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In February 2016, Rahul Sajnani, owner of Moshi, a fusion

restaurant in the Al Barsha area of Dubai, was Enter question
pondering ways to
make people more aware of his restaurant and its unique menu. A
hands-on
entrepreneur in his twenties, Rahul was not only involved
in the day-to-day running of his restaurant, but
he personally
trained his staff and had developed the menu from scratch. The only
problem with this level
of involvement was that it left Rahul with
little time to take care of marketing and branding. It was
imperative for a new restaurant to become known in the market, but
being a unique restaurant in Al Continue to post
Barsha was a challenge. Rahul’s
discussions from the previous night with Khushboo, Moshi’s head of
20 questions remaining
marketing and social media, had brought several issues to the fore.
While Moshi’s menu was unique, with
options such as cheesy chips
Oman maki rolls, prawn tempura maki rolls, and pero pero mushroom
momos, these items had no precedent in the market, which meant that
the patrons had no idea what was
good and what was not. How could
Moshi grow in the industry with offerings that were so unique?
Would
the restaurant’s innovative nature be an asset or a
liability? What sort of marketing strategy should Rahul My Textbook Solutions
adopt? Thus
far, Rahul had relied on word-of-mouth publicity, but he wondered
whether this practice
would be adequate, going forward. As the
owner of a start- up, he did not want to invest in advertising, so
what were his alternative options? Because Rahul and Khushboo
planned to open another restaurant in
Dubai’s Oud Mehta locality,
the first question they asked themselves was whether it was time to
create a
chain of Moshi restaurants or whether they should give the
new location a completely different feel and
target a specific
customer segment. Khushboo pointed out that Moshi did not have a
clear positioning in
terms of its menu (see Exhibit 1), which
consisted of Rahul’s fusion of Nepalese and Japanese cuisines. The
Econ Spreadshee... Quantitativ...
next question pertained to increasing the product range. On the one
hand, Rahul was happy that his 4th Edition
dream of opening a restaurant with a
unique cuisine had turned into a reality and that his start-up was 8th Edition 12th Edition
getting a good response from customers. On the other hand, he faced
some critical questions with respect
View all solutions
to fostering th growth of his
restaurant within a highly competitive industry. The Inception
Rahul Sajnani
started Moshi in Dubai’s Al Barsha locality in July
2015. The story behind the name of the restaurant was as
interesting as the one behind its origin. That the restaurant
specialized in fusion was evident from its name,
Moshi, a
portmanteau of “momo” and “sushi.” The distinctness of this
restaurant lay in its dishes, which
were noticeably different from
the ones found in conventional restaurants. The restaurant abided
by all the
rules of the municipality. From the SAP-certified
equipment for quality and safety to putting expiry dates
on food
contents, Rahul ensured that there were no lapses. He paid strict
attention to the guidelines
related to such things as
specifications on the ratio of dining versus kitchen space and
regulations about
chefs changing their food-handling gloves every
four hours. As in any other metro city, eating out was
popular in
Dubai. In one of his conversations, Rahul mentioned that, when
eating out, people invariably
ended up choosing fast food. This
observation led to four distinct seeds of thought that became the
basis
on which Moshi was founded: (1) Why could eating out not be
healthy? (2) Why did items like sushi have to

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4/21/22, 10:03 PM In February 2016, Rahul Sajnani, Owner Of Moshi, A... | Chegg.com
be available only in
a fine-dining setup? (3) When it came to sushi, why were there
fewer options for
 
vegetarians? (4) Why should eating out
Home be
expensive?
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 BornMyand raised 
courses
in Dubai,
My Rahul
bookshad My
gone on to
folder Career Life 
finish
his higher education in London, England. From then until now, there
had always been one constant
in Rahul’s life—his love for food, not
just eating but also feeding others. Always happy to share his love
of
good cuisine, Rahul recalled how, during his student years, the
responsibility of finding out where to eat
and what to eat
invariably fell on his shoulders whenever he spent time with
friends. This love for finding
new cuisines, new tastes, and
feeding others had given Rahul’s passion a new dimension. Rahul’s
family
was vegetarian, and whenever he proposed eating sushi, his
family had a difficult time finding a place that
could accommodate
their needs. Vegetarians had fewer choices, and the few they did
have often
mandated eating with chopsticks, which many found
uncomfortable. Rahul wanted to do away with these
hindrances.
Rahul’s ponderings and the limitations of popular Japanese fare for
vegetarians led Rahul to
open Moshi in July 2015, over a year since
the idea had first come to him in March 2014. After completing
his
studies in London, Rahul could have opted to join his family
business in Dubai or take up another career
of his choosing;
however, he decided to open his own restaurant and convert his
culinary passion into a
profession. When the restaurant opened, it
was no surprise that sushi formed one of the major items on
the
menu, including several options for vegetarians. “Pending Meal”
Program Moshi opened in July 2015,
which coincided with the holy
month of Ramadan.1 Rahul’s philanthropic mindset made him
collaborate
with Dubai resident Sara Rizvi, the woman who had
founded the concept of the “pending meal,”2 based
on the idea of
“pending coffee,” which had been very successful in Italy.3 At
Moshi, 5 per cent of the total
amount from every sale, including
dine-in, take-out, and home delivery, went toward giving a meal to
the
needy. Rahul aimed to achieve his target of 500 pending meals
by September 12, 2015 (see Exhibit 2). He
chose local construction
workers as his recipients, going to construction sites and
distributing free meals to
the workers there. Moshi managed to
reach 443 patron-funded meals on September 12, 2015, and Rahul
rounded up that number to 500 by adding 57 meals on his own.
Although news of the “pending meal”
drive was posted on Moshi’s
social media platforms, Rahul insisted he had not launched the
program for
advertising purposes but as a corporate social
responsibility initiative. His next pending meal plan, with a
target of 1,200 meals by February 2016, was even more ambitious,
but Moshi managed to surpass that
goal, achieving 1,600 meals by
February 14, 2016. The Menu The restaurant’s fusion theme was an
accurate reflection of Dubai’s booming expatriate culture.4 Rahul
divided his menu into eight sections,
incorporating dishes from
various origins such as Arab (cheesy chips Oman maki rolls), Thai
(Thai green
curry maki rolls), and Indian (chicken tikka maki
rolls, paneer and spinach momo5); classics like chicken
momo; and
falafel sushi6 and other offerings that challenged any attempt at
classification. Pricing The
chefs made everything fresh after the
placement of an order. Rahul’s aim was to debunk the myth that
good-quality food had to be expensive, and hence, everything on
Moshi’s menu was reasonably priced,
providing value for money in
terms of service and taste. A meal for two at Moshi cost around AED
80.7
Location Moshi was located in a rented space in the upscale Al
Barsha area, a part of new Dubai. Because
of the innumerable
commercial and residential buildings in the locality, many
restaurants had sprung up to
cater to the workers and residents of
the area. After much thought, Rahul had chosen this particular
location for Moshi because of its centrality and accessibility (see
Exhibit 3). Ambience Rahul planned the
interior of the restaurant
with the help of a designer friend. The ambience was one that would
appeal to a
young adult or a college student but would accommodate
and welcome families as well. Rahul liked to
describe the
restaurant’s setting as “cool, comfortable, and trendy.” At Moshi,
people could eat with forks,
spoons, or chopsticks—whatever they
felt comfortable with. The trendy atmosphere was preserved
through
the contemporary furniture and the cutlery. Staff and Service
Moshi’s staff strength of 18 included
nine chefs, four drivers for
home deliveries, two cashiers, one operations manager, one
marketing
manager, and Rahul himself, the owner. The restaurant
focused on diversity to ensure that it would appeal
to a variety of
ethnicities. Moshi employed people of Kenyan, Ugandan, Ghanaian,
Pakistani, Bangladeshi,
Indian, and Filipino descent, as well as
others. Rahul provided the required training to his employees,

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focusing on soft skills to provide superior customer service. For
example, the employees were asked to

remember
 the names of regular
customers,
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and they
were
Myempowered
courses
to beMycustomer-centric
books My folderwhile Career Life 
dealing with patrons. The employees received training in hard
skills as well, such as learning how to use
the cash register and
serve food. They were provided with competitive salaries, medical
benefits,
accommodation, and free food during their shift. The
staff was given days off in rotation, which was a
common practice
in the restaurant industry in Dubai. They were also given
incentives, such as movie tickets
and gift coupons. The restaurant
was small, but the fast turnaround time—service in 15
minutes—ensured
a good management of customer queues; additionally,
the staff always engaged with the customers who
were waiting
outside. For instance, they served tea to customers waiting for a
table or took orders so that
when each customer’s turn came, their
food was ready and they did not have to wait. The average footfall
for dine-in traffic on weekdays was around 50 patrons per day,
increasing to 90 per day on weekends.
Marketing Rahul’s hands-on
approach in the restaurant led to a good rapport with all patrons
and even
one-time-only visitors; he often utilized their feedback
to develop new dishes and to tweak dishes to suit
his customers’
tastes. Customization was a prime option provided at Moshi. The
idea was to use personal
selling and interaction to build rapport,
in turn encouraging word-of-mouth recommendations. Although
the
word-of- mouth publicity worked to a considerable extent, Rahul
knew it was not enough, so he
ensured online visibility through
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, making sure to keep the
sites
current with regular posts and offers. As an added incentive,
Moshi collaborated with a nearby parking lot
to provide free
parking for visitors to make it convenient for them to come to the
restaurant. Competitors
Rahul believed that, given the unique
nature of its offerings, Moshi had no competition; however, its
location pitted it against many other restaurants in the vicinity,
not to mention the regions covered by
restaurants that offered home
delivery. Exhibit 4 lists those restaurants that could be
considered Moshi’s
major competitors. The Problem Moshi reported a
turnover of $170,000 by December 2015, with a net
profit of
$37,000. Rahul was planning to invest an additional $400,000 to
support his expansion and
marketing plan. He realized that the menu
at Moshi served the palate of many nationalities and was not
restricted to just one, and that was how he had intended it to
be—catering to all palates; however, that
characteristic also made
it difficult to identify where Moshi’s market actually lay. Brand
identification
became tough because the expatriate community had no
understanding of the Moshi brand or menu.
While the neighboring
competitors had a very clear demarcation of their respective
clientele, Moshi had
the potential to either steal their clientele
or risk being lost in the crowd. As Rahul pondered the
possibilities for the new restaurant he wanted to open in Oud
Mehta, all these issues posed some concern.
Rahul had to think
carefully about how to market his uniquely diverse offerings to the
multicultural
population of Dubai. Was he truly in a monopolistic
market, or was that a false notion? Was Moshi’s
product range
conducive to segmentation and effective marketing? Should Moshi
restrict itself to its
unique menu, or should it expand the menu to
cater to a larger set of customers?
1. DESCRIBE the ways Rahul Sajnani, owner of Moshi, was a
hands-on entrepreneur and EXPLAIN the
problem that created.
2. IDENTIFY the challenge Moshi faced due to its menu and
DESCRIBE how it affected the marketing
strategy.
3. EVALUATE two ways Sajnani ensured Moshi’s service and staff
became the backbone of the restaurant.

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DESCRIBE the ways Rahul Sajnani, owner

of Moshi, was a hands-on entrepreneur and EXPLAIN the
problem that
created.

He was a hands-on entrepreneur because he

training his staff personally and had developed the menu
from
scratch. The problem that was created is that it left Rahul with
little time to take care of the
marketing strategy and the
branding. One of the problems is that his unique products were hard
to
market as people did not know which was good and which was not
but opening the restaurant itself was
a good idea as the menu was
very unique that served different kind of
tastes.

IDENTIFY the challenge Moshi faced due

to its menu and DESCRIBE how it affected the marketing
strategy.

The challenge that MOSHI was facing is

that it has products that were new to the market and Rahul
wasn’t
really sure how will he market the products as all of them were
unique and new to people, the
items did not have any precedent in
the market which meant all the customers did not have an idea what
was great and what was not. Basically Rahul depended on the word of
mouth publicity. The challenge
that it was facing is basically that
Rahul did not know how it will go in the market as his products
were
very unique and that’s how it affected his marketing
strategy.

EVALUATE two ways Sajnani ensured

Moshi’s service and staff became the backbone of the
restaurant.

Basically they became the backbone of the

restaurant as Rahul Sajnani trained them by himself in the
beginning giving them soft skills, good intentions in order for
them to provide the best customer service.
For an example they used
to provide customers with tea/coffee while they were waiting for
their order as
a complimentary just for the pleasure for the
customers, when customers are on a waiting list once they
get their
table their order would be ready so they don’t have to wait as
well. His employees used to
remember the names of their regular
customers as it gives some kind of satisfaction to the customers
when they come to the restaurant and feel comfortable. ( I
personally do when I go to some of my
favorite healthy restaurants
and they call me by my last name “Maslamani!”.

****Please
please please LIKE THIS ANSWER, so that I can get a small benefit,
Please****

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Q: In
February 2016, Rahul Sajnani, owner of Moshi, a fusion restaurant
in the Al Barsha area of Dubai, was pondering
ways to make people
more aware of his restaurant and its unique menu. A hands-on
entrepreneur in his twenties,
Rahul was not only involved in the
day-to-day running of his restaurant, but he personally trained his
staff and had
developed the menu from scratch. The only...

https://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/february-2016-rahul-sajnani-owner-moshi-fusion-restaurant-al-barsha-area-dubai-pondering-w-q48426971 4/6
4/21/22, 10:03 PM In February 2016, Rahul Sajnani, Owner Of Moshi, A... | Chegg.com

A: See answer
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Q: Moshi Looks to Popularize Fusion Fare in Dubai

Sandeep Puri, Kirti Khanzode, and Rahul Jain
DESCRIBE the ways
Rahul Sajnani, owner of Moshi, was a
hands-on entrepreneur and EXPLAIN the problem that
created.
IDENTIFY the
challenge Moshi faced due to its menu and
DESCRIBE how it affected the marketing strategy.
EVALUATE two ways
Sajnani ensured Moshi’s...

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