1.5 Generation Indian

To continue from my last post, let me now explain the implementation level issues I had to deal with.  Some of these fall into strategic rather than tactical, but here they are anyway:

Minimum Guarantees
The restaurants I spoke with required a minimum guarantee to give a package rate.  I had settled on an upscale restaurant that I had visited before.  General consensus among the people I talked to was that it was a good place that met most of our criteria.  This restaurant required a 25 person minimum.  I explained to the manager that this was our first event.  I had no idea how many would show up.  I had to convince him over a few conversation that it could be 10 or it could be 40, I really did not know, and he had to be flexible.

Upscale Restaurants
There are many upscale restaurants in Delhi but not many middle of the road.  Most of the places I’ve seen in Delhi so far will end up costing you 3000 for a three course meal.  If you go out for drinks only with friends, you end up paying 2000 to 2500 also.  This is a problem because unless we get a packaged deal, we cannot get the better rates.  We cannot get the packaged deals unless we can guarantee participants.  We cannot guarantee the number of people at this point because a) we are starting out, b) it’s a relatively new concept so time will be required, c) will people pay these amounts?

Pricing
A key issue we ran into was pricing.  What is the highest people would pay?  We started with 2500.  We then lowered it to 2000.  I also started out wanting to charge a cover between 500 and 700 so we could hire people.  I threw that out the door also when I felt some resistance.

Then, a big issue came up.  Should there be a different rate for women as for men?  My partner suggested women will not pay or they will not pay a large amount.  You can charge them 500 but not 2500.  She said she goes out all the time and has not yet ever paid.  All her guy friends divide the cost.  She didn’t know on average how much her friends paid when they went out but estimated each shelling out 2000 to 3000 per night.  I went to the restaurant manager with this and he declined, saying it’s not fair and they wouldn’t do it.

Alcohol Type
The package deals had unlimited alcohol included.  The question was if the alcohol should be imported or IMFL, a term I had never heard before but understood the meaning in context.  IMFL is Indian Made Foreign Liquor.  I am not quite sure what the difference is, as many brands that I consider imported seem to fall into the IMFL category.  For example, Smirnoff is considered IMFL. 

Anyhow, the point is that the cost differs by 800 to 1000 per person for the unlimited alcohol package.  So if we went with IMFL, it would have been far less.  Based on suggestions from my advisors, we went with imported.  It turns out IMFL may have been fine also.

RSVPs.  Tickets.
I had a dilemma - how to ensure the people who RSVP actually show up?!  We all know that many people will not make it even if they RSVP since there is really no penalty for them not showing up.  This not only affects the deal that can be struck with the restaurant, for today and tomorrow, it also makes it difficult to plan out the evening’s activities and balance the ratio.  I decided to have them buy tickets ahead of time.  Since many did not RSVP, I had to drop that idea.  This did not perturb me.  I was expecting a low turnout although I was cautiously optimistic also.  So I had to switch to Plan B mid gear, extend the deadline, re-work our agreement with the restaurant, and continue on.

Communication
I did a good job, if I say so myself, of keeping the restaurant manager and my partners and advisors included throughout the process.  I kept them updated on RSVP count, strategy, and what was happening next.  I asked them for input and did much as they suggested.

There were other implementation issues as well, but these are all that come to mind right now.