The Hobbit’s Choice

Research Proposal

Marketing Research & Analysis MKTG 424

Submitted to: Prof. Patrick Ellwood

Ashish Tandon

Student Id: 300 522 516

Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Background Information
Jeff Dean a restaurant supplies business owner, wishes to open an upscale
fine dining restaurant in the Minneapolis area in State of Minnesota. Through
his business, Jeff has extensive business knowledge in the food service
industry and is familiar with restaurants in regions like San Francisco, Miami
and also Canadian cities like Vancouver & Toronto. He plans to name the
restaurant “The Hobbit’s Choice”

The Marketing Research/Problem

Marketing research problem here is to identify key parameters that will
ensure long time success of the restaurant. Hobbits Choice is not a typical
restaurant; it is an upscale market restaurant that requires targeting affluent
restaurant goers. We need to segment the target market & bases of their
demographics understand their interests ie likings and preferences with
regards to food in particular.

The Objective
Through this research we aim to develop a robust and quantifiable analysis
of the key indicators. Mentioned below are some of the issues that we will be
researching in detail:

 Size of the restaurant industry and specially the fine dining market
share in Minnesota.

 Direct & Indirect Competition from other restaurants.

 The target customers / what is their share in total restaurant goers.

 Average dollar amount spent.

 External legal factors such as Food safety regulations & Labour Law
among other that will come in play.

Field Methodology

2
We will be employing various data gathering techniques to capture data from
a larger spectrum of market. Earlier part of this research will be heavily
based on the secondary data that is available from different sources like
census, regional restaurant associations and other articles and journals
available in the print media and large data bases like Business Source, Lexis
Nexis. Through this data we get a complete bird’s eye view of the picture and
are able to identify industry trends and factors that influence it.

For more specific primary research we intend to hire a team of 5 highly

trained staff for face –to-face questionnaire. Reason being that these staff
members are competent and also ensure that right people are asked in the
right way to get the most appropriate answer. The questionnaire discussed
will be pre-tested to ensure that we have a set of optimum questions and we
are then able to quantify our findings easily.

Data Analysis

Data gathered through the questionnaire will be processed by a data

operator. He is specialised resource to handle data specific queries. His job
would be to collate all the information together using complex database
software and presenting various graphs and reports to assess each factor.

Schedule

For this report the project completion time is two months. This amount of
time is sufficient for in presenting the findings and also allows us to go back
and recheck the work should it be necessary. We plan to have meetings with
Jeff Dean on fortnightly basis to update him on the progress and also for
course correction and his insights. After the first month a preliminary report
will be presented to Jeff Dean for his sign off and then the data analysis work
shall commence.

Budget

3
With report this comprehensive the total cost of project will be $45,000
The breakup of the cost is given below:

Marketing Research Consultancy: 20,000

Licensing cost of data analysis software: 5,000
Database operator & 5 research staff: 12000
Auxiliary charges: 8000

Total: $45,000

Terms & Conditions

We jointly agree with Jeff Dean on following terms & conditions:

 First instalment of the total payment $22,500 will be required before

work commences.

 Upon the successful delivery of the report the remaining amount is to

cleared within 15days of handing over the report.

 Cost incurred to access databases/journals will be supplied by Mr. Dean

via check.

 Mr. Dean will allow use of his office space to temporarily house the
staff (research team)

Profile of the research team

Ashish Tandon is a leading authority on strategic market planning, sales

strategies and implementation, creating customer value and marketing
research. He is the author of 18 books and over 125 articles. He received a
B.S.E. with high honors in business information management from Princeton
University. He received an M.B.A. with high distinction from the Harvard
Business School, where he was a George F. Baker Scholar.

Assisting him in the project will be:

4
Richard Stangroom, MBA from Warwick University
Manish Kapoor MBA from London Business School

James Drinkwater BA (Hons) Database Management