Photo courtesy of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts 75th Anniversary Media Kit
After taking two eight-week terms off (for travel purposes — Yellowstone Trip and HighEdWeb), I am happy to be back in the swing of this with the MBA program at Elizabethtown College. This term, it’s Global Business Strategies. While I don’t think I’ll ever be involved in international business, at least at a solely-dedicated level, I am loving the material so far. I also work at Elizabethtown College’s Office of Marketing and Communications, and this new perspective could definitely serve me well when working with the Admissions Office on pieces geared toward recruiting international students.
This class is also a breath of fresh air for me, as it’s more theory-based and the assignments are response papers, case studies, etc. — much more up my alley than numbers and equations! One of our assignments each week is to find a news story related to a topic selected by our instructor; this week it was India.
Since the first week, I’ve always tried to locate an article related to higher education or social media. The first week, I found an article about the growth of Chinese students coming to the United States for four-year degrees — the numbers are now higher than those pursuing a master’s degree here. The second week we were required to find an article relating to Brazil and I managed to find an article about Twitter opening up shop in the land of Carnavale and a certain type of waxing.
I forgot how much I missed writing papers when I “accidentally” turned a few paragraph-long discussion board response into more of a business feature article. OK. I do it all the time. I also just can’t help but write like a news-feature writer and I hope my classmates enjoy it this style!
At any rate, I was really proud of the “lead” for this week’s assignment, for which we had to cover an article about international business in India. So much so, I wanted to share it beyond my small class:
Where to Make the Doughnuts
Perhaps the Pennsylvania-based chain Curry Donuts would have offered the business media more clever headline opportunities, but, alas, it’s the famed, glazed, gooey, “get-em-while-they’re-hot” Krispy Kreme that just baked its first batch in India.
Through a development between Krispy Kreme and the Dubai-based Landmark Group, its branch Citymax Hotels will open 80 franchise locations in southern and western India. The flagship store, which opened Jan. 16, 2013, is located in Bangalore, the third largest city in the country. Although the store recently opened, according the official press release from Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation, the partnership was sealed in June 2012, making this a much-awaited grand opening. Given that the hotel group, one of the country’s largest, has strong knowledge of the Indian food and beverage market, it plans to also offer menu items that fit culture’s palate.
Zack’s Equity Research, one of my sources for this post, believes that this is a strategic fit for the city because it is home to many technology companies and universities, and also still lacks major penetration of quick-serve eateries. Also, the middle class is growing and is predicted to grow 10 times by 2025. What’s more, though, is the fact that Indians have quite the sweet tooth; Zack’s explains that the café market has grown at a compounded annual rate of 25 percent over the last five years. This growth includes the introduction of several coffee companies, including Lavazza. Krispy Kreme is not alone, however; Dunkin Donuts entered the market in May 2012, followed by Starbucks in Oct. 2012.
Forbes India blogger, Nilofer D’Souza is quite excited about the 75-year-old doughnut-maker’s entry into her home country. She watched the excitement for Krispy Kreme India grow on Facebook as they soared from 3,000 likes to 21,000 in a short period during its pre-launch promotion. Other tactics employed by the company were to give out free samples at local schools and malls. D’Souza, in her post, references a quote the vice-chairperson for the Landmark Group gave during a press conference:
“India is about young people, and this is a brand for young people.”
For a long time, these franchises, known for neon “hot doughnuts” signs to notify passerbyers that a fresh batch just came out of the fryer, were only in certain pockets of the United States. Now they can be found almost everywhere, either in a store that makes them on site, or available for purchase (such as at convenience stores like Turkey Hill). I think expanding into India is a natural move for Krispy Kreme. According to its corporate website, it is clear this company has experience in foreign markets; it has locations in 22 countries. In an earlier news report from Reuters, published shortly after the deal was signed, Krispy Kreme’s vice president of international marketing said its products were a hit with the Indian population in the United Kingdom. Judging from the collection of sources I found on this (I found the MSN Money article first, but it didn’t have too many details, so I continued researching), Krispy Kreme and Landmark really did their homework. They spent a lot of time on market research and planning the pre-launch to get consumer’s excited for the grand opening; building anticipation is usually an effective way to get people going.
The move to India not only exposes Indians to another American brand (because the East loves the West!), but also it gives Americans visiting or living in the country a sense of familiarity. As we learned from Friedman’s The World is Flat, many American companies are opening up locations in India’ s metro areas or are outsourcing to companies located there; in both of these instances, it means more American businesspeople will be traveling or relocating to the country. As we learned in a few other articles, not everyone has what it takes to handle a new culture, no matter how business savvy they are. While I firmly believe that it’s important to experience a new culture if you are going to live in one, it is still comforting to know that there is an American-based company to help in the transition.
And no matter where that 9 a.m. meeting is taking place, they can still reach for the white, red and green box.
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