Why Bangaliana won't work (with me atleast)
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Well, finally managed to go to Bangaliana. It's a bengali restaurant on Banerghatta road and Utathya had recommended it to me quite sometime back.
But I'm not going back to it again anytime soon, so spent some time talking to the proprietor in understanding their business model...frankly I'm not convinced. They charge in the range Rs. 45-70 for meals (different prices for egg/fish/chicken/mutton meal). Well, the food is just ordinary by bengali culrinary standards. Their differentiation is the bengali menu but in reality that too is limited to a couple of tarkari s(vegetable).
The proprietor intends to place this restaurant in the everyday-meal segment and that's why the food is ordinary. Yet since the menu is differentiated, he believes he is justified in the higher pricing.
But I'd look at it differently. My menu is different, that's a negative...differentiation can serve as a negative as well, we tend to forget. The majority population around is Kannadiga, they would rather go the Shanti Sagars which provide the meals in the Rs 20-30 range. Bangaliana's consumer is unique, it's the Bengalis scattered all round Bangalore. But people will take the trouble of moving beyond the neighbourhood eaterie only if the food is worth it. Thus the food quality needs to improve, that's the centerpiece of the gambit. There aren't enough Bengalis around here to sustain the place for long and the Kannadigas won't stray to such a place by a long shot. Bangaliana's competitors aren't the Shanti Sagars, it's the other Bengali eaeries in Bangalore (there are quite a few of them, some really good)...Well, there are many other detailed points of concern but I guess this is enough to convey one line of my thoughts.
The other line of thought is this; not only may Bangaliana survive, it may even thrive, just a first push (which might result from randomness) and the non-linear feedback cycle might start making all the above deficiencies irrelevant. It's mother branch at Koramangala, the proprietor told me, has been doing decent business (but I need to see that place to believe).
Marketing professionals are well conversant with the first line of thought but the second line hasn't yet found place in the mainstream marketing literature.
We need to tame the randomness...understand it so that we might take advantage of it.
Anyway, I'm not going back to that place in the near future and there is no randomness involved in this :-).
Well, finally managed to go to Bangaliana. It's a bengali restaurant on Banerghatta road and Utathya had recommended it to me quite sometime back.
But I'm not going back to it again anytime soon, so spent some time talking to the proprietor in understanding their business model...frankly I'm not convinced. They charge in the range Rs. 45-70 for meals (different prices for egg/fish/chicken/mutton meal). Well, the food is just ordinary by bengali culrinary standards. Their differentiation is the bengali menu but in reality that too is limited to a couple of tarkari s(vegetable).
The proprietor intends to place this restaurant in the everyday-meal segment and that's why the food is ordinary. Yet since the menu is differentiated, he believes he is justified in the higher pricing.
But I'd look at it differently. My menu is different, that's a negative...differentiation can serve as a negative as well, we tend to forget. The majority population around is Kannadiga, they would rather go the Shanti Sagars which provide the meals in the Rs 20-30 range. Bangaliana's consumer is unique, it's the Bengalis scattered all round Bangalore. But people will take the trouble of moving beyond the neighbourhood eaterie only if the food is worth it. Thus the food quality needs to improve, that's the centerpiece of the gambit. There aren't enough Bengalis around here to sustain the place for long and the Kannadigas won't stray to such a place by a long shot. Bangaliana's competitors aren't the Shanti Sagars, it's the other Bengali eaeries in Bangalore (there are quite a few of them, some really good)...Well, there are many other detailed points of concern but I guess this is enough to convey one line of my thoughts.
The other line of thought is this; not only may Bangaliana survive, it may even thrive, just a first push (which might result from randomness) and the non-linear feedback cycle might start making all the above deficiencies irrelevant. It's mother branch at Koramangala, the proprietor told me, has been doing decent business (but I need to see that place to believe).
Marketing professionals are well conversant with the first line of thought but the second line hasn't yet found place in the mainstream marketing literature.
We need to tame the randomness...understand it so that we might take advantage of it.
Anyway, I'm not going back to that place in the near future and there is no randomness involved in this :-).
posted by Ayan Bhattacharya @ 8:50 AM
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