Pizza Chef is a pizza take-away and delivery firm that has been established for 5 years. The management is a partnership of two friends, who share the duties around the firm. Between themselves, the managers have got more then 30 years of experience in the pizza trade. There are five staff members including one supervisor. The shop is open 7 days a week, Monday’s to Saturday from 4pm-12am and Sundays 4pm-10am. All the workers work under a rota and have two or three shifts a week.

Workers have to go through an induction programme before they start working in the organisation and Pizza Chef also send employees on a food hygiene course to ensure extra safety whilst working. The method of payment in Pizza Chef is an hourly rate of i?? 4. 20. The employee’s are paid every week by cash with senior members earning significantly more. Pizza Chef has a good reputation around the West Bromwich area. The customers are always pleased with the service they provide and Pizza Chef executives promise a 30-minute service or they give you discounts on your pizza.

Where Pizza Chef is based, there is a lot of competition in the area. There is a McDonalds opposite, a Chinese take-away next door and a chips shop on the other side. The shop is situated near a residential area and has many regular customers. In this research assignment, I will investigate whether it is feasible for Mr Chohan and Pizza Chef to open a second Pizza base in the Handsworth area. This outlet will be situated on the Soho Road opposite the Barclays Bank towards Rookery Road end, which is shown on the map on the next page.

I will look at all the possible solutions for the problems that may arise. The main problem for Pizza Chef at this present moment is deciding whether they should open the new branch in Handsworth? If they do, then capital will come from the existing business and may starve it of capital, which will almost definitely ruin the existing business. Mr Chohan will also have to be aware of his business going into liquidation because he may find a lot of cash-flow problems if he decides to go ahead with this.

In an Industry that’s very competitive, opening up a new business will prevent his existing business from moving forward and therefore starve it of capital. This is another problem that may arise. If they do decide to go ahead with this project and it is not successful, it could ruin the established business, which is a major threat. The Handsworth branch may also take a while to establish itself. I will conduct questionnaires to see whether the pizza market is in demand in the Handsworth area.

I will study The Handsworth area to see what kind of competition there is. Above all I will look at the cost to set up a new business and whether it is a worthy investment. My first objective implies investigating whether there is sufficient demand within the food take-away market. This is critical to my investigation because if there is no growth in demand within the food take-away market, this will have a major effect on the business and therefore the business is likely to decline.

In order to obtain this information, I will need to gather secondary research regarding the food take-away market. The types of information I will need are market share figures, potential growth within the market and other facts and figures to do with the market. My secondary information will come from sources such as the Central Library, use of the Internet and various books. My second task will be to profile the existing customer base of the shop in West Bromwich and study the similarities to the population profile of Handsworth.

Here, I have to study the current customer base in West Bromwich and Handsworth. I could do this by carrying out a foot-count at a peak at West Bromwich and Handsworth. From the foot-count, I will gain information such as an estimate of the population, the types of ethnic origins in the area and possible age groups and gender balance. From this foot-count, I could probably predict what kind of market I would be aiming the pizza shop at. I will also gather ward information from other sources to give me a background about the people within the two areas.

This will come from census figures and related sources of information. As I wanted to get an overview of the peoples opinions in Handsworth, I have decided to conduct a questionnaire and have targeted people on the streets of Handsworth with a face-to-face interview. There are also other methods of collecting this information such as telephone interviews and postal surveys but I feel that a face-to-face interview is the best way to conduct this piece of primary research because I am gathering information directly from the people within my market.

These questionnaires will tell me about the local demand for pizzas within the area and whether people are for or against the idea of another pizza outlet opening in the area, which will influence my final decision. To complete this Questionnaire, I have decided to use a convenience sample. This is where ‘the interviewer selects and convenient place where large groups of people congregate, as the location for conducting interviews. ‘ The advantage of this type of sample is that it is less time consuming, easier to conduct and is also targeted at the market I want to survey.

This is also ideal for my research because my location will be on the Soho Road (where a number of people from the Handsworth area go to shop). I feel that this is the easiest method for me to conduct and is also as reliable as the other methods. The answer’s I will receive will hopefully represent the majority of people’s views but I understand it will not represent every single persons viewpoint or opinion because I am only using a sample of 80 people which should be enough to give a valid picture of the viewpoints and opinions of the residents of Handsworth.

Before I conduct all of this, I will have to construct a pilot questionnaire. I will do this to check whether the questions I am asking are structured correctly so they are easy for people to answer but also give me the data that I require and will allow me to conduct further analysis on my answers. I will create a pilot questionnaire and ask 10 people then make any amendments that are necessary to get maximum information from the research. From the information I get from the questionnaire, I will attempt to estimate the total revenue per year to be expected from opening the shop.

My final task will be to calculate the cost of establishing the new outlet in Handsworth. Gaining cash-flow information and analysing if the current business has made sufficient profit to set up the new branch will accomplish this task. I will gain this information by completing a cash-flow diagram of Pizza Chef’s previous sales and also interviewing the manager of Pizza Chef to gain qualitative data, which can be analysed then used to see were the finance will come from to set up the new outlet.