Marketing Plan For Flower Drum Melbourne

Description of the Organisation

Discuss About The A Marketing Plan For Flower Drum Melbourne.

This paper is purposefully aimed at designing a marketing plan for Flower Drum based in Melbourne. Marketing plan as according to (Wagner and Eggert 2016), is essential at the different stages of business; however, it serves different purposes at each of the stages. The chosen restaurant is pretty old and had come into existence in 1975 in Chinatown at the Little Bourke Street. Considering a fact that the restaurant has been in existence for nearly 43 years, it has shown a very slow progress in regards to the number of branches. Instead, it has no other branch. In such a long span of time, it was only able to relocate to the existing location as 17 Market Lane (Flower Drum 2018). However, there is a list of scopes for the concept due to a fact that it is a food centre where people along with having their choice of foods can also spend their spare time. The concept must be introduced to other locations in Melbourne as well to attain a much larger business than the existing. 

Flower Drum ever since its inception in 1975 had continually experimented with innovative strategies. The founder Gilbert Lau had continually deployed innovative thoughts to make it a worth for the Melbourne people. One of such innovations was the union between the founder of Flower Drum and the Chef Anthony Lui who was hired as an executive chef. In foods, it offers launch banquets, A La Carte, Wine and dinner banquets (Flower Drum 2018). In addition to the food services, it also provides the option for private dining. It offers a private dining room which has the capacity to accommodate from 12 to 20. The room can accommodate a long oval table or two round tables. There are options as well for banquet dining room that can accommodate from 20 to 50 guests. The bookings for private dining can be done either by calling the reservations team on the given number or by online through the websites (Flower Drum 2018).  

Current market: The current market is limited just to a restaurant in Melbourne. Customers are generally those who love spending their weekends or festive occasions by being in a food restaurant with their family, friends and relatives.

Future marketing: The demographics will remain the same in the future as well; however, the area of the market must be expanded to reach to a wider customer base. This is important also from both the financial and the market perspective. The expansion will improve its market shares and will impact its financial performance as well.  

Situation Analysis

Key customer needs for future: Customer needs may vary depending on the kinds of demographic and the locations of operation. The needs can include things such as the follows (Mathe, Scott-Halsell and Roseman 2016):

• Good ambience  
• Spacious capacity of the premise
• Providing the other means to customers to let them be patient till the time their order is not ready
• High quality foods
• Competitive pricing
• Good customer service

Customers generally expect a good ambience with high quality foods and customers service from a restaurant. Flower Drum had been doing this in past; however, improvement will further be needed, so that, customers have reasons for visiting again.

The expected overall revenue over the next five years is expected to touch $20bn (Ibisworld.com.au 2018). The annual growth in the industry revenue is close to 3.5% in the last five years (Ibisworld.com.au 2018). However, attractive ambiance, quality foods, competitive pricing and customer service will be of essential need for getting hold of customers and increasing the customer retention rates.

Flower Drum despite being good in offering quality foods and that to at reasonable prices, it has not had a lot of success. The market area is very limited with no other branches anywhere. On the other hand, food and beverage industry is expected to touch the new heights as stated in the aforesaid section with reference to IBIS report on food and beverage industry (Ibisworld.com.au 2018). It shows that there are still scopes to expand for Flower Drum.

Demographic	Economic	Cultural
· Age groups are divided into six categories by marketers such as pre-school children, Adolescents, teens, young adults, Baby Boomers and Boomers · There are a number of ethnic groups such as Muslims, Buddhist, Judaism, Christians and more · Large number of migrants in this country · Household patterns vary such as singles and couples with or without children	· Key factors for monitoring in the market are income & savings, credit & debt etc. · Sharp fluctuation in commodity prices, reduced market investments and others can affect the product pricing	· Growing population · Increasing number of middle-income families · Consumer awareness and preferences as well for healthy foods
Environmental	Technological	Political/legal
· Sustainability is at risk due to an untraditional form of farming · Examples include deforestation, use of non-renewable resources for water and production of high water consuming & low values crops · Organic food is an emerging trend which is also a good prospect for the environment · Water security is a concern because of the pressure to yield high crops to support the incrementing demands for foods	· Agricultural research is an emerging trend · Disease control in foods being supplied to the local and various internal parts is a growing concern · Computer technology is a boost for different stakeholders like online grocery platform for retailers, online reviews for the maintenance of feedback system in restaurants and online booking of foods & dining in restaurants for customers · Innovation in food processing technology is also a boost to the food industry	· Political unrest in regions where the population suffers from food shortages · There are political concerns for land purchase in developing countries for ensuring the food security

Table 1: External Market Environment Analysis

(Source: Richards et al. 2015)

The external market environment analysis indicates a number of challenges in the form of food insecurity and deforestation whereas also shows few opportunities as well as incrementing use of innovation in farming & food processing. On top of all, these challenges and opportunities are analyzed in context to the food & beverage industry. Therefore, the results just show that pressures on food farming are built up because of the rising demands for foods in public and the government’s incapability to provide the security to food production (Ausfoodnews.com.au 2018). The food and beverage industry is expected to pick a new height because of the changing demographics and the cultural behaviors of Australians (Ausfoodnews.com.au 2018). Hence, it is important for Flower Drum that it seeks to cross the barrier and attempt to reach to a wider market which has never happened ever in its history of 43 years. 

Men	Money	Machinery	Markets	Materials
· There is a global shortage of skilled workforce (Sidani and Al Ariss 2014)	· Large hotels are going through the infrastructural changes · Local restaurants are not very fascinated for making an investment on infrastructural development works and the market expansions (Benavides-Velasco, Quintana-García and Marchante-Lara 2014)	· The use of technological equipment is also very limited · Innovation with the food menu and ambiance quality is very limited (Nieves and Segarra-Ciprés 2015)	· The market is booming considering a cultural drift towards spending the weekends or leisure times in restaurants (Karam and Saydam 2015) · Different groups have distinguished reasons to go for an outing in restaurants	· Local suppliers are the main source of required materials · It is challenging to get the quality materials for a fact that strong competitors have the high bargaining capacity than the others (Busse et al. 2016)

Table 2: Internal Marketing Environment

Strengths	· Flower Drum is in existence for nearly 43 years which is itself an indication that the company has effectively managed its operations · A good mixture of  food menu as it offers lunch banquets, dinner banquets and A La Carte
Weaknesses	· Market expansion is very limited considering the years of existence. · Not being able to be within the top 10 restaurants in Melbourne
Opportunities	· Changing social pattern for having food in restaurants (List and Samek 2015) · Demands for varieties of tasty and healthier foods (List and Samek 2015) · The expected growth of the food and beverage industry by 2023 (Ibisworld.com.au. 2018)
Threats	· The local competition which can be the case in a wider market of operation in future (Asche et al. 2015) · Effective relationship with the local suppliers of materials (Asche et al. 2015) · Fluctuating behavior of commodity prices (Asche et al. 2015) · Rising customer awareness for healthy foods (Asche et al. 2015)

Table 3: SWOT Analysis

(Source: Flower Drum 2018)

This can be identified with the help of disruption theory which explains that it is difficult to sustain success over a long span of time. It further explains that forces of new-market and low-end disruption are at regular works and that the incumbent businesses are not capable to respond to it (Rosenberg, Lewandowski and Siegel 2015). Considering this fact, it can be stated that there is a need for robust strategies to counter the threats and take the advantage of the opportunities. Flower Drum has few weaknesses and strengths as well that has already been stated in the aforesaid section. Moreover, the mitigation of threats and utilization of opportunities as cited earlier in the aforesaid section can be leveraged by successfully expanding to more locations in Melbourne and incepting a culture for technological innovation throughout the branches. The identification of suitable technologies and strategies to expand to a wider market depends entirely on the management of Flower Drum. Few suggested technologies are as follows (Cantallops and Salvi 2014):

Financial Analysis of the Market

Touchscreen terminal: Wait time is an issue that makes customers irritated as well. The level of inefficiency of restaurants can be mitigated by providing the Touchscreen terminal to customers and allowing them to make the orders and the pay the bills as well. This will remove the system of taking orders physically and waiting at the cash-counters to accomplish the payment related formalities.

Installing cash drawer: It means syncing up the cash system with the POS, so that; all transactions are automatically stored up in the virtual cash drawer.

A monitoring system in Kitchen: Kitchen departments are the most hectic part of restaurants. Back-end team generally fumbles to identify the orders and the preferences for its delivery attached to it. The kitchen display screen technology will show all the open orders to the back-end teams. Hence, things will be a lot easier for them to organize the orders accordingly.

Marketing goals

“Expanding to a wider market by having franchises in different other parts of Melbourne and incepting the innovative business strategies”

Marketing objectives

• To expand into other locations in Melbourne
• To construct strategic plans to promote the required changes
• To establish the franchising relationship with capable partners
• To encourage the innovative technologies in the different franchise branches of the hotel

Target market

According to Aghdaie and Alimardani (2015), the target market is that specific area of the market which is aimed at new products or services. The target market with this marketing plan will be the people of all age group and their cultural backgrounds. The different cultures are targeted because of a fact that Melbourne is a multicultural city (Mcgirr and Batterbury 2016). This is necessary also to make a good impact on the local culture and attain a progressive trend for sales. However, there is a need to identify the varying demands for lunch and other menus as this will help to offer the range of customers with the most suitable list of foods (Wilson and Renzaho 2015). If things turn around exactly the way it has explained in this section, Flower Drum will expectedly be able to score well in other locations in Melbourne. Moreover, the overall sales figure will also improve and also the customer service quality. Incremented sales and the quality customer service will both help Flower Drum in improving its market position which is at the moment behind to many other restaurants (Terho et al. 2015).   

As opined by Neirotti, Raguseo and Paolucci (2016), market positioning is a way to pronounce or communicate the deliberate messages with the target customers. Market positioning for Flower Drum will be “Feel valued and enjoyed the way it was never before on coming to the number of Flower Drum restaurants”

Market Position of the Company

Marketing mix

The list of products will remain the same; however, there will be few inclusions like the cultural foods to meet the diverse cultures existing in Melbourne. Some of the examples of diverse cultural foods include NSK Classic, Warn Lamb Salad, Basta, NSK Combo, and the Wrap for African people. It also includes combination noodle soup, seafood noodle soup, Laksa, Singapore fried noodles, fried flat rice noodle with beef slices and more for the South East Asian people (CNN Travel 2018). Food mixing in this way will help to attract the diverse cultures which exist in Melbourne. Nonetheless, people from diverse cultures have passions to eat their cultural foods. Hence, there needs will be fulfilled which will positively influence the net sales of Flower Drum.      

Food Menu	Expected Pricing (in Australian Dollar)
NSK Classic	Regular for $12.5 and Large for $14.5
Warn Lamb Salad	$14
Basta	Regular for $12 and Large for $15
NSK Combo	$18
the Wrap	$11.5

Table 4: Indicative Price List for Few Foods

(Source: Aussiehotel.net.au 2018)

The price list, as shown above, is just an indicator of how the pricing should be planned for the entire list of suggested regional foods.  However, this is much better to give the customers the maximum benefits and that can be realized by giving customers the varieties of foods on competitive pricing. Flower Drum will, therefore, be able to establish a fact that the newly opened franchising branches are competitive from every perspective. Hence, a much-needed push towards the marketing goals will then be attained.

Promotion

Promotion can be done in numerous ways using multiple channels that include public relations, sales promotions like tasting demonstrations in restaurants; trade shows participation, direct advertising, official website and social media sites (Krugman 2016). The purpose is to leave a bigger impact on customers, so that, the required curiosity for new services is established. This is also the primary act to drive the sales and attain a profitable venture.  

Place

Place will include, for example, Chinatown, Heffernan Lane, Lygon Street in Carlton, Lonsdale Street, Point Cook, Footscray, Dandenong, Docklands and Southbank (Phillips and Simon-Davies  2016). These are just a few locations where people from Asia-Pacific and Europe live in. However, this is not necessary that all those areas will be equally good for opening the restaurants. This is just an indication towards a fact that restaurants should be in locations where different cultures of the world exist. It just enhances the chances for success and hence, the overall sales.

In the opinion of Strunk et al. (2016), marketing plans if not being implemented appropriately, may fail to yield the anticipated results. Plans can be implemented by using the below mentioned suggestions (Abbasi et al. 2017):

• Communicating with staffs regarding their work responsibilities, so that, their expected contribution is attained
• Planning the actions while having the sheer focus on the end goals
• Monitoring the entire progress which means every single work should happen appropriately
• Making adjustments to the marketing plans whenever it is needed
• Need to develop the contingency plans as the time frames and the marketing objectives can change at any point in time
• Seeking the advice from experts in tough situations

External Market Environment Analysis

According to Möller and Parvinen (2015), it is necessary to safeguard the marketing plans through effective control techniques as it helps to align the progress with end goals. The marketing plans can be controlled with the help of competitor analysis, customer response, customer analysis and others. Competitor analysis will help to analyze the level of difference in the marketing plans. With the help of this analysis, few points for future consideration can be found then. Customer response will indicate whether there is a need for few amendments in the existing marketing plans. Customer analysis will communicate the loopholes and their positive responses as well.   

Marketing plan can be evaluated by using a few measures such as Return on Investment (ROI), Customer Response, Sales Numbers, Partner Response, Market Expansion, Salespeople Feedback and Competitor Response (Moorman and Day 2016).

Conclusion:

Therefore, Flower Drum should go for market expansion in Melbourne. It must also introduce a list of foods matching the diverse cultures in Melbourne. On top of all, the marketing plan must be controlled with good techniques and evaluated as well to analyse the effectiveness of the plans. Moreover, regular amendments in the existing plan should also be done.

References 

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Aghdaie, M.H. and Alimardani, M., 2015. Target market selection based on market segment evaluation: a multiple attribute decision making approach. International Journal of Operational Research, 24(3), pp.262-278.

Asche, F., Bellemare, M.F., Roheim, C., Smith, M.D. and Tveteras, S., 2015. Fair enough? Food security and the international trade of seafood. World Development, 67, pp.151-160.

Ausfoodnews.com.au. 2018. Global report highlights challenges for Australian food and beverage industry | Australian Food News. Retrieved from https://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2011/11/25/global-report-highlights-challenges-for-australian-food-and-beverage-industry.html

Aussiehotel.net.au. 2018. Aussie Hotel | Shepparton. Retrieved from https://www.aussiehotel.net.au/

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Analysis of Internal Marketing Environment and Development of SWOT

Flower Drum. (2018). Flower Drum. Retrieved from https://flowerdrum.melbourne/

Ibisworld.com.au. 2018. Restaurants – Australia Industry Research Reports | IBISWorld. Retrieved from https://www.ibisworld.com.au/industry-trends/market-research-reports/accommodation-food-services/restaurants.html

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