International Market Expansion - Mr Mikes

To identify potential markets and marketing opportunities and formulate appropriate business strategy for international market expansion to the United States. There should be some synergies with the Canadian operations from a resource, supply chain and branding perspective so ideally we would look at markets along the border or close proximity.

International Market Expansion

To identify potential markets and marketing opportunities and formulate appropriate business strategy for international market expansion to the United States

Competitive Pricing Project

In order to remain ahead of the game, knowing what your competitors are doing is crucial. This is especially important when it comes to pricing. Therefore, we are looking to build out a database/template that can be used to track and monitor competitor pricing information. This project would include gathering and interpreting information across various Canadian restaurant chains. With a focus being place on their pricing, increases over previous years, number and type of menu items, and beverages and specials they may be offering. This would then be broken down by province/region/food category/market/ to help provide us with a comprehensive tool to analyse market trends. Another aspect would be to analyze 3rd party delivery (Skip the Dishes) pricing as well as discount pricing on certain days/nights of the week.

MR MIKES Kitchen Improvements and Efficiencies

- We would like an in depth look at our kitchen layout and equipment aiming to reduce the footprint and make it more efficient. - Taking into account our current product mix, and menu we would like suggestions on how we could make changes in our menu and/or our kitchen that would allow us to operate in smaller footprint locations

Customer Journey Map

We at Mr. Mikes are looking to distinguish the key brand elements that set apart the Mr. Mikes brand in the eyes of the consumer. What elements differentiate our restaurant from our competitors, and how well are these brand elements being executed on the front lines? Once this has been determined, we would like students to provide comprehensive feedback how effective Mr. Mikes is on executing our brand elements, and also on other areas/elements we should be focusing on. Ie. What best resonates with consumers, what are the key touch points that a restaurant should focus on, and what is the best way to both attract new consumers and retain previous ones?

Research on the Casual Dining Sector

Why is guest count and consumer spending shrinking and what are the driving factors? How much of an impact has 3rd party delivery had on consumer behavior and on the restaurant industry as a whole? We are looking for students to do a deep dive into the restaurant industry, with a specific focus on the casual dining sector. They should look into consumer speeding habits and other factors that may be leading to decreasing sales industry wide. The use of both quantitative and qualitative methods to get a better understanding of how Mr. Mikes should re-adjust or combat these external factors.

Sixty Years of MR MIKES - A Look Into Our Past

MR MIKES turns sixty next year, but the origin of the brand still remains relatively unknown. We want to unearth the true history of the origin of the MR MIKES brand. We believe the project will involve: Uncovering some of the brand history by digging through media archives. Conducting interviews of some of the early ownership or franchisees. Creating a storyboard for the information found, to celebrate the 60th year of MR MIKES. We will give you access to organizational assets to support this project such as personnel, website analytics, sales and brand collateral, and more. We hope to gain a comprehensive understanding of our company history.

Design a Restaurant Menu for the Future

What should our menu look like in ten years? A menu is one of the most important visual and tactile components of the consumer experience at any restaurant. We would like a team of students to help us conceptualize what our menu should look like in order to stay relevant to consumers ten years down the line. Students could focus on all or any of these areas: Researching and analyzing our industry’s landscapes and competitor's menus for menu design insights. Designing multiple wireframes or concepts of potential menu designs for us to assess.

Marketing ROI Analysis

How can we gauge the return on investment of our Marketing expenditure? We would like teams of students to look into our different marketing pieces to better understand how we can track the impact that our marketing expenditure is having on the bottom line. Students with a strong business/ marketing background are ideal for this project. Students could focus on all or any of these areas: How to track and gauge the success and ROI of our existing marketing expenditure with partners such as Live Nation and Curling Canada. Track and gauge the impact and ROI of our social media expenditure. Track and gauge the impact and ROI of existing in-store marketing such as features and contests.

Attracting Customers to MR MIKES

We are constantly looking to attract more guests to MR MIKES locations. How can we do this through all available forms of marketing, media and public relations tactics? MR MIKES is looking to strengthen our guest acquisition strategy, as we plan to expand to 75 new locations in the next 10-15 years in the Ontario market and 75 locations in Western Canada. While we currently use many marketing tactics that work, we'd like to make sure that our marketing strategy and tactics are backed by research and that our ROI is optimized. Your project could focus on all or any of the following: An analysis of the best media platform(s) to focus on. Mock ups and final copies of advertising pieces. Roadmap/ schedule and strategy for implementation. Analysis of ROI.

Internal Communication Plan (Building a Cultural Connection)

Our goal is for employees across the franchise system to have a cultural connection to MR MIKES and for information and communication to flow seamlessly throughout all stores.  We want every employee to feel part of something bigger and to be part of the brand and “Living the Mike's life". Additionally, we feel that happy informed employees that love the place they work translates to a better guest experience and guest experience is the most important key to success in our business. We want to make sure that we outshine industry competitors and prepare our new employees for long-term success. In addition to being more compelling than our competition, we would like our onboarding, ongoing training and career development process to uphold our company culture, accelerate the learning curve, and increase retention. We are looking to leverage new technologies to increase information flow and consistency across the brand through an intranet. Students should be prepared to: Research our existing onboarding practices to determine their effectiveness and opportunities for improvement. Analyse our current intranet system to determine opportunities for improvement Research new communication platforms that can be used to increase efficiency and consistency. Develop a standardized onboarding and communication plan that achieves our goals.

Internal Process Optimization (Hospitality Management)

What will be the future of the MR MIKES' menu, in an economic environment that will require the most efficient “back of house” in order to maintain profitability? We would like teams of students to tackle the various facets that make up this question to help us make educated decisions on maximizing franchise profits, and staying on trend with guests in the next 10 years. Students with backgrounds in Hospitality, Supply Chain Analysis, Operations, and Project Management would be ideal for this project. Students could focus on all or any of these areas: What will MR MIKES menu look like in 10 years? What does consistency and innovation look like in our current menu, and how can we increase that while adapting for the future? How can we reduce labour costs in the "back of house" while maintaining speed of kitchen times and quality?

Franchise Location Growth (Market Expansion)

We are ready to take our business to the next level. Our company requires some assistance is assessing our customer landscape, especially in the newly entered Ontario market, where we have aspirations of aggressively expanding to 75 new locations in the next 10-15 years. It is important for us to stay up to date on industry, demographic and competitive trends to ensure that we research new locations fully and completely before choosing to enter a market or select a new restaurant location. While we have a strategic plan for geographic growth in Ontario we need to make sure that our tactical plan is robust and detailed to maximize our chance of success. Our specific need is an outline of our industry’s expansion opportunities through a location, demographic, and real estate analysis. This report should include an optimal location recommendation list. Your project could focus on all or any of the following: Real Estate strategy and tactics Franchise Selection Demographic Targeting To consider: which markets align with our current brand? Where are there buyers that we have yet to reach? What are the pros and cons to expanding our operations? What potential competitors exist in new locations? We would like this to be partnered with some primary data collection; surveys and research into our present and future consumer to gather insights into buying behaviours and expansion expectations. These should supplement the location recommendations.

MR MIKES SteakhouseCasual Podcast

MR MIKES SteakhouseCasual would appreciate the support of a podcast that exploits our unique brand, excellent food (at a terrific value) that introduces our brand to those who may not be familiar with it. We would be particularly interested in the student POV regarding opportunities to differentiate between the restaurant and urbanLODGE.

Brand Analysis

During this project students will be welcome to utilize the Marketing Team for research, insight, further education, etc. MR MIKES SteakhouseCasual wants to seek out new opportunities for revenue growth / guest count by looking into purchase, usage and perception patterns of customers.