Sakae Sushi Marketing Plan

Executive Summary

Sakae Sushi is a local Japanese restaurant which offers affordable, good quality and healthy Japanese food. Despite the stiff competition, it is currently the market leader. The purpose of this marketing plan is to identify and analyze the current market, future market and possible opportunities to capture a bigger market share which in turn leads to increased profits. Key issues of how they are going to maintain as market leader through the use of new marketing strategies to create brand awareness and increase brand equity will be discussed in this report.

Sakae Sushi is the flagship brand of Apex-Pal International Ltd and is the largest local chain of Japanese restaurants. The segments they are targeting now are Generation X, Generation Y, DINKS and SINKS. These consumers are generally of higher education level with high spending power. They have a higher frequency of dining out due to a high amount of socialising. Convenience, accessibility and healthy varieties are factors that they consider. However, sushi till now has not been readily accepted by all cultures. Sakae Sushi, for one has not obtained the Halal certification to enter the Halal market. Despite this, with its wide varieties of products, marketing efforts with banks, delivery service provided incorporation of advanced technology and high involvement of staff training, Sakae Sushi has built upon itself a strong brand name. It would however need to improve on its presentation of food and the authentic �feel’ of its outlets and coming up with new creations. Apart from these, they can look into possible franchising opportunities locally or overseas, offering of sushi in supermarkets or petrol kiosks and entering the Halal market to increase their market share. Collaboration with IT companies and polytechnics can help to reduce operation costs. Introduction of Sakae Sushi Membership Card and promotions will entice customers to make frequent visits. However, the strong competition from other Japanese retail outlets will be an on-going threat to Sakae.

Sakae will have to look into ways to maintain its position as the market leader. How they are going to retain existing customers and tap on other segments is one issue they have to look into. Ways to differentiate Sakae from other Japanese restaurants (Ng, 2001) will have to be investigated as well.

The objectives here will be to increase brand equity and to effectively target at the different segments including entering into the Halal (Ng, 2001) market.

Market penetration strategy can be implemented as a whole by coming up with different marketing mix to target the different segments. Additional promotions and discounts for different segments will be implemented. Collaboration with organisations like Cathay Organisation, airlines, schools, supermarkets and petrol kiosks can help to create awareness.

To increase brand awareness, a substantial amount of funds are used for collaboration with other organisations. Funds are also used for event sponsorships, TV advertisements and celebrity endorsements to bring up the brand value of Sakae Sushi. These activities have been planned and will be implemented in Year 2008 to fulfil its objectives.

1. Introduction

Sakae Sushi, a brand associated with affordable, good quality and healthy Japanese food. Its four main business units are in the retail outlets (restaurants), Sakae Delivery, Take-Away and its Franchising. Sakae Sushi retail outlets will be the focus here.

Sakae Sushi is the flagship brand of Apex-Pal International Ltd which has grown from one outlet in 1997 to 35 outlets as of now (2007), making it the largest local chain of Japanese restaurants. Its mission and core values can be found in Appendix A.

This report discussed the approaches Sakae Sushi undertakes in maintaining its competitiveness in the market.

2. Discussion

2.1. Key Findings & Analysis

2.1.1. BCG Matrix of Sakae Sushi

Position of a SBU on the BCG provides an indication of its cash generation and cash consumption (Netmba, 2007, accessed on 25 September 2007).

From Appendix B, we can see that Sakae Sushi is growing at 2.7 times faster than its competitor. Their retail chain outlets are in the Cash Cow as it is generating 70% of the revenue. Take-away and delivery service are in the Star Category which can be nurtured to be Cash Cow.

Franchising is one opportunity in the Question Mark. This will help to gain a bigger market share, thus affirming its strong presence in the Japanese food industry.