Case Study on Dosa Plaza

Mr. Ganapathy smiles and says it was an accidental business. He basically hails from a small village called
Naglapuram from Tamil Nadu. He came to Mumbai in 1990 in search of livelihood with a great ambition
and dream along with his basic educational background. He passed out of 10th standard and migrated to
Mumbai with the help of his friend.
He applied for a job at different places but was denied a job for not having a good education background
or knowing English. Then he worked in a bakery at Bandra making pav vada and pavs are the favourite
dish of Mumbaikars. Mr. Ganapathy worked at many small places and restaurants. He was not satisfied
with his job and shifted his base to new Mumbai.

He started a career with a restaurant in Vashi called Prem Sagar as a service boy. Later, his passion for
cooking led to a business opportunity when he started selling dosas.

Growth:
Having seen a dosa stall on the roadside in sector 12 at Vashi along with his brother, he decided to start
a business in dosa. He was running a business almost for five years in the same area and offered as
many as 15 varieties of dosas. During this period he created a customer base and learned new varieties
of dosas.

Along with his dosa outlet he tried his luck by investing in a Chinese restaurant in which he incurred a
loss. But he tried Chinese cuisine in his dosas which worked very well. He got passionate and invented
variety of dosas in Chinese style like American chopsuey, schezwan dosa, paneer chilly, spring roll dosa
etc. By the year end, Dosa Plaza had fashioned 20-25 original varieties of dosas.

During this time he learnt about the computers and the use of internet from a friend. He had a vision to
make dosa an international cuisine. Late in the evening, he used to browse the internet to broaden his
skills and convert his vision into a reality. He made his dosas popular by serving them complimentary to
his customers. The tremendous response that he received from his customers inspired him to fashion
many more original one-of-their-kind recipes.

Dosa Plaza had already made its presence felt in the hearts of the food lovers. By 1998, Dosa Plaza had
104 delicious varieties of dosas in its list. He started his first shop at the Vashi Railway station. He earned
a good name and credibility through the Vashi store. The response to his dosas kept growing, so he
stayed on for a whole year. He bought his vegetables from APMC Vashi market at a wholesale price
every morning and made basic recipes at home with his brother.
Branding:
Dosa plaza came to his mind as both the words have “AA” in the end which make it sound better and
Plaza means open corner space and his new outlet was also in an open corner. Dosa Plaza is affixed with
Prem Sagar as he worked in Prem Sagar. Before which, he never got such an opportunity to work.

Earlier he was always instructed by his employer to work in a kitchen. It was the Prem Sagar restaurant
which gave him an opportunity to interact with customers and showcase his talent. According to Mr.
Ganapathy, the market is kaleidoscopic. When he started, customers used to come because of the
owner’s name and the personal relationship. Gradually customers shifted to food taste. Brand had a
major role in customer preferences. Now customers come for brand. Service, location and ambience
play an important role on a customer’s mind.

Competition:
Dosa Plaza doesn’t have any big competition as everybody operates in their own way. The major
organized player has also entered into this business with a strong financial support and brand name.
Dosa Diner is the first restaurant in Mumbai to transform traditional Udipi food into non-vegetarian fare.

This attempt is to capture the mid-market family dining segment. The restaurant effectively mixes bright
colors and ethnic materials to produce a warm ambience. The restaurant offers various types of dosas
with choice of fillings ranging from prawns, lamb and chicken to mushrooms and cottage cheese.

Dr. Dosa had a clear cision for his success. He’s been interested in food — preparing it, serving it and
seeing people enjoy it. Though never formally trained in the dosa preparation, he learned to cook. He
did R&D in dosa and created more varieties. Now 27 dosas are trademarked and the number is still
increasing. He opted to spend his time learning how to prepare dosas for his family, customers and
always found the experience tremendously satisfying. Even today he hasn’t lost his enthusiasm for well-
prepared food.
Mr. Ganapathy learnt business in Mumbai. His personality shows a great impact of family tradition,
values and ethics. He firmly believes in himself and believes in moving ahead at every stage of life. He
does not believe in looking back. Past experience as employee of many small restaurants helped him to
understand the business in a broader perspective.

He personally believes dosa is a purely vegetarian food and doesn’t believe adding non-vegetarian
varieties in his menu. Instead of that he brought different veg concepts in his menu and added more
varieties. He is the first person in India who offered idly with Manchurian at a premium price.
Future Expansion:
Presently Dosa Plaza has 35 outlets spread across in nine different states in India. Mr. Ganapathy is not
targeting all shopping malls but only a few quality malls. Prime target is highways. He is planning to
launch 6-8 outlets in Chennai in the next one year.

Two new restaurant formats, “Mumbai Spices” and “Chop king” have been introduced. Food trial is on
for these restaurants. He is also planning to open kiosks opposite to the railway stations in Mumbai and
the plan is to have centralized kitchen in Mumbai, which will be the supplier so as to optimize the entire
process.

For the international operations he already had a strategic tie-up with landmark group which is one of
the leading retail groups in the world. He started his first outlet in Sharjah international airport & other
outlet in New Zealand.

This outlet in New Zealand is the first Dosa outlet. Prior to this, there wasn’t any vegetarian outlet of this
scale in close proximity. Foreigners and NRIs come from 100 km range. Mr. Ganapathy believes that
customers come to his outlet as the rates are reasonable. He is also planning to enter into Canada and
US market soon.

Mode of Operation:
Dosa Plaza operates on three business models i.e. company owned, joint venture and franchise. At an
initial stage the stores were expanded by the method of franchising. At the growth stage, few of the
stores did not perform well. The store which was there is Ghatkopar was closed because of the
franchisees.

It’s difficult to control over the franchisees which is the major drawback of this particular model.
Ganapathy prefers joint venture rather than having franchise outlets especially in overseas operations as
joint ventures allow more control over the business.

Q1. What is your brief understanding about the case & present SWOT Analysis?

Q2. What did Mr.Ganapathy do in the start of the business to be successful?

Q3. According to the case study what are customer preferences?

Q4. What was the USP of Dosa Diner brand?

USE PPT FORMAT SHARED TO MAKE PPT & NOT MORE THAN 10 SLIDES.TIME LIMIT-20 Mins