A business plan for establishing a Bangladeshi restaurant in Helsinki

Zobayer Hosen

Degree Thesis International Business

2015 DEGREE THESIS Arcada

Degree Programme: International Business

Identification number: 4871 Author: Zobayer Hosen Title: A business plan for establishing a Bangladeshi restaurant in Helsinki Supervisor (Arcada): Thomas Finne

Commissioned by:

Abstract: The field of ethnic industry is growing day by day due to increased ethnic population, popularity of ethnic food, health consciousness, changes in the eating habit and increased multiculturalism. The main objective of the study is to make a practical business plan for an ethnic Bangladeshi restaurant in Helsinki, Finland. The business plan explains the products and services which will be provided, location, logistics, employee training and education, food production, management structure and human resources, marketing and advertising, market and industry analysis, target customers as well as financial plan of the restaurant.

To carry out this study qualitative, quantitative and action research methods has been used. As a part of qualitative research, the researcher interviewed three restaurant managers of Asian restaurants located in Helsinki to get more practical information from them. In addition, as a part of quantitative research, one questionnaire survey has been conducted online to know prospective customers behavior, demand and expectations from the new Bangladeshi restaurant. As a part of action research, the researcher tested the theory which he learned in his school to bring solutions for a specific problem. The theoretical background of this research was based books, journals, articles and electronic sources. After an in-depth research, it can be expected that the business is profitable from the second year of its operation.

The collected data and information from the research will help the author to open an ethnic Bangladeshi restaurant in Helsinki.

Keywords: Ethnic restaurant, Bangladeshi , business idea, business plan, market research, advertising, financial plan.

Number of pages: 59 Language: English Date of acceptance:

Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION ...... 7

1.1 PURPOSE OF THE THESIS...... 7 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTION ...... 8 1.3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ...... 8 1.4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...... 8 1.4.1 Qualitative research ...... 8 1.4.2 Quantitative research ...... 9 1.4.3 Action research: action and research ...... 9 2 BUSINESS PLAN ...... 10

2.1 WHAT IS A BUSINESS PLAN? ...... 10 2.2 CONTENTS OF A BUSINESS PLAN ...... 10 3 BUSINESS PLAN FOR RESTAURANT ...... 12

3.1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...... 12 3.2 DESCRIPTION OF THE BUSINESS IDEA ...... 12 3.3 PRODUCTS AND SERVICES ...... 13 3.4 OPERATIONS ...... 15 3.4.1 Location ...... 15 3.4.2 Opening hours ...... 15 3.4.3 Logistics ...... 15 3.4.4 Employee training and education ...... 16 3.4.6 Food production...... 17

3.5 MANAGEMENT...... 18 3.5.1 Human resources ...... 18 3.5.2 Management structure ...... 19

3.6 MARKETING AND ADVERTISING ...... 19 3.6.1 Launch marketing ...... 19 3.6.2 Mass media ...... 19 3.6.3 Restaurant website ...... 20 3.6.4 Social media ...... 20 3.6.5 Word-of-mouth ...... 20 3.6.6 Local store marketing ...... 21 3.6.7 Attending in the festivals ...... 21 3.7 MARKET ANALYSIS ...... 21 3.7.1 Present situation of the market ...... 21 3.7.2 Interviews with Asian restaurant owners/ managers ...... 22 3.7.3 Questionnaire results ...... 26

3.8 OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS ...... 34 3.8.1 SWOT analysis ...... 34 3.8.2 Top ten risks ...... 35

3.9 FINANCIAL PLAN ...... 36 3.9.1 Start-up grants ...... 36 3.9.2 Investment ...... 37 3.9.3 Assets and depreciation ...... 38 3.9.4 Bank loan and interest ...... 38 3.9.5 Salaries and additional costs for salaries ...... 39 3.9.6 Planned income statement ...... 40 3.9.7 Cash flow analysis ...... 42 3.9.8 Balance sheet ...... 43 4 CONCLUSION ...... 44 LIST OF REFERENCES ...... 47 APPENDICES ...... 49 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...... 59

List of figures

Figure 1: A traditional Bengali ...... 7 Figure 2: Opening hours of the restaurant ...... 15 Figure 3: Traditional Bengali ……………………………...... 17 Figure 4: Wages in hotel and restaurant branch in Finland ...... 18 Figure 5: Management structure of the restaurant ...... 19 Figure 6: Online survey process ...... 26 Figure 7: Gender of the respondents ...... 27 Figure 8: Age distribution of the respondents ...... 28 Figure 9: Ethnic background of the possible customers ...... 28 Figure 10: Do customers dine out? ...... 29 Figure 11: Dining out frequency of the customers ...... 29 Figure 12: Do customers go restaurants alone or go in a group? ...... 30 Figure 13: Factor influencing customers to choose a restaurant ...... 30 Figure 14: Do customers like Asian ?...... 31 Figure 15: Have customers ever tried Bangladeshi foods? ...... 31 Figure 16: Do customers think Helsinki needs more Asian/ Bangladeshi restaurants? . 32 Figure 17: What customers think about a new Bangladeshi restaurant in Helsinki? ..... 32 Figure 18: What customers think about the effective advertising channels of the restaurant? ...... 33 Figure 19: Maximum budget ...... 34 Figure 20: Sales mix ...... 41

List of tables Table 1: SWOT analysis of the restaurant ...... 35 Table 2: Investment cost ...... 37 Table 3: Depreciation calculation ...... 38 Table 4: Loan, repayment and interest ...... 38 Table 5: Planned salary for the employees ...... 39 Table 6: Additional costs for salaries ...... 40 Table 7: Planned income statement ...... 42 Table 8: Budgeted cash flow analysis ...... 43 Table 9: Balance sheet for the first four years ...... 43

1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Purpose of the thesis The field of ethnic is growing day by day due to increased ethnic population, popularity of ethnic food, health consciousness, changes in the eating habit and increased multiculturalism (Michman, Ronald D., Mazze, Edward M. 1998, 153). The main objective of the study is to make a practical business plan for an ethnic Bangladeshi restaurant in Helsinki, Finland. Delicious is famous around the world. Bengali food has inherited a large number of inspirations, both foreign and South Asian, arising from a historical and strong trade links with many parts of the world (Memories of )

Figure 1: A traditional Bengali meal (http://soundplunge.com/venue/go-bengali-for- poila-boisakh/) The number of people coming from Asian countries to Finland is increasing gradually. According to the statistics published by the Finnish Immigration Service; India and China are among top five countries whose citizens have been granted Finnish residence permit in 2014 (Finnish Immigration Service). In addition, as more people are coming from different Asian countries including , Finns are showing more interest towards Asian cultures and .

Finnish foods are similar to European, Scandinavian and Russian cuisines to a great extent. However, because of gradual internationalization, foreign foods are being integrated into Finnish menus. That is the reason why nowadays Finns are trying different foods in different foreign restaurants to change their taste. It has been observed that the

7 number of new Asian restaurants are increasing day by day. The author of this work intends to use the knowledge acquired through this study when establishing the actual business.

1.2 Research question The main research question of the thesis: Is it feasible to establish a Bangladeshi restaurant in Helsinki?

1.3 Theoretical background The theories