Proposal

Proposal

The firm that we intended to study is a small beverage retailer called Bubble World. Its primary product is a drink called bubble tea. The firm provides its customers with a wide assortment of flavors from strawberry to taro. The drink can be made from fresh fruits or from dry powder. Currently, Bubble World has several locations: Vancouver, Burnaby, and Coquitlam. The branch that we will be studying is located on the second floor of Simon Fraser University Maggie Benston building. Our contact person, Mark Chen, is an employee of the Burnaby location.

We believe that Bubble World's target market is young Asian students, since this type of beverage is very popular in Asia before coming to Canada; however, there is a growing trend that bubble tea is being consumed by all type of individuals. Bubble World's hours of operation are from 10am to 6pm. Like most businesses on campus, Bubble World faces a lot of variability when it comes to the inflow of customers: most of its customers come in bursts which are mostly timed with classroom breaks and lunch time. The two main problems that Bubble World faces are the long line-up and the lag time from taking an order to filling it. As a result, Bubble World may have lost potential customers who may have ultimately decided to choose alternative products such as a foundation drink from a different vendor.

Flow Chart:

Based on the preliminary flow chart that we have generated, the bubble tea process contains about 11 steps. From start to finish, the whole process takes about 3 minutes. This figure is a rough estimate based on our contact person, Mark Chen. Even though the process is fairly short, waiting time can range from 5 to 15 minute depending on the time of day and day of the week. For instance, Bubble World is a lot busier on a Friday afternoon than a Friday evening. This can be attributed to the fact that there aren't many classes scheduled for Friday evening or that students may...