Name: Rishi Kiran AG

Student ID: ST20191874

Subject: MBA7066 New Business Project and Professional Practice
Module Leader: Prof. Elora Basumatary
Table of Contents
Table of Contents 2

Introduction 3
How it came to be - where it all started. 3
USP’s - Unique Selling Propositions 4
Reasons for selecting this business and related decisions 5

Techniques and Tools used to come up with decisions and develop a business report 6
Market research report 6
Understanding Consumer Behavior 7
Government Report 7

Application of my theoretical business learnings in the business plan 8

Marketing Management 8
Marketing Mix 8
Product - 8
Price - 8
Place - 9
Promotion - 9
Process - 9
People - 9
Physical Evidence - 9
SWOT analysis 9
Strengths - 10
Weakness - 10
Opportunities - 10
Threats - 11
Operations Management 11
Optimum Seating Arrangement and Capacity - 11
Economic Order Quantity - 11
Workflows - 12
Accounting and Finance 12
Viability/Profitability - 12
Break-even Point - 12
Human Resource 12
Manpower planning - 13
Various Laws - 13
Training and Development - 13
Ethics and Morals complied by the business 13
Employees - 14
Customers - 14
 Government - 14
Environment - 14
What has MBA taught me other than theoretical things? (Business skills) 14
Time management - 14
People Skills - 15
Contacts - 15
People Management Skills - 15
My Journey/Conclusion 15
Introduction

How it came to be - where it all started.

For me food is not something that's just for survival or just to satiate hunger, I believe food is for
the soul and not just the stomach because food is an art form that requires a lot of time, effort,
passion, and love to make it, it is cultural representation on a plate the different cultures, taste,
and ingredients used to tell us the story about the place of its origin. So in short food is an
emotion and not just a commodity. There are also several mentions of food in our ancient
literature where it is even mentioned as medicine. One of the beauties of our country is the unity
in diversity. The different places across our nation have unique cultures and traditions of which
even food is a part and we have an abundance of cuisine that is yet to be explored. Bengalis
are famous for their sweets, Andhra Pradesh is on the other side of the spectrum known for its
spicy food. Food from Himachal tends to have fewer vegetables because it is hard to grow there
and Kerala is famous for its seafood due to them residing by the sea. North Indians consume
more wheat in the rotis while South Indians consume more rice.

So in this thought process of my love for food, I realized that there is no proper multi-cuisine
restaurant where you can indulge in all the various cuisines that we have spread across our
country. So there starts my quest to open a restaurant where people can experience the
richness of culture and heritage that India has through the means of food. Then there was one
more thing that I can't wrap my head around, there is a common misconception that vegetarian
food is bland, boring, or not as tasty and that non-vegetarian food is the way to go, me having
been a vegetarian since my whole life and having enjoyed various dishes from across the nation
and even around the world I needed to prove that food is tasty because of the way it is prepared
and not because it is necessarily vegetarian or non-vegetarian. And also the rise of Veganism
as a lifestyle provided a good opportunity to grasp as there were still very few restaurants
across the country that were vegan friendly, especially ones that gave an expansive menu of
options to choose from are very rare.

So that's when “India on a Plate” came to be a Vegetarian and Vegan Restaurant where you can
gorge on the most authentic dishes from different parts of our nation mainly in a Buffet (all you
can eat) format so you can explore various dishes and experience the taste of India.

So let us start with the details about the business

Name: India on a Plate.

Tagline: Taste the Richness of Culture and Heritage.
Business: Speciality Restaurant
Industry: Food and Hospitality.
Location: Chennai, Tamilnadu, India.
Total Investment - 3Cr Approx
USP’s - Unique Selling Propositions

Access to over 25+ Indian Cuisines -

Product (variety) - Maharashtrian Cuisine, Kerala Cuisine, Bengali Cuisine, Goan Cuisine, Odia
Cuisine, Parsi Cuisine, Kashmiri Cuisine, Naga Cuisine, Sindhi Cuisine, and Udupi Cuisine to
name a few.

Multiple Themed Rooms representing different states and their culture - Ambience -
Each room will be decorated with artworks representing different cultures of a region like Tanjore
paintings, Kashmiri Carpets, Rajasthani Pottery, Warli art, kalamkari Paintings, etc

Great quality, hygienic food with authentic taste - we source the recipes and the ingredients from
the place of origin to preserve taste and authenticity and it goes through multiple quality checks
to make sure we are getting the best quality ingredients.

World-Class Service - All of our staff will be in a 6 months training regime where they not only
learn the recipes and cuisines but also hospitality and how to treat and serve customers.

Vegetarian and Vegan Options - India is the country with the most vegetarians in fact it has
more vegetarians than the rest of the world put together. And also the rise of veganism both
give us a decent chunk of the population as the audience.

Buffet Format (all-you-can-eat) - people have started getting used to the all-you-can-eat format
as they get to try a lot of dishes and also see this as a way to spend time with friends and family
and bond over food and chats.

Reasons for selecting this business and related decisions

I believe that food as a business is going to be very important and irreplaceable in the time
frame that mankind would exist because irrespective of all the technological advancements in
the future food is something which is a basic need without which humans won't be able to
survive may the format of food or way they consume might change but there always will be a
need for food and also food is a need that arises 3 times a day for an average human being.

It is also because I have a personal connection with food and the industry. I believe however
great the idea might be or however great the opportunity may be unless there is a personal
connection and unless you personally become part of the idea that business has no hope.

Veganism is a type of lifestyle where people avoid anything that comes from animals such as
leather, fur, meat, eggs, honey, dairy, etc intending to live life without harming animals and other
living beings in any form. Veganism is surging and Chennai, the location selected, is the most
vegan-friendly city in our country. Due to health and lifestyle-related reasons veganism has been
on the rise, especially after covid 19 pandemic

Even though the competition is very high in the restaurant business the profitability is also high
around 20 to 25% for a mid-sized dine-in restaurant.

Techniques and Tools used to come up with

decisions and develop a business report
One of the biggest and most important abilities of an entrepreneur is the ability and willingness
to take risks and overcome them. Risk the uncertainty or the fear of the unknown, business
environment is dynamic and cutthroat and keeps changing constantly so one must be on his
toes and must stay up to date to be proactive. Business involves a lot of decision making and
these decisions must be made on information at hand which in turn is obtained from data. So for
this business in particular what are the data, I had amassed and what techniques helped me get
said data, and what are the sources

There are mainly two types of data collection which are primary data collection and secondary
data collection

Primary data collection is the process of personally collecting the data firsthand by interacting
with people on the field or online and getting data directly. This is the best and most reliable way
but it's also a very expensive and time-consuming way of collecting data. Eg - conducting
surveys, interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, walking the market, observations, etc.

Then comes secondary data collection whereby we rely on data previously collected by others
for their use and is now published and publicly available. This is a faster and relatively much
cheaper way to collect data but we must be careful to select which data is most relevant to us
and most recent and most authentic to get the best out of it. Eg - publicly available articles,
reports, interviews, etc

Since we were clearly instructed to only rely on secondary data, I abided by the same and all
the data I collected were from

Forums
Websites
Articles
Reports
Archives
The following are sources that I have used

Market research report

Expert market research had published a detailed report on the Indian vegan food market where
they said veganism is the next big training and people are quickly adopting it for health and
lifestyle reasons and how it will apparently have a (CAGR) compounded annual growth rate of
about 26% over the years from 2022 to 2027.

They also mentioned that plant-based foods are being switched due to the rapidly growing
middle class and their disposable income, increased knowledge of trends globally, and
becoming conscious of personal health and the planet.

They also jumped into the industry as a whole and how it is growing. Who are the top players,
the market segmentation and distribution channels, etc which helped me in deciding that
providing Vegan options is the way to go?

Understanding Consumer Behavior

I also noted that people nowadays are preferring buffets ( all you can eat ) format to al a carte
and this has been proven by various reports and articles one that really caught my eye is the
one published in restaurant India. in they published an article where restaurants have opened
buffet format again after the pandemic and the response from people has been very good and
walk-ins have increased tremendously. The report was based on Ohri groups restaurants
namely Ohri's eatmor, Sahib BBQ, and Nautanki Galli.

It had reported buffet format is great as people enjoy it very much and even the profitability is
high so it's a win-win situation

It also reports how buffet format-based restaurants have reached 80 to 90% of pre-covid level
occupancies which is much more than restaurants that are ala carte based.

Also, one more Article by Livemint.com established a research report that people prefer to order
at home than go to a la carte restaurants but another report suggested that Dinner Buffets are
the time when crowd and footfall are the most.

Government Reports
And if you remember in the beginning I spoke about how food is not only for survival/hunger. An
NRAI - National Restaurants Association of India Report claims that millennials used food as a
way to beat stress. The report is formed after conducting this study on 3500 customers across
130 restaurants across 24 cities. They say on average participants spend around 3000 every
month on restaurants.

Application of my theoretical business learnings in

the business plan

Marketing Management
Marketing is the process that starts right from understanding the needs of the consumer and the
problem he is facing, to developing a solution (product or service), to make sure that it is
properly communicated to the consumer and that it reaches the consumer at the right place,
price and time. So you can say marketing is right from the start of the business process till the
end of it.

Being a Marketing major and a person who is very much passionate about marketing this is
where most of the theoretical applications came from. I had applied the following theories in the
process of developing this business plan.

I have used the following concepts to understand and make decisions regarding the business

Marketing Mix

The 7 P’s - there are & P’s when it comes to marketing which is called the marketing mix where
all are important factors to be considered so that the business becomes a hit. It used to be the 4
P’s but with service also in consideration, it became 7P’s which are

Product -
the product is the Product/service that you are providing as a solution to the consumer’s
problem. Here in the restaurant business even it's both. Here the Quality of the food and service
and Taste need to be perfect for success. (creation of value)

Price -
Price is what you ask in return for providing said product/service to the consumer usually money
or money's worth. Here you have to nail the price as it may make or break a product because
there is a lot of competition and people are price conscious, remember the law of demand?
Higher the price, lower the demand, and vice versa. Various theories within pricing would help
you understand where you and your product stand and how to price effectively. Here I have
priced food at what usually is prevailing in the market. (Delivering value)

Place -
The place is very important as however great your product might be unless it is accessible and
reaches the hands of the consumer there won't be any sales. So here I have chosen Chennai
as it is an upmarket metropolitan city with lots of middle-class people and vegetarians and
vegans. (accessibility of value)

Promotion -
Promotion is the process of communicating to the consumers the existence, use cases, and
why they need the product/service. It is the process of reaching out and convincing people.
(communication of value)

Process -
The process is anything that is involved in the process of delivering the goods or services to the
consumer and results in the creation of an experience. Here it involves everything from reaching
the restaurant to paying the bill and leaving. We have to make it smooth and simple to not make
the consumer confused or make him put extra effort.

People -
People refer to all the people that are involved in making sure the product/service reaches the
customer. So it's basically all your employees and staff who are involved in rendering such
service or creating/delivering the product. Here it includes staff such as receptionists, managers,
servers, cooks, etc. they add the human touch to business and are points of interaction with
customers either directly or indirectly.

Physical Evidence -
When you are a business that renders services or if you are a professional, there is very little
tangibility to it so that's where physical evidence comes in which reassures your customers
about the quality of your service. Eg here is the ambiance - the furniture, crockery, artworks,
decor, etc.

SWOT analysis
As discussed before Business World is highly volatile and Dynamic and one needs to be up to
date so he can always make the right decisions. Here there are two environments - internal and
external. The internal environment refers to all the factors which influence the business but are
controllable eg - employees, management, etc. While the external environment includes all
factors which influence the business but are out of its control eg - government, customers,
competition, etc.

SWOT Analysis is the short form of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It is
the analysis of both these internal and external environments. Whereby Strengths are positive
factors in the internal environment while Weaknesses are negative factors in the internal
environment. Opportunities are positive factors that are part of the external environment and
threats are negative external factors.

Let us see the SWOT analysis of our Business

Strengths -

Authentic, High-Quality Food from multiple cuisines under one roof -

People can enjoy various cuisines from around the country with tastes as authentic as possible
and in a buffet format allowing them to easily explore various options.

Ambiance -
Segmenting the restaurant into multiple segments representing the different cultures with
artwork and decor gives a very premium and rich ambiance.
One of the very few Vegan restaurants

Service -
Highly trained polite staff who will assure customers get the best experience possible.

Weakness -

Restricting us to serving only Vegetarian and Vegan dishes -

Even though India has the most number of vegetarians still the majority of the population are
non-vegetarians. And even though veganism is rapidly growing it's still just a small chunk of the
population (5 million).

Pricing -
Even though the pricing is reasonable it's still a Mid-sized restaurant meaning only the people
from the middle class or above would be our target audience which means we will lose a major
chunk of the audience who are below the middle class.
Opportunities -

Collaborations -
Collaborating with high-end party halls and event organizers to provide food for events.
Trying to collaborate with the tourism department of India to help tourists experience and
appreciate our culture through food and sovereigns etc.

Expansion -
Slowly expanding into food trucks and smaller restaurants in tier 2 and tier 3 cities in the coming
years once properly established.

Threats -

Easily Imitable -
As our restaurant doesn't have any specific technology or business model which can be
patented, it can be easily copied by competitors or newcomers which will result in chipping away
from our customer base.

Calamities -
Let us take the latest example of covid, the hotel industry was hit hard and lost a lot of revenue,
some faced heavy losses, and some even closed their businesses.

Operations Management
Operations Management helps ensure the proper and smooth flow of business to help reach
optimal performance and productivity without any bottlenecks. Multiple theories helped me in
formulating the business plan such as

Optimum Seating Arrangement and Capacity -

There needs to be enough seating capacity so that it is spacious and that the service level is
optimal. It helps us to avoid over or under seating capacity. So according to expected food fall,
time is taken to make and serve food, etc we came up with optimal seating capacity and where
to place the seats to strike a balance between profitability and customer comfort and
convenience.

Economic Order Quantity -

Since we source our ingredients from the place of origin of the cuisine we weren't able to use
just the time system for supplies so we had to order from time to time. Operations management
helped us calculate the economic ordering quantity considering the suppliers, transporters, time
to deliver, holding costs, etc which helped reduce wastage, helped save money from being
locked as ingredients unnecessarily, and being able to plan and get into contracts early on.

Workflows -
Knowing the optimal process workflow helped us design the kitchen in such a way so that it's
most optimal to reduce time wastage and increase productivity. This helped us decide where to
place the walk-in freezer, the ovens, the stoves, the tandoor, etc so that all follow a proper
process and help achieve optimal performance of kitchen staff with the least issues.

Accounting and Finance

The main focus or motive of any business is profitability, business is the process of doing
something to make money. So money is one of the most important aspects of any business. So
the theories we learned in accounting and finance were very crucial. The following are the ways
in which knowledge of accounting and finance helped me out during the process of creating the
business plan.

Viability/Profitability -
It helped me compare various investments vs profit basically risk and return, it helped me see all
the hidden costs that can only be understood when we put everything in accounting statements
and terms it helped me choose the best interest rates for the loan, what is the expected rate of
return, what is the operating costs what are the fixed and variable elements of the cost, etc
which helped me theoretically run the business on paper and let me know whether it was
viable/profitable and whether it was worth the time, money and efforts that we invest in a
business.

Break-even Point -
Breakeven means no profit or no loss. The breakeven point is the time taken for the business to
get back the amount invested in it initially. This is helpful in financially planning for it as we get to
know approximately around what period we can recover the money we invested in the business
and also choose loan options according to it or plan for expansion according to it. Basically the
less the time to break even the better the business is. Here my restaurant breaks even by the
end of the 2nd year which is very decent considering that the investment is high.
Human Resource
Human resource is very critical in every business as no business can operate without human
interaction. It adds the human touch to the business. It is even more important in business
which is more service-oriented like ours as the customer interaction is more.

It helped me with various theories which in turn helped me figure out

Manpower planning -
It is the process of identifying how many people would the organization require, in what roles
and with what responsibilities, what are the skills and abilities necessary for someone to perform
in that role, etc. this makes sure that we are overstaffed or understaffed and also find the right
amount and right kind of people for the job.

Various Laws -
Our employees are the face of the organization and are important for the smooth operation of
our business so we need to take proper care of them by following all laws regarding salaries
and wages, workplace ethics, having a supportive and peaceful work environment, etc

Training and Development -

The employees need to be given proper training and development for both achieving their work
goals properly and also for their own personal growth. This ensures we are happy (productivity),
customers are happy with the service experience they get and the employee is happy as he
feels he is learning and growing and gets challenging tasks.

So the above represents just a few but not all of the academic and theoretical knowledge gained
during the course of my MBA that helped me in properly planning for the business.

Ethics and Morals complied by the business

A person without ethics and morals isn't fit for the society and is of no use to humanity, the same
applies to businesses, even though the main motive of any business is to make money it should
be over its morals and ethics. The following are ethics and morals that my business will abide by
Employees -
Employees will be properly trained
Employees will be properly rewarded/compensated
Employees will have a good and safe working environment
Employees will mutually grow along with the organization
Employees will be treated properly and not misused

Customers -
Customers will get the best service possible
Customers will be treated properly
Customers will get good quality and hygienic food

Government -
The business will comply with all rules and regulations laid down by the government and will be
transparent to it.

Environment -
The business will make sure the environment is protected and taken care of, there will be proper
waste management, and that all processes and technology involved will have the least
environmental impact possible.

What has MBA taught me other than theoretical

things? (Business skills)
So we saw what are the academic learnings that were useful for the business plan but that can
be obtained through any other course as well but the beauty of an MBA comes with the practical
and real-world stuff that it teaches us the following are a few things that MBA had taught be that
is useful everywhere but was also used in this business planning.

Time management -
Well I used to be a happy-go-lucky guy and punctuality or timeliness wasn't really my cup of tea
but that also didn't seem like a weakness to me as I previously did not have any consequences
which affected me by being so, but after starting my MBA course I learned the value of time
there were multiple subjects I had to focus on and various deadlines that were approaching so I
just can't keep on going with the flow any more that is when I slowly started learning the skill of
time management where I started scheduling things so that I finish things on time and at a
satisfactory level while also having enough time to destress, relax and spend time with friends. I
could no longer just procrastinate things to the last minute where I start stressing and have to
burn the midnight oil which end up affecting the quality of the work as well. In the end, I still did
have fun, I completed my work as well as did better even if I say so myself.

People Skills -
To be honest I consider myself to always have been a people person and a guy with good
people skills but after starting my MBA course I realized that I lacked on the formal part of
people skills and that I have two main communication gaps one is that I needed to be concise
as I tend to explain everything in detail or so long that it gets boring so it taught me to be precise
and concise. The second is that I tend to speak so fast that people found it hard to understand
me this is somewhere that I am still working on but realizing and accepting it was the first step
and I have reduced the pace of my speech by a good bit. One more thing regarding the same is
I was taught knowing Tamil and English is enough and it might be but just knowing more
languages can bridge more communication gaps and can be seen from an empathetic way as
well, learning more languages is not gonna hurt might as well learn it and make more friends.

Contacts -
It taught me the importance of contacts, sure I could have learned all the theories elsewhere but
I wouldn't have met so many amazing people from different backgrounds and stories and with
different skill sets in fact I learned a lot from my peers this is a treasure chest waiting to be
opened once we hit the corporate world running these people would be there to help each other
out and also it taught me the importance of perspectives as nothing is 100% right we just
needed to analyze things from different perspectives before coming to a decision.

People Management Skills -

Throughout the MBA I have worked in multiple teams and as a leader in multiple teams, I have
also had the privilege of having been a subject and class representative. This meant I had to
interact with so many people for formal/official reasons and also act as a bridge between them
so I learned how to get work done as a team, how to get work done by someone, and how to
communicate in a manner that can resolve disputes, etc. these might seem like people skills but
this is more, people skills are generally at a person at a more informal level but here it is more
managerial or official level and even kind of learning leadership skills.
My Journey/Conclusion
When I joined my MBA I had a lot of hope and dreams and I expected a lot, but it was once I
joined the course I realized that there are a lot of things to learn and grow, and there were a lot
of shortcomings that I had which I realized and have overcome or in the process of overcoming,
there were lots of skills/talents that I never knew I had which revealed themselves, there is a lot
of academic/theoretical learnings through the countless hours of classes, workshops, research
papers, etc but the best of all is the management skills that I learned and the people I met. I met
a lot of great teachers and mentors, I met a lot of friends some worthy of spending a lifetime
with and learned a lot of things that are practical and relevant and as close as possible to the
real world.

Overall I would say I have come out a better and a much-learned person than I was, in the
beginning, it has been a rollercoaster of a ride full of emotions and learning and memories, due
to covid 19 pandemic we had a hybrid form of learning and got to experience both sides of it
and how to tackle problems and the world keeps moving on what may, I learned even though
from different parts of the country we can still connect and work together and form bonds. I don't
think I can verbally properly express my feeling enough, so I end by saying that I am happy that
I made the plunge to do an MBA because it was a lot more than I realized it was and I mean in a
good way. I would like to thank my parents, teachers, mentors, friends, and non-teaching staff
for helping me finish the MBA and become the person I am now.
References
https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/marketing-sales/marketing-promotion/marketi
ng-basics/seven-ps-marketing

https://www.expertmarketresearch.com/reports/india-vegan-food-market

https://restaurant.indianretailer.com/article/buffets-are-back-adhering-to-the-safety-norms.13840

https://lifestyle.livemint.com/health/fitness/why-are-increasing-numbers-of-indians-turning-vegan
-111639901522391.html