César Ritz Colleges Washington State University

BA in Hospitality Business Management

Assignment 2: Generating Products to Meet the Unmet Need

Submitted: 30 Oct 2022

By: Jiayi Lyu Grace 742336

Cramarennco Milana 744504 Elena Qian Miao 743016

Submitted to: Professor: Dr. U. N. Umesh

Organize the customer needs and come up with a set of product specifications that could

meet those needs better than current products.

In the first assignment, we pointed out that the current takeout service in Switzerland cannot

meet the needs of customers. Specific performance in three aspects, limited time, limited location

and limited payment methods. Not everyone has time to shop at supermarkets before they close,

not all places have takeaway services, and not all payment methods are accepted.

And our company "Fresh 24 Hours", as the name implies, operates 24 hours, which is a good

solution to the Swiss problem of time limit, whether it is take-out or shop. Fresh 24 Hours

wanted to offer a new option to all Swiss users who were not satisfied with Uber Eats. We will

set up several centers in Switzerland, and these centers will cover a 20 km area until they cover

all the towns in Switzerland. All the delivery personnel will belong to our company's staff, and

they need to receive systematic training before they start work, to minimize the problems of lost

items and wrong delivery addresses. If the goods are still not delivered, customers can contact

the merchants and delivery personnel on the app platform in a timely manner, and then the

company will compensate or make up the delivery. Online contact with merchants and delivery

personnel will be automatically translated in language. Even though businesses, delivery staff

and customers all speak different languages, they can communicate smoothly. For app system

language, restaurant menu language and map language will be consistent with the user's mobile

phone system language, and can be modified at any time. All payment methods will be accepted,

both online and offline.

Generate Concept(s). This is a brainstorm-type exercise. Come up with at least five ideas

that could meet these unmet needs. These could be physical products, a set of services, or

some combination. Use your imagination.

Refine the concept using ideas in Chapter 5 of your textbook. You do not have to go

through ALL the steps described in the textbook, as that would be too extensive.

After some brainstorming Fresh 24 company decided to include 5 more unmet needs and

services in the company so that the consumer will be even more satisfied. The purpose of Fresh

24 Hours company is to make people’s lives easier so these services will be very useful for them.

To begin with, the first idea with which we came up is to provide warm food vending machines

at bus stations. Our priority is that the consumer can get any time, any day food 24/7. The

customer will be able to buy for himself a warm soup, or delicious pasta with sauce, crapes, etc.

In addition, there will be a sector for cold meals, where you will be able to buy salads,

smoothies, or yogurts. This is for people who are running late for work, do not have time to wait

for our delivery, are just very hungry, and do not want to pay extra for the same quality of salad

in a restaurant.

The second idea was to have a function in the app of a weekly purchase list. It is a service that

will provide an opportunity to do these lists a couple of days in advance and the app will

automatically remember what the customer ordered last time. It is very functional for big

families, so they do not need to order supermarket delivery every two or three days.

Thirdly, we are going to have a drone delivery option. What is more, it will be more sustainable.

But drones are going to deliver just small packages of food. Maximum five to seven kg. It may

be faster during the day since drones are not like cars that sometimes stay in traffic jams.

We would like to provide a loyalty program for the customers. Each of the customers after the

third order will get automatic points and after some time will be able to buy something for free.

It can be food or cookware. These points will start to be credited if the order is more than 20

CHF.

The last service that we came up with is to provide people with everything to grill. This means

that customers are going to be able to rent a grill for a day or two. It is a good possibility for

people that do not want to buy a grill or just do not have enough space to keep it.

The most promising ideas are vending machines with food supply, a function in an app of a

weekly purchase list, and a loyalty program with the accumulation of points.

Describe the final product form. Describe the market for that product by defining who

would buy it and what kinds of products it would pull sales away from. Make sure you

have searched for similar products in similar markets on the internet (so you have to

describe the market as well).

The final form of our product will be an app called “Fresh 24 Hours” where we offer all the

items that can be bought from the supermarket, with home delivery, available 24 hours a day.

People can find our software and download it from mobile phones or any electronic product.

People can buy what they want from the app and place an order, and someone will deliver it to

their door.

The figure below shows the proportion of people who use the food delivery app in Switzerland

by different age groups. It can be seen that almost all age groups in Switzerland use the food

delivery app. 25 to 54 years old is the largest age group.

The main audience of “Fresh 24 Hours” customers is almost all people, and almost most people

will need to use our app. Includes young adults from Gen Z and Millennials, busy office

workers, parents of young children looking for convenience and grocery delivery solutions, and

seniors who are retired at home. They can purchase the products they want on our app in advance

before leaving work, and the products just arrive at home when they get home. In addition, when

people who live alone are sick and do not have the strength to go to the supermarket to buy

products, they can directly buy products on the app, and they can get the products they want

without leaving home. For the elderly with limited mobility, supplies can be easily obtained.

“Fresh 24 Hours” app has facilitated the purchasing method of life for most people.

(Similarweb.com. 2022.)

The picture above shows the top five most downloaded food delivery apps in Switzerland

recently. As you can see from the graph, Too Good To Go is in first place, followed by

McDonald’s, Uber Eats, and Just Eat in third and fourth positions. Burger King is the fifth most

downloaded app. It can be seen that people have been using apps like food delivery. And Uber

Eats has always had a certain position in the market.

(Statista., 2022)

The above picture shows the share of users of each food delivery app in Switzerland. As can be

seen from the chart, the largest share of usage is Just Eat Takeaway.com, which holds 60% of the

market share and has a relatively large competitive advantage. Next is Uber Eats, but it only

accounts for 20% of the market share usage, which is quite a stark contrast to the market share of

Just Eat Takeaway.com. Of the remaining 20%, Smood accounts for 10%, and the rest of the

food delivery app only accounts for 10%.

The biggest competitors for the “Fresh 24 Hours” app are Just Eat Takeaway.com and Uber Eats.

But they do not provide the services that our app provides, like we mentioned in assignment 1,

we are not working with restaurants to deliver food from restaurants to guests. Instead, buy daily

necessities, food, or household items from the supermarket and have them delivered to your

door. And not all restaurants are open 24 hours. Providing different kinds of home delivery

services and 24 hours business hours is the competitive advantage of the “Fresh 24 Hours” app.

References:

Statista. 2022. Online Food Delivery – Switzerland | Market Forecast. [online] Available at:

<https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/eservices/online-food-delivery/switzerland#users>

[Accessed 29 October 2022].

Similarweb.com. 2022. Top free apps ranking – most popular apps in Switzerland – similarweb.

[online] Available at: https://www.similarweb.com/apps/top/google/app-index/us/all/top-free/

(Accessed: October 30, 2022).