Our Proposed
The business we like to propose is a café for student studying purpose only. The café is named “Distinct Café”, it mostly serves F.5-F.7 and HKU students. The students can do revisions, interact with peers, eat and drink.
By analyzing the general environment, we found that students are difficult to find a place for their study. Even if they can find a place in the self-study room, there are strict rules applied so that the students are not allowed to communicate, talk, eat or drink, but communicate is very important in today’s studying curriculum, also for most students, they have a habit that they like to eat and drink during revising . As a result, this is an opportunity for us to develop our business, café for studying purpose. We also analyzed the specific environment; we find that there are no café which is aiming to studying purpose. We think this is our strength to compete with the traditional café for the student market.

Why it will work for us
A café do not require much capital and with low entrance barrier. The key barrier is in establishing a huge customer base. Reputation is the most important factor in attracting customers. As a result, our strategy is planed to develop a good and strong image of our café. We monitor the student behavior well and provide good services and materials. A good image is the key factor to raise our reputation.
As we are student too, we know what do students want and concern, so this will be our strength in serving the student. We know what the students prefer and we can provide tailor-made service for them.
There are no café for students only. That means we have no direct competitor, so we will face less competition. As a result, this is our opportunity in widening the market shares.
Details of the cafe
Missions and Goals Before running the café, the first thing to do is setting up missions and goals, as the missions and goals can provide the direction for management decision.
The missions of our café are (a) Provide a well-organized environment for studying; (b) Keep the beverage and food in high standard; (c) Maintain a friendly relationship between customers and (d) Provide a customer oriented environment. The goals of the café will be divided into two parts, (a) Financial goal, (b) Strategic goal. For financial goal: (a) Maintain a long run and profitable business; (b) Stable earning during summer holidays. For Strategic goal: (a) A bigger market share; (b) A stronger reputation among students..
Location & Shop selection The location of the café is Sai Ying Poon. There are about 10 secondary schools and HKU in the district, that is there are about 3000 potential customers around there. Our target markets are students who are preparing for open exams like HKCEE and HKALE, also the HKU students. For district selection, the specific environment of the district is analyzed. By researches, the number of competitors is not as a threat of the business, there are only three to four cafes in the same district and all of them are not featured in studying purpose. Also there is no public library and there is not much facilities like youth centers for students to study. For the shop selection, the decision criteria are (1) the number of students nearby, (2) the rent, (3) the area of the flat. After weighted the three criteria, the most important factor is the number of students nearby as our customer base is students. As a result, the café is decided to locate at the centre of the schools area. Also, our café is about 800-1000 ft and equipped with about 60 seats, the maximum capacity is about 50-55 students
Supplier Selection and Employment For selecting supplier, the decision criteria are (1) The reputation of the supplier; (2) The quality of the goods; (3) The price of the goods. After allocating weighs to these 3 factors, as we are running a small business, the capital is limited. So the most important factor will be the cost, so the supplier with lowest price is being selected. For hiring employees, there are two decision criteria. Hiring people with low educational level. They can be paid with a lower wage, $25-$30 per hour. Alternatively, hiring people with university level, because they have the technical skills required to help student to solve difficulties in studying, but they need to be paid with a higher wage, $80-$100 per hour. According to a research1 aimed to students who are participating HKCEE and HKALE, the students reflect that it is much more attractive if there are tutors presented in the café. As a result, 3 university students in different subjects (Science, Commerce, Literature) will be hired in peak period and, two normal employees in non-peak period.
Building Image According to the research1 mentioned, the students concern most are (1) no smoking area, (2) the environment cannot be too noisy. “You will never get a second chance to make a first impression”2. First impression is very important to gain the trust of the customers, in order to promote our café’s image and maintain a good environment for studying, smoking is strongly prohibit in the café area and two separate rooms with about five to six seats is available for those who want to have silent study environment and students who want to form study groups. Furthermore, the name of the café is specially decided. ”Distinct Café” , distinct means A, A means the best. We wish the students who come into our café can get an A in the exam. Also, from the first glance to our café’s name, students will get a concept that the main purpose our of café, Studying purpose.
Promotion
In promotion, in order to gain more recognition to our café, we will co-operate with the Student Unions of the near school by giving special discounts to those students in these schools. Also, we will distribute leaflet and coupons in the main entrance of the schools. Furthermore, we will post advertisements on the teen’s popular magazines, like YES, New Monday, etc.
Daily Operation In daily operation, the ways to charge student are as shown as follow:
1. The charge per hour is $5.
2. The minimum charge is $20.
In order to maintain the image and reputation of our café, membership and bad list scheme is adapted. All students are needed to register in the first time to the café, their personal data (id number, School name, phone number, etc) are recorded. Through such schemes, the controlling of the environment will be enhanced. Once when the students are came, the starting time should be recorded in the computer. Such an policy can reduce confusion about the time that students had spent in the café and a smooth running can be achieved. Also, the employees should be dressed with our café’s uniform. That is a white shirt and a pair of black pants, this is a bit formal because our employees are as a role of a tutor. Such formal dress can show their professionalism and easier to be recognized by the students.
Strategies to against Competitors For the strategies to against the competitors and maintain market share, first, the set price of the food and drinks should be lower than the competitor, as the consuming power of students is not as high, and low price is quite attractive to the students as they are supposed to spent a long time period in the café. Secondly, our café is trying to be differential, be unique in the café industry. We should increase our café’s capabilities, that is, do something other café cannot do and do it better than others can do it. For example, maintain a suitable environment for studying. That is trying to maintain good ventilation, the temperature in about 26oC and humidity of 85%. Also, light essential oils with function of relaxing, refreshing, and releasing. As the most common practice of other cafés is trying to turn the air-conditioners to higher power as to maintain better ventilation since there is tobacco smell left there. As a result, the temperature and humidity is quite low in the other cafés, so the environment isn’t as comfortable as we provided.
Evaluation
In the end of every month, an evaluating meeting will be held. In the meeting, the daily operational problems and management problems will be discussed. Like sufficient of stocks, seats or confusion in operating can be discussed. Alternatives, solutions or new objective will be raised by a method of Management by objectives (MBO), that is all employees are having chance to give out suggestions. The revised objects or alternatives will be implemented in the next month to see if it is success. Once the new alternatives are operate successfully, the one who raise will be given a reward in form of bounce money. By use the method of Management by objective (MBO), the performance of the employees will increase and the productivity and the café will increase also, this is an win-win way for both employees and the café.

Anticipated problems
As we are setting up a café which is only for students, they may not willing to spend too much on finding a place for studying. However, charges cannot be too low since we still need to maintain our business. Therefore, we plan to charge them hourly. Besides paying for the beverage charge, $5 per hour will be charged for each of them.
Secondly, the mission of our café is to promote positive attitude towards study. We hope that students can have a place for them to study and discuss academic problems with other people. However, there is an opportunity for us to have some students who may disturb other students for studying. In order to avoid this kind of problem, we decide that our café will be run on a membership scheme which means all students must be our free members in order to enjoy our café facilities. Having students’ information registered, we can recognize who are the disturbing ones.
Thirdly, about the noise control problem, we can separate our café into different rooms. We will have both discussion room and self-study room, students can choose wherever they want to sit. Moreover, our self-study corners are not totally volume-free because students can still raise up their problems; these areas are mainly quieter areas for them to have self-study.
In addition, at the beginning of our operation, we cannot assuredly estimate which kind of food or drink is the most popular among students. Therefore, it generates a problem that it is difficult for us to judge the quantity of our inventory. As a result, we are going to distribute some questionnaires for our customers and coupons will be given for rewards.
Lastly, since our idea of setting up a café for studying is a newly introduced café in Hong Kong, it may not be easily accepted by students. People usually go to a café for relaxation, so students may think that our café is boring and they may not be willing to come. In order to gain acceptance of our café, promotion will be done such as leaflet distribution, making eye-catching banners and poster or even inviting magazines to write articles about our café.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the nature and objectives of our café is meeting the criteria for an ideal studying environment for students: it is relaxing, eating and drinking are allowed and discussion is available. We want to provide a well-organized environment for students, especially for those who are preparing for open exams. We also want to maintain a friendly relationship between customers and provide them an oriented environment. Keeping beverage and food in high standard is important as well. So, after allocating weighs to all criteria, we will select to locate our café at the centre of the school area, choose suppliers with lowest price and hire 3 university students as tutors and two normal employees. As we are unique in café industry so far, fewer competitors are beneficial to us to achieve our goals. In order to raise our reputation and market share, we are going to promote our image by monitoring both internal and external environment. There are also some problems that we will meet, such as the charges of food, the kinds of food to be sold, disturbance between students, the control of noise and the acceptance of our café. To overcome them, we will set up an hourly charge plan to maintain our revenue and a membership scheme to monitor the students. Discussion room and self-study room are provided to control the volume. Frequent questionnaires are also distributed to collect opinions to decide what kinds of food to be provided. Lastly, we will promote our image by distributing leaflet, making banners and posters and inviting magazines to write articles about our café.