chocolate brownies in shapes of batarangs)-Rs 150, one box

Bread of steel (breads in shape of superman)-Rs 40 each

Faster than light (pastries in shapes of Flash)- Rs 55 each.

So it clearly defines that we are selling nothing else but the value, quality and the theme.

PLACE

For market testing, the first month we are opening up with two stores across the city and then slowly we are going to scatter.

We are mainly emphasizing on our shops by not naming them or identifying them as shops but corners, where the creamy world of comic lies.

We are not adopting the franchisee concept as we are not big enough. Though we are saving on the transportation costs by attaching the production plant with the cake shop itself, to avoid messiness we are also allowing customers to come and take a look at how the superheroes are being produced.(exclusive distribution)

PROMOTION

We are likely to use print and OOH advertising tools and unlikely to use TVCs as we find it is irrelevant in this context.

Although we are planning to have pamphlets distributed from the stores, and have a facebook page of the business.

The USP itself is also enough to lead to word of mouth advertising.

Competitions like, “to be continued” welcoming the customers to tell what happens next in the comic stripe, or they who they want to eat next...

INVESTMENT

-as we are focusing more on exclusiveness, money is going to be needed for the shop and machines in lots.

-we would be specializing in or licensing in a unique bakery machinery system, having their plates separately made.

-we are planning to open only one store across the city. The size of the shop would be approximately 10,000 square feet, so that is around Rupees one crore for Pune.

- investment needed for the interiors.

-employee dress

-sponsors from marvel and dc

IMPLEMENTATION

-The first step is to create an employee friendly collaborative environment aiming for cultivation

-Employees need to be trained well to handle to new born innovative machineries to produce goods

-More focus on interior designs and uniqueness of the environment

-Separate audit and finance department to handle the finance of the business

-Daily survey and monitoring of the shop activities to bring changes in strategy or improve them

-the advertisements would focus more on the liveliness of the comic characters, or making customers feel that the characters are brought to life.

-the shop would have its production plant attached to the shop itself, clearly visible to customers, saving costs of transportation and removing issues of freshness.

-more focus on efficiency. The strategy is to employee more and more people, so as to make people see them as more and more comic characters…this will bring efficiency and save time.

-customer feedback boxes at the shop (corner)

- eliminating the concept of shop and naming it as a corner.

MONITORING AND CONTROL

-website designed to continuously monitor customer feedbacks, facebook page as well.

-employees will also be questioned about their experiences with their customers and vice-versa.

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