Project Wings

 

By Singapore Management University

Project Wings by Singapore Management University was held in Yunnan, China with 15 members in the team. They aimed to improve the business of the Sweet-tooth Café which is run by the hearing impaired. The café is located the Dali Gucheng, an ancient town located north of the district of Dali City in the Yunnan Province.

Before the team boarded the bus to get to Dali Gucheng, they split into 3 groups to look for the materials needed for the expedition. It proved to be a challenge as most of the items needed could not be found; even food items such as chocolate bars were scarce. The team felt that if only they have someone who is familiar with the area, getting the stuff might be easier.

The team set up a sales target of RMB$10,000 to be achieved by the end of their expedition. This amount was derived by studying the accounts from the same season a year ago. Then, the team split into smaller groups to conduct market research. One group went to the local university to find out the eating and spending habits of the students; the second group visited other bars and cafes to understand their competitive edges over Sweet-tooth; the third group stayed in the Sweet-tooth café to study the inflow of customers.

It happened to be the “Golden week”, public holiday for the locals, when the team was there. Hence, more tourists visited Dali Gucheng and the team made full use of this opportunity to carry out publicity and promotions for Sweet-tooth. The team gave out pamphlets, which were in Mandarin and English, to both the local Chinese and Western tourists. The Chinese tourists commented that they were not interested to try Western desserts as they preferred traditional Chinese food and the Western tourists thought that the team was pesky tour guides. Nevertheless, the team did not give up.

The team then introduced “English Night” so as to attract the university students who were eager to practice speaking the English language. The team set up a chocolate fondue and treated the customers to it. The team also shared with the staff of Sweet-tooth on the rules and regulations of the board games that were brought from Singapore. 

A mini event, “Competition Day”, was organised to mark the re-opening of the café on the last day of the high school examination. The new menu was used and new furniture was put up. However, the event was not well received as the locals preferred to visit the downtown of larger provinces. The team realised that perhaps there should have been a longer period of time to advertise the event as it takes time for advertisement to be effective. 

All in all, no doubt there were challenges, the team made significant contributions in helping the café and strong friendship was forged between the team and the staff of Sweet-tooth.

 

 

 

 

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