A new food experience has been launched in the town of Ngaoundéré (read GA-UN-DAE-RAE), Cameroon, with the firm expectation of becoming within five (5) years the leader in the catering market for high-school and college students in Cameroon.
Because of the steady growth of the segment population in the last couple of years, the new social enterprise, RESTORAMA, has chosen the segment of high-school and university students as its niche market.
Competition Analysis
The segment of high-school and university students is currently served by a variety of suppliers, from mobile food caterers, to premium food restaurants:
- Mobile food merchants. Those are informal mobile food caterers. They are usually carrying their food products on a plate positioned on top of their heads, or pushing a car containing the food products. The food products provided by this category of suppliers are mostly of relatively low quality. However the strongest points of the mobile food merchants are: (1) the proximity to the customers (they carry their products from one part of the town to another), (2) the speedy service (the food products are usually pre cooked and pre package), (3) the price (they sell at the lowest price of the market);
- Street restaurants. Usually at every street corner of the town, there are informal restaurants proposing meals in a private home or within a wooden kiosk. Their competitive advantage consists of: (1) the social and lightweight environment, (2) the price (relatively cheap), and (3) the diversity of the food products provided (most traditional meals are here provided);
- Premium restaurants. They are restaurants located mostly in the central, and rich, part of the town. They are characterized by (1) a relatively high quality of the food products, (2) a premium customer service and (3) the variety of the menus proposed to the customers.
From the competitive analysis of the food market, it appears that the current competition in the catering market for students in the town of Ngaoundéré (read GA-UN-DAE-RAE) possesses the following strengths and weaknesses:
- Strengths. The only and important strength of the current competition is the price, which is low for most of the food suppliers in the market segment;
- Weaknesses. The catering business in the town is still in its primitive stage having the weaknesses common to most embryonic markets: (1) lack of delivery service, (2) no or little proximity with the customers, (3) the poor quality of the food products delivered to the customers.
Product
The problems, previously identified of the current catering market for high-school and college students in the town of Ngaoundéré (read GA-UN-DAE-RAE), provide the new social enterprise, RESTORAMA, with a tremendous opportunity for value creation, both for the company and for the local social environment. RESTORAMA intends to grasp this opportunity through an ambitious, yet realistic, marketing strategy.
The marketing strategy that will be presented here consists of three parts: (1) a clear competitive advantage, or competitive positioning, against the current competition, (2) a new slogan, and finally (3) a new buyer experience solving most of the hurdles present in the current market.
The competitive advantage chosen by the new enterprise, RESTORAMA, is made of three distinctive advantages in comparison to the current competition:
- Proximity. Through the use of kiosks, rather than renting spaces, RESTORAMA guarantees its closeness with the target customers: being where the customers are, as close as possible;
- Quality. Only fresh food is served to customers. Food leftovers are distributed to local charitable organizations providing food for orphans. Because of the operational strategy presented below, the percentage of leftovers is as low as possible;
- Price. Since the target customers are high-school and university students usually coming from modest families, RESTORAMA chooses to provide its food products at the lowest prices of the market.
In order to communicate, its new marketing strategy to its customers, RESTORAMA has the following slogan: energizing your day.