Marketing Fundamentals
The Araki Marketing Fundamentals
Background of The Araki
The Araki was established by a Japanese Chef in London, the UK back in 2014. It is a sushi restaurant and in 2016, the business was awarded two stars. In 2018, its improvement in performance made the enterprise to be awarded three stars in the UK, thus it became the first Restaurant established by the Japanese to attain three stars in the UK. Unfortunately, the company lost its three stars in 2020. This is because, the head chef of the Restaurant departed, his name Mitsuhiro Araki. The company has thus been in the market for about 6 years since it was incorporated. Currently, the chief chef of the Company is Marty Lau. The most common type of food that is offered in the restaurant is the sushi. The Araki is located in the 12 street, New Burlington Street. For these years, the enterprise has been operating from London. The capacity of the enterprise is thus a small enterprise that is struggling to see that it has gained a competitive advantage through the city of London and if possible open up new markets outside the UK. Several dishes are offered in the restaurant such as salmon sushi, langoustines, tuna sashimi as well as Cornish squid. The study has revealed that the restaurant faces several challenges being very young in the market. Besides, the challenges suffered by the enterprises are similar to those experienced by the other SMEs.
Competitor Analysis
Direct competitor
The direct competitors of Araki are those competitors offering similar goods and services. This enhances competition between enterprises. Some of these competitors include The Barbary, Casamia and Pidgin. Each of these offer food and the customers are served from their premises. They are likely to be a threat to Araki if the Restaurant does not enhance its competitive advantage.
Indirect Competitors
There are several indirect competitors of The Araki. There are those restaurants that offer fast-moving foods in the UK and are likely to challenge the performance of the Restaurant. For instance, there are pizza huts in London. Others are those which offers sandwich. They are classified as indirect competitors because they both offer food to the hungry customers just like The Araki but however, the solution to the problem is different from that of Araki.
SWOT Analysis of The Araki
Strengths
There are several strengths that The Araki enjoys. One of the strengths is that it is the only Japanese restaurant in London. The Japanese dishes are unique unlike the local dishes offered in the City. Clearly, this indicates that it enjoys little competition because the enterprise is unique in this way. The strength of any restaurant is in its ability to serve the sweetest dishes. The Company moved to three-star by 2019 and this indicates that it offers sweet dishes. One of the best dishes that it offers is the tuna sashimi. The third strength that can be inclined with the Restaurant is that ethnic food, the Japanese Food is not common in the area. This indicates that many people who enjoy Japanese foods are likely to buy only from The Araki.
Weaknesses
The restaurant is linked with inadequate training of the employees. The restaurant lost all the awarded stars after the head chef left. This is a clear indication that the other employees serving in the restaurant are not competent enough. The second weakness is that the new chef is not as superb as the first one. Ideally, the performance of the restaurant is likely to go down following the disappearance of the head chef. Another weakness is that lack of consistency in getting the supplies. The Japanese supplies that are used in the restaurant are likely to be rare since there are few Japanese restaurants in the UK. This may be a serious shortcoming to the enterprise.
Opportunities
The opportunities enjoyed by the Araki will enable the company to increase the returns. Ideally, the increase in performance by the restaurant may lead to the opening of other markets. The restaurant has taken the trends of eating healthier foods. The foods offered by the restaurant are fine and most people around enjoy when they are served from the restaurant. The other opportunity by the restaurant is that it allows the customers to carry away the food in case they wish to. This is likely to impact the performance of the company positively.
Threats
One of the threats of the company is the fact that it has opened a new market. There are already existing and well-established restaurants in London. It may be very challenging for the company to thrive in the market. The other threat is that there is a likelihood to increase the prices of the dishes. This is based on the fact that the restaurant serves mostly Japanese meals. It may not easy to access all the supplies from a nearby source. Finally, the other threat is the need for the enterprise to meet new suppliers to increase the competitive advantage.
Peer Feedback
Most of the peers has outlined some of the remarkable small and medium enterprises in different parts of the world. Most of their study is based on small and medium enterprises in the US, Australia and in the UK. Some of the remarkable Small and Medium enterprises include the Aqua among others. Each of them faces a lot of challenges. Indeed the challenges that small and medium enterprises suffer are almost similar. Most of them are threatened by the already existing firms in the industry. The research of this paper has been based on a small enterprise that was established six years down the line. This indicates that the restaurant must perform tremendously to compete with the already existing firms. Ideally, the weaknesses and the threats of these Small and medium enterprises sometimes exceed the strengths and opportunities.
Al-Araki, M. (2013). SWOT analysis revisited through PEAK-framework. Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, 25(3), 615-625.
Blockeel, C., Drakopoulos, P., Santos-Ribeiro, S., Polyzos, N. P., & Tournaye, H. (2016). A fresh look at the freeze-all protocol: a SWOT analysis. Human Reproduction, 31(3), 491-497.
Moufakkir, O., & Reisinger, Y. (2016). Chinese restaurant employees’ perceptions of their nationals abroad: a comparative study. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research.
Kjeerheim, K., Haldorsen, T., Andersen, A., Mykletun, R., & Aasland, O. G. (1997). Work-related stress, coping resources, and heavy drinking in the restaurant business. Work & Stress, 11(1), 6-16.