Mr.

Brown Bakery Live Case Study

MR. BROWN BAKERY

Case objective
To effectively double the current footfall at Mr. Brown Bakery in the span of two to three months. This footfall can be in the form of online transactions as well as retail billing in each of the stores. The term footfall shall, for the purposes of this case study, refer to the number of receipts produced per customer in a day.

Case Background
Mr. Brown Bakery is a chain of bakeries operational in the northern part of India, with stores being located in Lucknow and Kanpur. This case study focuses on the operations of the Lucknow outlets, of which there are four. Mr. Brown Bakery also runs an online portal, through which customers can order and purchase products from the bakery. The increase in footfall shall focus on these four Lucknow outlets as well as the online portal. Mr. Brown Bakery prides itself on the excellent quality and consistency of its products, having used only the best and freshest of ingredients till date and looking to further improve its quality through importing even purer raw materials from abroad. Revenue trend per store: The revenue is approximately Rs 150 to 160 per customer. Branch Number of Bills/Customers Aliganj 30,000 bills per month Sapru Marg 25,000 customers per month Gomti Nagar 525 bills per day

Revenue (per month) Rs. 48 lakh Rs. 42 lakh Rs. 25 lakh

Constraints
The following are some of the main constraints faced by the organization: 1. Human Resources the procurement of skilled and talented chefs, who play a key role in the retention of customers through establishing quality. In addition, owing to the wealth of competition existent in this industry, there is also a need for excellent marketers and financial analysts to ensure the smooth running of the business. Cleaning staff is very difficult to procure and the cleaners who seek employment are untrained. The budget does not allow the bakery to assign an exclusive supervisor for the cleaners alone. 2. No discounts/loyalty cards Mr. Brown Bakery does not currently indulge in discounts, loyalty cards or in the setting up of stalls in college fests. It is not planned to include these strategies in the near foreseeable future either. 3. ERP No ERP currently in use. There is no information flow as per the ideal industry practice. There is no guidance what IT solution is the best for future growth. There is no manpower training. 4. Expense Guidelines There is no guidance on the ideal expense of manpower, fuel, maintenance, food costs or packaging. 5. Diminishing exclusiveness Sharing of packager with other food outlets. Management invests in a lot of R & D and gets packaging done from abroad Europe, China etc and this is duplicated in six months by the competition. Product exclusiveness is also diminishing. Copy cats are coming out with similar presentations but not the same quality. They are under-cutting rates. Mr. Brown wants their customers to become a slave to their taste, hygiene and service.

Mr. Brown Bakery Live Case Study 6. Franchise Model The biggest constraint is that despite huge demand from various cities in Uttar Pradesh , Mr. Brown does not have a foolproof franchise model to expand rapidly. The existing model is a combination of the ones followed by McDonalds, Dominos and the retail chain concept. This is due to a lack of guidance on the subject. Therefore, the distribution of fresh food products to the outlets every morning, which is their USP, is restrained. The perishable nature of the food is a primary concern.

Current Product Line

Average sales per day( in terms of pieces) Category/Product Number of pieces/packets sold Pastries 1200 pieces Cakes 1 kg 60 cakes Cakes 500gms 150 cakes Puddings 400 pieces Fruit custards 300 pieces Chocolates 500 pieces Gift packs 30 packets Burgers 1200 pieces Pizzas 100 pieces Sandwiches 150 pieces Readymade snacks 2400 pieces Beverages 230 glasses Cookies 400 kilos Breads 2000 pieces Per day sales as per above figures is 4,09,000 lakh a day or 14cr avg per annum. Mr brown is also the pioneer in the baked mithai segment; items such as baked gujjia and baked mithai baklava are among their hits. Price per unit Rs 32 Rs 500/kg Rs 225 Rs 40 Rs. 40 Rs 8 Rs 300 Rs 25 Rs 110 Rs 40 Rs 30 Rs 50 Rs 240/kg Rs 20

Current Marketing Practices Followed

Customers Attracted/Target Segment High-end, middle-class and upper-middle class customers who value quality. E.g. bank officials etc. Marketing Currently done through radio city, hoardings across Lucknow and newspaper ads only during festivals like Diwali, Dusehrra, Holi, Christmas, Rakhi , New Year etc. Market Research/Customer Follow-up There is currently one employee in the customer care department who takes all calls 10 am to 7pm. She sends out sms and emails, and calls back the customer who has filled up the feedback form. She calls on people who book cakes of 1kg and above. She spends 3 hours in the evening at the outlet to take feedback from the customers and hold promotional events like guess the weight of the cake, lucky draw, or interact with the guests.

Mr. Brown Bakery Live Case Study

Hints, Benefits and Rewards

The case will be designed around the constraints currently faced by Mr. Brown bakery. Teams of four members each will be invited to produce detailed and implementable solutions for the case problem, viz. that of nearly doubling the current footfall in the Lucknow branches of Mr. Brown Bakery. Teams shall interact with Mr. Vikas Malik, Head of Marketing and Sales, Northern Region, Mr. Brown Bakery and any other employees of Mr. Brown Bakery, in order to gather information to arrive at an informed solution to the case. The original debriefing shall be organized by Team PRiSM, following which the teams may interact with Mr. Brown Bakery as per their requirements. The best three teams shall be chosen by Mr. Vikas Malik at the end of the stipulated period, through a review of all the submitted case reports. These three teams will then make a presentation of their solutions, during which the practicality of each of the solutions will be thoroughly examined by the board of Mr. Brown Bakery. The final winner and runner-up will then be chosen from among these top three teams. A cash prize of Rs. 15,000 for the best solution and Rs. 10,000 for the next best solution shall be awarded by Mr. Brown bakery.

Timeline
Stage Team Registrations First Stage Submission Second Stage Submission Final Presentation Details of submission Deadline nd 2 March 3-slide ppt on Plan of Action (after the initial 6th March debriefing by Mr. Vikas Malik) Final deliverables 17th March To the Board of Directors of Mr. Brown 18th March, 2012