Al Reetaj Restaurant & Grill: Business Plan for US Startup Venture

This document presents a comprehensive business plan for Al Reetaj Restaurant & Grill, a startup venture focused on serving high-quality kebabs in the United States. The plan includes a detailed company summary, outlining its mission and vision to become a leading Asian restaurant chain. It features an in-depth market analysis using the PESTLE framework, assessing the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors influencing the business. A SWOT analysis identifies the restaurant's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, informing the development of unique selling propositions and competitive advantages. The plan further elaborates on marketing and sales strategies, sales forecasts, and key milestones, supported by a management summary and financial projections. The conclusion provides recommendations for future growth, including potential listing on the stock exchange and expansion into the hotel business.

Running head: STARTUP BUSINESS IN THE US
START-UP BUSINESS IN THE US
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Executive Summary:
Entrepreneurial ventures in the restaurant market of the United Arab Emirates comes with
an ocean of profitability and business growth opportunities. This has made the market of the
UAE extremely competitive with big five star hotels competing with small restaurant ventures.
The study delves into one such business venture of a restaurant mainly selling kebabs called Al
Reetaj Restaurant and Grill. The paper would first analyse the market of the UAE and then point
out strategies which the restaurant can form on the basis of the UAE market conditions.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................5
Company summary:.........................................................................................................................5
Mission of Al Reetaj Restaurant and Grill:.................................................................................5
Vision of Al Reetaj:.....................................................................................................................6
Products and services:......................................................................................................................6
Market analysis:...............................................................................................................................7
PESTLE of the United States of America:..................................................................................7
Political:.......................................................................................................................................7
Economic:....................................................................................................................................8
Social:..........................................................................................................................................8
Technological:...........................................................................................................................12
.......................................................................................................................................................13
SWOT analysis:.............................................................................................................................14
Strengths:...................................................................................................................................14
Maturing hospitality market of the United Arab Emirates:...................................................14
Availability of finance:..............................................................................................................15
Weaknesses:...............................................................................................................................15
High initial cost:....................................................................................................................15
Limited human resources:......................................................................................................15

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Difficulty in inventory management:.....................................................................................16
Opportunities:............................................................................................................................16
New market opportunities:....................................................................................................16
Expansion of product line:.....................................................................................................17
Aggressive promotion:...........................................................................................................17
Threats:......................................................................................................................................18
Challenges from established ventures:..................................................................................18
Changing customer preferences:............................................................................................18
Strategy and implementation of the business plan:.......................................................................19
Unique selling propositions and competitive advantage:..........................................................19
Marketing strategy:....................................................................................................................22
Sales strategy:............................................................................................................................22
Sales forecast:............................................................................................................................23
Milestones:.................................................................................................................................23
Management summary:.................................................................................................................23
Financial plan:...............................................................................................................................24
Conclusion and recommendations:................................................................................................24
Listing on stock exchange:........................................................................................................24
Enter the hotel business:............................................................................................................24
References:....................................................................................................................................25

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Introduction:
Start-up business ventures usher generation of revenue, employment and new products in
a market. According to Morris, Neumeyer and Kuratko (2015), entrepreneurial ventures
promote economic development in economies. The paper delves into the business plan Al Reetaj
Restaurant and Grill, an entrepreneurial venture based in the UAE. The restaurant would serve
high quality kebabs made from non-vegetarian items including mutton, beef and lamb. The
restaurant would also serve vegetarian kebabs to the vegetarian customers. The study would open
with an exploration of the products and services the restaurant would offer followed by an
analysis of the market conditions of the United Arab Emirates. This would followed by the
SWOT analysis of the restaurant based on the market analysis. This would be followed by a
study of the business strategies including the marketing strategy which the management of the
restaurant can adopt.
Company summary:
The name of the company would be Al Reetaj Restaurant and Grill and would swell high
quality kebabs made from mutton, chicken, beef and paneer. The location of the firm would be
the United Arab Emirates.
Mission of Al Reetaj Restaurant and Grill:
The mission of Al Reetaj Restaurant and Grill would be providing its customers high
quality kebabs made from mutton, chicken, beef and paneer. Ramanathan, Di and Ramanathan
(2016) mentions that the ambience of restaurant play a significant role in ensuring customer
satisfaction. Keeping the fact in light, Al Reetaj Restaurant would have a relaxing and
comfortable environment which would allow the guests to relax. There would a soothing Arabic

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music playing in the background which would increase the tranquillity in the restaurant. Trained
staffs would serve the customers and would exhibit high degree of professional conduct. Thus,
from this discussion it is clear that the mission of Al Reetaj and Grill would be ensuring
customer satisfaction by creating a formidable mix of food items, service and ambience to
maximize their satisfaction.
Vision of Al Reetaj:
The vision of Al Reetaj is to emerge as one of the most sought after Asian restaurants
selling kebabs. This vision would stand on four pillars. The first pillar is gaining maximum
revenue by ensuring highest level of customer satisfaction (mission). The second pillar would be
benefiting both the internal stakeholders like employees and external stakeholders like the
society as a whole. The restaurant would take to achieve environmental sustainability in its
stride. The third pillar rests on expansion of product offerings and foreign expansion. The
restaurant would initially start its journey as a kebab selling Asian restaurant but gradually
expand its offerings to include more Asian dishes like biriyani and other Central Asian dishes.
The market of the restaurant would be the United Arab Emirates with Dubai as its base. The
business would subsequently spreads its presence in the United Kingdom and Canada. The fourth
pillar of Al Reetaj and Grill be converting into a public limited company and listing itself on the
Dubai Financial Market, the stock in Dubai. This would be necessary to fuel the vast capital
requirement of the restaurant to expand its business along the lines of the aforementioned vision.
Products and services:
Al Reetaj Restaurant and Grill would in the initial stage provide kebabs made from
animals like lambs, goat, beef and chicken. The vegetarian people can opt for kebabs made from

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paneer. The restaurant at a later seeks to expand this food product offerings into other variants of
kebabs like sea food kebabs dipped in spices to suit the local tastes. The management of the
restaurant right from the initial days should consider catering to European, American customers,
Asian and African customers. Hence, the food offerings should appeal to both the customer
segments. The restaurant at a subsequent phase would expand its product offering to variants like
sea food kebabs and other Asian delicacies. The restaurant may also serve beverages like fruit
juices, crushers, tea and coffee available both in Asian and American style.
The service offerings of Al Reetaj Restaurant and Grill would also expand as the business
gains on more revenue and customer base. The restaurant in the initial stage would provide a
relaxing environment with appropriate lighting arrangements. Central Asian music would play in
the background to make the ambience even more soothing. The restaurant would provide take
away and online ordering facilities to its customers. The restaurant at a subsequent stage would
acquire bigger properties and add garden and roof top dining facilities to the customers.
Market analysis:
The above discussion clearly shows that Al Reetaj Restauarant and Grill wants to
establish itself as one of the most sought after restaurant chain in the Dubai, the UAE. It would
be prudent for the management of the restaurant to develop an in-depth idea about the market
conditions of the country.
PESTLE of the United States of America:
The following is the analysis of the market conditions of the United Arab Emirates:
Political:

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The United Arab Emirates is a politically stable economy which immense bilateral
connections with the countries of Asia, Europe and America. This factor of Government of the
United Arab Emirates makes laws and policies for all the industries to function including the
food industry. Since, the business under consideration is a food business, it must follow the
guidelines issued by the government of UAE (government.ae 2018). The next political factor
which should be considered would the strong bilateral ties which the UAE has with the countries
of Asia, Europe and Africa. This would have serious impacts on the entire business operations
right of sourcing raw materials to business expansion plans.
Economic:
The economic factors which would affect the restaurant business would be availability of
resources like raw materials and capital. The first requirement which would affect the business
would availability of easy finance in the UAE. The Government of the United Arab Emirates
provides loans to start-up businesses which generally do not qualify for bank loans due to limited
financial capability (gulfnews.com 2018). The firm can also opt for venture capital financing and
incubation assistance to start its journey in the Arabian economy. The American economy also
provides a rich network of banks and other institutions which would provide the business with
funds. The main cities in the United Arab Emirates have a rich network of multinational banks
like ADCB which has its headquarters in the UAE (adcb.com 2018). This would allow the firm
to may payments to acquire raw materials from Asia and manage its online transactions. As far
as human resources are concerned, the United Arab Emirates provides skilled labour owing to its
high literacy rate. As far as food firms are concerned, presence of a large number of hospitality
management institutes would provide them with chefs having expertise in a variety of dishes
from diverse countries.

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Social:
The social factors prevailing in the UAE are very conductive to growth and expansion of
new business organisations. The graph below shows the population of the United Arab Emirates
at present and in the future years till 2022. The figure shows increase in the population which is a
good sign for the start-ups in the food industry. This is because increase in population would
means more customers for the food businesses to cater to which would in turn mean more
revenue sourced by serving this base.
Figure 1. Graph showing population of the UAE
(statista.com 2018)
Secondly, as shown in the graph below (figure 2), the population trend of the UAE would
see rise in population of people of Asian origin. This means that the Asian food sellers in country
would get opportunity to serve this rising Asian population. The third social factor which would
impact the start-up food businesses in the UAE is rising use of internet among the people backed
by the spread of internet access to almost the entire country. The customers today display

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remarkable awareness about technology and prefer ordering food online (Botelho, Araujo &
Pineli, 2018). Food businesses like Al Reetaj Restauarant and Grill would enable customers view
and order food products online which would enable them to obtain more orders for their
products. The restaurants should establish both online and offline service facilities to customers
right from its initial operational stage.
Figure 2. Graph showing ethnic group population in the US
(statista.com 2018)

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Figure 3. Hofstede's comparing Australia, China and the UAE
(Source:hofstede-insights.com 2018)
The figure above compares between Australia, China and the UAE. The graph shows that
China and the UAE are culturally more identical while Australia is not. For example, as far as
power distance is concerned, the UAE scores 90 while China scores 80 and Australia is at 36.
This means that in China and the UAE power distance is stronger than the other two countries.
This comparison would hold great significance to the food businesses since they belong to the
service industry and would require to interact with the customers directly while serving them.
The servers should be careful to exhibit appropriate gestures while serving food to the customers.
For example, elderly Chinese perceive bowing as a sign of respect while an Australian perceive
handshakes as polite. Thus, the staff of restaurants should have knowledge about these cultural
differences while greeting and treating customers originating from different cultures. These
social knowledge would play important role creating positive customer experiences owing to the