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Once the target audience is chosen, then comes the next ‘P’ – Product and in service industry like restaurant the product comprises both food and ambience, which again has to be chosen as per the target audience needs. But be very sure to be unique in your product offerings. And if you can’t find such USP, in that case give service a personal touch, as much as it’s possible like remembering the guest name, his preferences, et al. To give personal touch, start highlighting your key chefs, who can personally mingle with the guest. But then, remember whatever USP you create, it can be easily copied by others. So constantly nurture it. For instance, organise food festivals. In fact, in The Oberoi School I train people specifically on how to organise food festivals cashing in on festivals like Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi, et al.

But that’s not the only two crucial imperatives to create a successful restaurant brand. In fact, if that was the case then many entrepreneurs who had other ventures too would have been successful here as being expert in other business they would certainly know the art of creating USP with the right target audience. So, the next biggest challenge is to find a good location for your restaurant. In fact, 50% of Indian restaurants shut down because of the location problem as unlike other businesses here you can’t sell your product through other retail stores. All the five star hotels are very fussy in choosing their locations, but at the same time a five star hotel chain (like ITC) with two hotels at different locations in the same city, might end up having huge difference in revenues from both the hotels and all because of their locations. So choose your location carefully. Agreed that often cost of prime location is too high, in that case concentrate only on one restaurant and don’t think of expansion in the initial phase. Because remember, we are talking about a standalone restaurant concept and why shall people come to you if the location is not comfortable or is unattractive.

Locations, USP, target audience are something which Asian nations like Singapore have been stressing on and when I was working on creating restaurants like Kinara and Hazara, in this country I noticed that by banking on all these three attributes we were able to attract huge tourist from the very beginning. Also when it comes to India remember there’s another value addition that we can do to create a brand and that lies in another ‘P’ – People. Pay your employees more than the market rate and acknowledge their work so that they can feel for the brand. In service industry it’s very necessary that you sustain and nurture talent and see the wonders they do for the brand.

But once the brand is created the next challenge is to sustain its consistency and change menu to be competitive. This is where your people could be helpful, listen to them. Priya Paul is always open to suggestions and that’s the reason The Park restaurants in Kolkata are always full of people. So like any venture, creating a restaurant brand also depends on Ps like – Product (and its USP), Place (location), People (your team) and of course, the target audience.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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