Introduction

Business name- African kitchen in Toronto

Societal level

At this level, it is important to understand each of the political, economic, social, technological,
environmental, and legal (PESTEL) factors—and, more specifically, the trends affecting those
factors—that will have an impact on a food and diary vendor of an African kitchen on a
particular idea. Some venture ideas might be screened-out and others might be worth pursuing at
a particular time because of the trends occurring with those PESTEL factors.

Political environment of a modern democratic state is made up of three major political

institutions

a. legislature - includes Parliament and legislative assemblies, which are the main decision and
law making bodies of the country in Canada and laws on food in Canada.

b. Executive – Government & bureaucracy agency on food importation in Toronto Canada

c. Judiciary –Supreme Court, High Court and other courts permits importation of African food
in Canada .

Economic and socio cultural

Economic conditions in the market

•Economic policies of the Canada government affecting importation of African food .

•Economic system of the country –Socialist, Capitalist, Mixed Economy that permits foreign
food in Canada.

•Exporters should know the economic system of the foreign markets

Social -cultural environment

Consists of culture, traditions, values, buying habits, consumption patterns and lifestyles of a
society
•These elements influence the buying behavior of the members of the society.

•Culture determines the types of goods and services a business should produce.

• It refers to people’s attitude to work and wealth; role of family, marriage, religion and
education; ethical issues and social responsiveness of business.

Technology

Technology is seen from the following perspective -

• knowledge, tools, techniques, and actions on food processing in Canada

• used to transform material, information, and other inputs into finished goods and services on
foreign foods in Canada

• plays pivotal role in creating and changing an organization’s task environment

• Today’s technology is tomorrows junk

• New techniques in African food production process in order to ensure quality and innovation

• New and better technology helps in minimizing costs, reducing wastages and upgradation as
they spend crores of rupees on research and development and introduce new products.

Legal environment

It refers to set laws, regulations which influence the business organizations and their operations.

This environment aims at:

• Protecting Canada consumer interest

• Better utilization of natural resources for African food processing

• Protection and preservation of the ecological balance

• Control of environmental pollution emanating from processing kitchen food

• Prevention of unfair competition from foreign kitchen in Canada

Societal level analysis

Using an appropriate tool like the PESTEL model to assess both the current situation and the
likely changes as they may affect the business organization.

 Political factors – federal & provincial & municipal government policy, nature of
political decisions, potential political changes, infrastructure plans, etc.

 Economic factors – bank interest rates, inflation rates, exchange rates, tax rates, GDP
growth, health of the economy, etc.
 Social factors –population characteristics like age distribution and education levels,
changes in demand for types of products and services, etc.

 Technological factors – new processes, new products, infrastructure, etc.

 Environmental factors – effects of climate/weather, water availability, smog and
pollution issues, etc.
 Legal factors – labor laws, minimum wage rates, liability issues, etc.

Assess the impact these trends have upon the venture:

 Do the trends uncover opportunities and threats?

 Can opportunities be capitalized on?
 Can problems be mitigated?
 Can the venture be sustained?

Industry level

The first stage of industry analysis is to identify the key elements of the industry’s structure. In
principle, this is a simple task. It requires identifying who are the main players – the producers,
the customers, the suppliers, and the producers of substitute goods – then examining some of the
key structural characteristics of each of these groups that will determine competition and
bargaining power.
In most manufacturing industries the identity of the different groups of players is usually
straightforward, in other industries – particularly in service industries – building a picture of
the industry may be more difficult. Consider the television industry. There are a number of
different types of player and establishing which are buyers, which are sellers, and where the
industry boundaries lie is not simple. In terms of industry definition, do we consider all forms of
TV distribution or identify separate industries for broadcast TV, cable TV, and satellite TV? In
terms of identifying buyers and sellers, we see that there the industry has quite a complex value
chain with the producers of the individual shows, networks that put together program schedules,
and local broadcasting and cable companies that undertake final distribution. For the distribution
companies there are two buyers – viewers and advertisers.

This level focus more specifically on the sector of the economy in which you intend to operate.
Again, the right analysis tool must be used for the assessment to be effective and avoid technical
jargon (i.e. threat of new entrants) and use simpler wording (i.e. difficulty of entering the market)
or flip to an analysis of the threat (i.e. strategies to establish and maintain market share).

Industry level analysis

Using an appropriate tool like the Five Forces Model (Porter, 1985) to analyze the industry in
which you expect to operate.

Porter identifies four structural variables influencing competition and profitability.

In practice, there are many features of an African kitchen industry that determine the
intensity of competition and the level of profitability. A helpful, widely used framework
for classifying and analyzing these factors was developed by Michael Porter of Harvard
Business School.

Porter’s Five Forces of Competition framework views the profitability of an industry (as
indicated by its rate of return on capital relative to its cost of capital) as determined by five
sources of competitive pressure. These five forces of competition include three sources of
“horizontal” competition: competition from substitutes, competition from entrants, and
competition from established rivals two sources of “vertical” competition: the power of suppliers
and power of buyers.
Perfect competition oligopoly duopoly monopoly

Many African kitchen in Canada Few Two One

No barriers Significant barriers High barriers
Homogenous products Product differentiation
No information holding Imperfect information availability

 Horizontal relationships – threat of substitutes, rivalry among existing competitors,

threat of new entrants in food and drinks in Canada
 Vertical Relationships – bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers
from the African continent.

The strength of each of these competitive forces is determined by a number of key structural
variables, as shown below

Market level

At the market level, use a tool to generate information about the part of the food industry in
which your business will compete in Toronto Canada . This tool might be in the form of a set of
questions designed to uncover information that you need to know to help develop plans to
improve the success of your proposed venture.

Market level analysis

Prior to a new business start-up, the customers that the new business wishes to attract either
already purchase the product or service from a competitor to the new business—or they do not
yet purchase the product or service at all. A new venture’s customers, therefore, must come from
one of two sources: they must a) be attracted away from existing (direct) competitors or b) be
convinced to make different choices about where they spend their money so they purchase the
new venture’s product or service instead of spending their money in other ways (with indirect
competitors). An entrepreneur must decide from which source they will attract their customers,
and how they will do so. They must understand the competitive environment.

Using an appropriate method like a market profile analysis to assess the position within the
industry in which you expect to operate.

Determine the answers to questions like the following:

How attractive is the market?

In what way are competitors expected to respond if you enter the market?

What is the current size of the market and how large is it expected to be?

What are the current and projected growth rates?

At what stage of the development cycle is the market on food from africa?

What level of profits can be expected in the market?

What proportion of the market can be captured? What will be the cost to capture this proportion
and what is the cost to capture the proportion required for business sustainability

According to Porter (1996), strategy is about doing different things than competitors or doing
similar things but in different ways. To develop an effective strategy, an entrepreneur must
understand the competition.

 To understanding the competitive environment, entrepreneurs must do the following:

 determine who their current direct and indirect competitors are and who the future
competitors will be
 understand the similarities and differences in quality, price, competitive advantages, and
other factors their proposed business and the existing competitors
 establish whether they can offer different products or services—or the same products or
services in different ways—to attract enough customers to meet their goals
 anticipate how the competitors will react in response to the new venture’s entry into the
market.
Firm level

At a firm level, both the internal organizational trends and the external market profile trends
should both of food supply to both Africans and foreign nationals analyzed. There are several
tools for conducting an internal organizational analysis, and normally you should normally apply
several of them.

Firm level analysis

There are several tools available for firm-level analysis, and usually several of them should be
applied because they serve different purposes.

A strength and weakness analysis was undertaken for three dish types, namely meat,
vegetable and dairy dishes with a view to determine the strengths, and weaknesses of
the ethnic cuisine and perceived improvement requirements to enhance
Internationalization

Weakness and strength of African kitchen in Toronto

Meat vegetable Dairy

Weak improvement weak

improvement

Core competency

For any organization, its core competency refers to the capabilities, knowledge, skills and
resources that constitute its "defining strength." A company's core competency is distinct, and
therefore not easily replicated by other organizations, whether they're existing competitors or
new entrants into its market.

Alexander and Martin (2013) state that the competitiveness of a company is based on the ability
to develop core competences. A core competence is, for example, a specialized knowledge,
technique, or skill. The core capability is the management ability to develop, out of the core
competences, core products and new business. Competence building is, therefore, an outcome of
strategic architecture which must be enforced by top management in order to exploit its full
capacity.

Core competencies are related to a firm's product portfolio via core products. Prahalad and
Hamel (1990) defined core competencies as the engines for the development of core products
and services. Competencies are the roots of which the corporation grows, like a tree whose fruit
are end products.

Core products contribute "to the competitiveness of a wide range of end products. They are the
physical embodiment of core competencies." Approaches for identifying product portfolios with
respect to core competencies and vice versa have been developed in recent years. One approach
for identifying core competencies with respect to a product portfolio has been proposed by
Danilovic & Leisner (2007)

core competencies can also be skills and abilities. We’ll get into some real-life examples of
business core competencies that aren’t products and services in just a bit, but first, here’s a list of
common core competencies:

 Consistently high quality

 Incomparable value
 Ceaseless innovation
 Clever, successful marketing
 Great customer service
 Formidable size and buying power
Personal core competencies can also involve highly industry-specific skills. For instance, if you
work in information technology (IT), you may excel at certain computer languages or have
unique experience working with certain types of customers.

Every skill someone lists on their résumé is a personal core competency, and chances are good
that when you identify a job applicant with personal core competencies matching your
organizational goals, you’ll move them to the top of the list. Here are some examples of common
personal core competencies:

 Strategic planning
 Excellent organization skills
 Leadership and personnel management
 Project management
 Attention to detail

Founder fit

Founder-market fit is an innate, unfair advantage that sets founders apart from their competitors.
Accelerators and Early Stage VCs often look for it when evaluating founders for potential
investments.

Summary

African ethnic cuisine is largely at stage one of Internationalization. Evidence from

the west Africa case study suggests that African ethnic cuisine still has limited exposure to
international clientele and by implication low levels of acceptance. African cuisine still largely
relies on international visitors to Africa for tourism, business or foreign armies to obtain
exposure. As a result, African ethnic cuisine, on the whole, still has three more levels of
Internationalization to achieve namely: opening of ethnic restaurants in metropolitan cities
across the world (Van Esterik,1992) to raise international popularity; increasing concentration
of ethnic restaurants in metropolitan cities combined with global marketing to non-African
audiences (Sunanta, 2005) and lastly, international publication of cuisine cookbooks and
other literature (Osseo-Assare, 2006). Additionally, it is suggested by the case study
evidence that the brand strength of African ethnic cuisine is still weak to very weak. Brand
strength mainly in terms of the food quality appeal, presentation attractiveness and
consistency, as well as cultural identity of restaurant environments and service facilities
(Pierson et al. 2005) were mainly mild across all the three cuisine types implying
improvement in Internationalization prospects requires addressing those key aspects.
Furthermore, other restaurant factors mainly poor quality of customer care, low level of
training and use of unqualified staff appeared as strong weaknesses

References

Alexander, A. & Martin, D. (2013). "Intermediaries for open innovation: A competence-based

comparison of knowledge transfer offices practices". Technological Forecasting & Social
Change. 80: 38–49

Danilovic, M., & Leisner, P. (2007). "Analyzing core competence and core products for
developing agile and adaptable corporation." In Proceedings of the 9th Dependency Structure
Matrix (DSM) International Conference, 16–18, Munich, Germany

Prahalad, C.; Hamel, G. (1990). "The core competence of the corporation". Harvard Business
Review. 68: 79–91.