McDonald’s Tests Catfish

Sandwich
Gaurav Tiwari
MITU20MBGL0005
02-05-2021
The management team for new product development was
interested in assessing relevancy of the chosen test markets to
the three states designated for rollout if the test market was
satisfactory (Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia).

1. What are your conclusions about the representativeness

of the test cities to the designated rollout states?

There are various factors attributing to the satisfactory rollout

of the product in the market. On the sales side, it is very
important that the taste is at par with the customer
requirement even if product taste has to be differentiated in
different states. This could also take in to account the taste
other competitors in the states are providing. Promotion
which is the communication link between the buyer and the
seller which also lean towards a target market success.
Similar advertising in each state would defeat the purpose of
advertising that is to blend the customer’s willingness for
buying any catfish sandwich with the catfish sandwich
provided by McDonald’s. Sale cannot be successful if catfish
sandwich is sold besides competitors. Location also matters.
Successful sales can also attribute to high product price rather
than volume which are achievable by not only increasing but
also maintaining quality.

Dependence on just one supplier for supply can be

disadvantageous in terms of both cost and volume. Catfish
Institute director Bill Allen said that farmers, processors, and
marketer’s salvation won’t solely depend on the supply to
McDonald’s for catfish as they have other customers as well.
More than one supplier eases supply constrains which can be

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 caused by lack of stock by one of the suppliers. It is also
important for a successful rollout to ensure that sales as
compared to supply are perfect. Not too much supply which
can result in quality issues as the stock is usually non-durable
and not too less supply which can hurt sale volume.

2. What secondary data should you present to support your

conclusions? Where will you obtain this data.

Evaluation of the product by customers is very important not

only from the view of the product satisfaction itself but also
the environment provided. In this case rating data could be
used to evaluate the product quality mostly recommended
rating wise. A survey of the initial customers could let the
management know through which mode of communication
customers came to know about the product. Not only this
could let us know the success advertising played but also the
customer turnover in relation with the frequency of
advertising made on television. Supply sales volume ratio
comparison with target supply sales volume ratio could tell
us about the supply side of the sandwich as to whether
overstocking, under stocking or neither of that occurred.

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