Innovation and Commercialization Plan for an Indian Restaurant

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Innovation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 1
1. COMPANY BACKGROUND AND PROBLEM.................................................................................2
2. SCOPING OF IDEAS FOR NEW PRODUCTS..................................................................................3
3. IDENTIFYING SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM USING COMMERCIAL FUNNEL...............................5
4. TECHNIQUES FOR TESTING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF NEW PRODUCT.........................................8
5. PROTECTION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OF NEW PRODUCT..................................10
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................... 12
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................13
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INTRODUCTION
This report will mainly focus on analysing and identifying the market situation to present
relevant recommendations to Mr Kumar for innovating and developing new food product to
involve in the menu of his restaurant. This will support the company in moving forward with the
newly developed product by successfully commercialising it in the market. This report will cover
the brief information about the company, its products and the problem faced by the company
in the market. The new ideas will be tested to successfully commercialize the new product in
the market by assessing the involved risks and required resources and capabilities. The
effectiveness of the new product will also be tested by applying relevant techniques and lastly,
the legal protection for the newly developed product through intellectual property rights will
also be explained in the report. This will support Mr Kumar to drive higher business growth
through innovating and commercialising the new product in the restaurant industry.
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1. COMPANY BACKGROUND AND PROBLEM
Mr Kumar owns a restaurant that offers a great range of Indian food and beverages to the
customers in the city. The restaurant has earned a great customer response and sales during
the first two years of its opening. The great quality food and taste of the restaurant is the main
feature. However, the increasing competition has affected the sales and hindered the growth
and profitability of the restaurant. It has created a major problem for the company in sustaining
in the market. In order to deal with such problem, it is very important for Mr Kumar to focus on
improving its existing product range and innovate with new varieties of Indian food to retain
and increase its customer base and sales of the company.
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2. SCOPING OF IDEAS FOR NEW PRODUCTS
For producing new products the company must have to follow the step by step procedure of
the new product development process. This will help in having a clear understanding of market
needs and demand as well as the relevance of the new product in the market. For scoping new
ideas for new products Mr Kumar should follow the following stages of new product
development:
 Idea generation: the first stage of new product development involves generation of new
ideas to develop unique and different food products to include the restaurant menu to
offer more delightful and quality food services to the customers (Trott, 2012). Mr Kumar
can innovate with the regional cuisines of India to match with the taste and preferences
of its customers.
 Idea screening: after generating a range of ideas, the next step is to screen and analyse
the ideas to choose the best one as per the market demand and customers preferences
as well as according to the company’s capabilities and resources. The selected idea
should also be capable of dealing with the competition (Cooper and Edgett, 2009). For
instance, the idea of blending the south Indian cuisine with north Indian taste is selected
to innovating new food product.
 Development and testing of the concept: the selected idea and concept should
primarily be tested with appropriate research to identify its patent and other obligatory
legal compliance. The product testing should also be performed with due diligence to
the product design and other legal compliances related to the product launch.
 Development of strategy: a proper strategy should also be formulated to develop a new
product. It involves a properly monitored process as per the system with the application
of input-output metrics. This also provides an estimation of average time and resources
required to produce a product and other essential information through sample check
and feedbacks (Valikangas and Gibbert, 2015).
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 Development of product: it involves the development of a product by analysing every
level of the department in the restaurant. All departments such as finance, kitchen, and
marketing etc.
 Test marketing: after product development, the next thing is to launch the product
among the customers to test the product demand. The test marketing can be performed
among the most loyal customers who could provide an honest review to the newly
developed product and suggest any further improvements.
 Commercialisation: this the final and most dynamic stage of new product development
that involves offering newly developed food option to the customers in the restaurant.
 After launch reviewing and perfect pricing: it is the most important stage where the
newly launched product will be reviewed by asking customer feedback and reviews
(Trott, 2012). This supports in improving the product quality.
By following through the above-mentioned process of new product development, Mr Kumar
can successfully drive business growth and development for his restaurant.
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3. IDENTIFYING SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM USING COMMERCIAL FUNNEL
After innovating and developing the new product, Mr Kumar should also focus on successfully
commercialising its product in the market. Being in the restaurant industry, Mr Kumar has to
confront with high competition in the market. Commercialisation can be easily done with the
use of commercial funnel that is a customer-oriented model that is comprised of a complete
buying/selling process (Christensen, 2016). Commercial funnel is a process of organising and
evaluating the customers by sorting and ranking them according to the company’s requirement.
It helps in identifying loyal customers to establish a long-term relationship with them. It also
helps in targeting right customers. The main stages of commercial funnel involve:
Figure 1: Commercial Funnel
[Source: Christensen, 2016]
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MARKETING FUNNEL
The open mouth of funnel represents the first stage of the commercial funnel where several
ideas were dropped and few selected moves towards implementation. It looks for concept
generation for the new product to meet the unmet demands of customers. The innovative
ideas are aligned with the restaurant's mission and business model (Koen, et al., 2011). At the
initial stage of the commercial funnel, the four P’s of marketing can be effectively used at this stage.
SALES FUNNEL
After marketing ideas the funnel segment of the commercial funnel is started to narrow and the
best ideas and concepts are selected to achieve the main goal of the restaurant. Here, the sales
goals and milestones are established and the sales staffs of the company work close to the
business. The people are approached to purchase the company’s product.
CUSTOMER FUNNEL
This represents the narrowed mouth of the commercial funnel where the final purchase of the
product is made by the customers. At this stage of the commercial funnel, the staffs of the
company are highly responsible for serving and retaining customers (Koen, et al., 2011). Here,
the staffs are focused at converting the one time customers into the loyal customers of the
company.
By using the commercial funnel, Mr Kumar can effectively commercialise the new innovative
product of the restaurant to deal with the problem of increasing competition and increasing
customer demand. This will also support in highlighting the strategic capabilities of the
restaurant.
o MATCHING GOALS TO RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES: the main goal of the company is
to develop innovative and unique Indian food to gain a competitive advantage in the
market and overcome from the issues of declining sales and profitability of the
restaurant. For Innovating with a new product, Mr Kumar has to have a clear knowledge
and understanding about the resources and capabilities of the restaurant (Ward, 2018).
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The main resources involve the trained staff, funds and materials for producing the
relevant product. While the capabilities involve the organisational abilities to attract and
retain the customers with its products and services.
o ASSESSMENT OF RISK: Mr Kumar is also required to have a prior understanding of the
risks that could hinder the development and commercialisation of the new product in
the market. The major risk involves the risks of competition and the risk of availability of
required resources for developing the new product.
o VALUE ANALYSIS BY APPLYING FRUGAL INNOVATION: the frugal innovations can be
effectively used in case of limited resources to obtain competitive growth and
advantage for the company. The transformations in the products and services can be
effectively achieved through applying frugal innovations in the innovative product
development. An effective frugal innovation can bring significant changes to the
company’s products and services. Frugal innovation can be used as an effective way of
dealing with business problems and issues (Soni and Krishnan, 2014). On the other
hand, frugal innovation also supports in developing more affordable products for the
customers. It helps in targeting the audience effectively as the customers are highly
attracted to the low pricing strategy.
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4. TECHNIQUES FOR TESTING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF NEW PRODUCT
The effectiveness of the new product can be effectively tested by developing a business case for
the company. The business case will serve as a basis for making further strategic decisions for
developing a new innovative product for Mr Kumar. The current values and functions of the
company can effectively represent the effectiveness of the new product of the company in the
actual market.
Mr Kumar is willing to innovate with new products to offer a different and unique taste to the
customers at the restaurant. The company already provides the best quality Indian food to the
customers and now focusing on innovating with regional Indian Cuisine to offer unique
products to its customers to confront with the increasing competition in the food and beverage
industry in the city. The new product development will also support the company in attracting
customers and gaining customer loyalty that would result in increased sales of the restaurant.
For testing the effectiveness of the new product, it is important to have a clear knowledge
about the products, business and market situation.
Products or offerings: Indian Food and beverages
Business objectives: to provide the best quality and unique food experience to the customers at
affordable price.
Resources available and challenges: Indian spices, transportation services, experienced chefs
and human resource are some important resources required to produce a new innovative
product (Sosna, et al., 2010). While, the major challenges are increasing competition, increasing
trade rate and fluctuating exchange rate.
Business location: UK
Purpose: the main purpose of the new product development is to reach a wide range of
customers and gain customer loyalty to deal with the increasing competition in the market. by
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having a clear understanding of purpose the effectiveness of new product can be easily
analysed.
Product value: Mr Kumar is focusing on earning customer value by providing value product to
the customers in return. The new product will be containing a high value of rich Indian cuisine
with an innovative blend of taste from regional Indian food to deliver the best quality food offer
to the customers. By setting the product value the effectiveness of developed product can be
effectively tested.
Time to market: the effectiveness of the new product also depends upon the time when the
product is offered in the market (Sosna, et al., 2010). The more time a product stay in the
market the more effective it becomes and creates more opportunities for the company in the
market.
Success rate: the innovation runs parallel with the success of the company and it also
determines the success rate of the business in future. The new product should be developed
with the aim of increasing the success rate of the company and the rate of success can be
effectively used to determine the effectiveness of a new product.
Throughput: the increased business activities and supply chain also represent the effectiveness
of a newly developed product in the company.
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5. PROTECTION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OF NEW PRODUCT
There are several options available to Mr Kumar for protecting the intellectual property rights
of the company. There are several tools that can be used by Mr Kumar to protect the
intellectual property of the restaurant:
Copyright and patent act 1998: copyright and patent act serves as major legal copyright law in
the country. It gives a right to control other people from using the designed and innovative
ideas regarding the business, music, artistic and literary etc. this act supports in saving the
intellectual property from theft (Joyce, et al., 2016). Copyright is designed for specific products
and is a different kind of right assigned to a specific organisation to manufacture or produce
certain products and services. It is a very effective tool for securing the intellectual property of
the company. On the other hand, the patent is very helpful in maintaining a unique image of
the company. It is an intellectual property right for securing the products and services.
Data protection act 2018: the data protection act supports in protecting any kind of data
breach and protecting the personal data and information of the individuals and organisation.
The data protection act empowers in protecting and controlling the data (Carey, 2018).
Intellectual property act 2014: the intellectual property act involves all the fundamental acts
such as designs, patents, miscellaneous and general factors involved in intellectual properties of
the company (Denoncourt, 2018).
Trade secrets: There are some trade secrets that are made by the higher management for
processing the business operations of the company. Mr Kumar can use some trade secrets to
secure business strategies of the restaurants from the other competitors. The trade secrets of
the restaurant are known by the main staff and chef working in the organisation.
Trademarks: trademarks are the unique sign that differentiates a company from the other
organisations. It also helps in protecting the products and services of the company. The
trademark of one company cannot be copied by other organisations as per the government
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