In an exclusive interaction with Restaurant India, Chris Jung reveals his planning to enter the Indian market. He also shares that master franchise would be his first preference to enter the Indian market.
Caffe bean has an aggressive plan in terms of opening up to 600 locations in the US and expand to 10,000 locations worldwide by 2020. What is your plan on entering the Indian market?
For entering into the Indian market, we are finding a good and perspective Indian partner as our master franchisee. We will partner with the local franchisee to penetrate our services in the local market.
Global players like Starbucks, Costa Coffee and National players like CCD have adopted various strategies to maintain brand position in India. What unique strategy you would take in India to meet customers’ demands?
We are number one coffee player in Korea and we are leading Starbucks Korea there. Our selling points for all our cafes are our unique European style interior design, global style menu at our cafes and our unique star marketing process.
Do you think that designing is an integral part of the cafe. How do you design your cafes? Any particular theme based design?
We have everything designed in a very different way not like other American cafes. We have paintings, interiors designed in traditional European way and that makes us different from other players in the segment. And if we sign a master franchisee deal in India, we will follow the same designing pattern for Indian stores also.
How is the Caffe Bean menu different from other coffee chains?
We have both global and local menus in our cafes. We believe in the localisation of menu and serving the local taste which each country has.
What according to you is the best model to expand the business overseas? Is it the franchisee or the JV?
We will find the good, reliable master franchisee in the Indian market and will also study that whether or not joint venture is possible for this land.
Will you enter India on stand-alone basis or you would form a JV?
Though we have not decided yet, but I think, the master franchisee system is the most effective way to enter the Indian market. So, joint venture is an optional plan for us.
If you find a right partner here at the show, when can we expect you in the country?
After signing the master franchisee deal, you may see our cafe in either Mumbai or Delhi within six months.
Interviewed at Franchise India Show 2014
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