GET YOUR PARTNER TO ANALYZE AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS GIVEN.

  SUBMIT WITH YOUR

NAMES ON TOP OF YOUR ANSWER SHEET.

CASE STUDY: TAYLOR CUISINE CAFÉ & CATERING INC.

                Karen Taylor grew up working in her family’s restaurant business in Westchester, New York
getting to know every aspect of running a restaurant. At one time or another, she did everything
from cooking to dishwashing to running the register. Despite of this background or because of it,
she chose not to take over a business when her father was getting ready to retire. She had graduated
from Franklin Pierce University (New Hampshire) with a degree in business management and was
ready to tackle the business world. For the next 20 years she worked for a variety of companies
including Bell south Atlanta, Georgie.  As an account executive at Bell South, she loved her job, but
found during the last couple of years that her passion had shifted from telecommunication to food.
                Over the years she had hosted numerous events at her home. She constantly had guests
ask her about catering services. This success, her background in food preparation, and her growing
interest encouraged her to pursue this area. She started a part time catering business and began
working on a volunteer basis at The Cook’s Warehouse.  The Cooks Warehouse is award winning
culinary store and teaching school in Atlanta where celebrity chefs regularly offer their expertise. She
found herself really enjoying her time associated with food more and more, which lead her to think
more about opening a restaurant.
                Karen’s parents had retired to the beach community of Southport, North Carolina, and her
father kept talking to her about the lack of a good breakfast and lunch places in the area. Karen
started considering a move to the area and opening a place, but was not sure where she might
locate it.
                A restaurant on the main street in Southport has been a poorly run Chinese restaurant for
some time when it was purchase by two Vietnamese sisters. The sisters renovated the location and
put in brand-new, state-of-the-art-kitchen appliances. The two had a very different approach to
running the business and the result was that the business was run very intermittently. Sometimes it
was open on a particular day and sometimes it was not.  Karen visited the restaurant for lunch one
day less than six months after the Vietnamese restaurant has opened. The sisters showed her the
whole place and asked her if she wanted. Karen talked it over her parents and they finance her to
start-up. Taylor Cuisine and Café & Catering was about to become a reality.
                Taylor Cuisine Café and Catering was to be a breakfast and lunch place. However, she
wanted to open something that has a unique position in the market. Over the next few months she
talked with a wide range of people about the market and about what people wanted to eat. She
ended up focusing on
Southern cuisine because that was she really desired, but it would be with a twist observed with
because she wanted to make the offering special. These included some items as “Taylor Made Onion
Rings” that would be served with her own special aioli oil sauce and Fried Green Tomatoes that
would seasons with red pepper sauce and crumbled goat cheese.
                Karen began by marketing her place through traditional Yellow Pages advertising, the web,
and word of mouth. She had always thought that running a business in a small town would be easy
in a marketing perspective. Surely everyone would know where you were there in a very short order.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. People are still coming into the restaurant, which has now been,
open for four years, surprised that it exists. Still Karen believes that several types of marketing had
really made a difference over the past few years.
                The first was the new porch, which extends her out from the front of the building between
her main restaurant and the road, People spot the porch immediately and Karen says that it has paid
for itself many times over. A second visibility approach is her volunteer work. Karen is on the board
of directors on the Chamber of Commerce and the Boys and Girls Club. She also belong to the local
chapter of the American Culinary Foundation. The third area is her creative use of free media and the
local media outlet’s desire to broadcast with some fun.
 
1. Applying SWOT analysis; what are some great advice for a new entrepreneur to consider: Give
three recommendations.
 
2. Considering the rapid growth of food industry and the influence of social media to product
promotion and connectivity, what are the ways or actions should take place so that Karen can
penetrate the global market with diversified taste and preference among consumers?