Based on this case study, answer question 3a, 3b, and 3c. Please answer by supporting with academic references. 600 words total. please also give plagiarism report at the end.
RMIT Classification: Trusted RMIT Classification: Trusted RMIT Classification: Trusted MKTG1053 Service Quality semester 1, 2021 Final Assessment Piece This is your final assessment piece. It is being released to you at 9am Melbourne time on Monday 31st May and is due no later than Monday 14th June at 9am Melbourne time. No late submissions will be accepted. The word count requirement is 1750 words (+- 10%). Remember that as in the client report, all tables, diagrams, graphs, headings citations and the reference list are not included in the word count. Please submit your answers in your own Word document via the submission button available on Canvas in the Assessment 3 link in the Assignment section. Please develop your own front page as the first page of your own Word doc and enter the word count on this together with your full name (as per RMIT’s system) your student number, your tutor’s name and your tutorial day and time. You are responsible for submitting your final assessment on time. If circumstances prevent you from being able to submit, you will need to apply for special consideration according to the normal university processes. Please note that this assessment task is to be done individually and without consultation or discussion with others. Any student who is found to have breached this requirement through any form of media or consultation will be investigated for academic misconduct. You are expected to perform your own in-depth secondary research to answer the questions. This research may include but is not limited to: company websites, general information on these companies. As such, in-text citations and a Reference List are required. A reminder that there are links to the Harvard Referencing from our canvas site. If you do not cite regularly from your research, you may be plagiarising, which is a serious issuer There are three compulsory questions. All of the questions have several parts. All parts of all questions gtare compulsory. This case study will be marked out of 50. It is worth 50% of the total marks for this course. Meet the businesses adapting and thriving amid Covid-19 lockdown/s in Melbourne. This case study discusses four businesses: A fruit and vegetable wholesale business that switched to selling to individuals, a food delivery company that diversified its service to include necessities like medicine and two restaurants that started to sell items like masks and hand sanitisers. Australian small business owners tend to be prepared for hardship (staffing, cash flow and natural disasters, for example) and generally have contingency plans in place. But businesses today had never faced a global pandemic, so quick thinking and fast action have been paramount in ensuring the survival of many ventures. Companies need to ask themselves about their supply chains, how diversified their business is, and analyse where their income is coming from. Above all, they must stay close to their customers. During the long "Covid-19" hard lockdown in Melbourne that began in July 2020 and went for 112 days, customer Mr Zhang became frustrated as there were no Chinese grocery stores in the suburb where he lived in Melbourne's northeast. For many weeks, Melbourne had a 5-kilometre travel limit, which meant he could no longer make his weekly drive to buy the food he enjoys. His favourites include water spinach, Chinese donuts, hotpot soup base and specialty mooncakes. But with the help of his friends on WeChat, a popular (Chinese) social media app, Mr Zhang found a business where he could order meat, Chinese vegetables and groceries online and get them delivered to his home. That business was Freshchoy's, a fruit and vegetable wholesale business that usually supplies Chinese restaurants in Melbourne. But as many restaurants closed their doors temporarily or permanently during the lockdown, Freshchoy's also fought to survive. A friend of the company's owner suggested they should try selling their produce on WeChat. Despite their initial unfamiliarity with the app, their business took off and went from strength to strength during the lockdown/s. Freshchoy's dispatches the produce from their warehouse and has now expanded their service to over 20 suburbs. More than 8,000 potential customers have signed up to one of their WeChat groups, where they field enquiries and note what is available. Customers then put in their orders via private iMessage. Freshchoy's employs more than 20 staff, including some new employees they recruited during the lockdown. For six days a week, the warehouse is full of action — packing, loading, preparing and delivering — and are so inundated with home delivery orders that they have had to set a limit for what they can handle each day. They attribute the business's success to a logical move to shift their customer base from companies to individuals. Happily, their income has increased by 50% since July 2020. Recent data showed more than a third of Australian businesses would continue to struggle financially until the Covid-19 pandemic is under control. Small companies are almost twice as likely to suffer financial problems compared to larger firms. No matter what size, many companies have been forced to ask some or all of their employees to take pay cuts. Some workers, such as Melbourne delivery driver Melky Sanjaya, have found extra work due to increased demand for food, groceries and other necessities such as medicine delivered to their doors. Mr Sanjaya is an international cookery student from Indonesia who is now unable to return to his homeland. He works for Chainshopper, an Indonesian-owned delivery service, which services the CBD and inner suburbs. He has worked for the company since August 2019, but since the start of Covid-19, his income has increased by 50 per cent. In addition, during the curfew, no Melbournians were allowed to leave their houses at night, so more people ordered food or urgent necessities, which was beneficial for delivery drivers. Mr Sanjaya earns approximately $150 a day over three days a week, and that is enough to cover his living costs. There are also some customers who give tips, maybe because they really needed something at night, such as medicine. Mr Sanjaya said he believes the strong demand for home deliveries in Melbourne will remain even after restrictions are lifted or Covid-19 is under control. There has been a significant change in the lifestyle of people in Melbourne. People are now comfortable with goods delivered to their doors. For Ann Do, owner of Basil Leaf Pho restaurant in Fitzroy, the decision to sell face masks at her restaurant was not just about making up for her financial losses during the lockdown/s but also a way to give back to her community. Her family has a small factory overseas that produces masks, so when Covid-19 hit Australia, she started giving away fabric masks for free. Due to the good quality of the masks, her customers began asking why she didn't sell her masks. So she started to put some masks in her store to sell to her customers. The Vietnamese restaurant on Melbourne's iconic Brunswick Street is one of many businesses impacted by a lack of overseas tourists. Local customers have returned and Basil Leaf Pho have stopped using a contracted delivery brand. Instead, they have returned to employing their own drivers, which is fast becoming the norm in Melbourne. The significant drop in foot traffic hit them hard. Brunswick Street is for interstate and overseas tourists. Her income has dropped considerably. Although her mask sales aren't lucrative, she is happy to be supplying masks to local shops. Her overall sales have decreased significantly. Their weekly diners may have decreased to around 110. Like Basil Leaf Pho, St Ali cafe in South Melbourne has also adapted its business to support its community and survive. St Ali founder Salvatore Malatesta describes three decisions he made to help the business through multiple lockdowns: sanitiser manufacturing, online grocery sales and face mask distribution. As a result, their online sales went up by a multiple of 10. Mr Malatesta managed to save the jobs of many. He managed to create sufficient cash reserves for the business to survive and fill a gap in the market that people desperately needed. This idea ticked all three boxes: take care of the workers, take care of the business and take care of the customers. His café is open 7am-3pm Monday to Friday and 7am-4pm Saturday and Sunday. Although there have been weeks where they have been able to open at their regular times since the hard lockdown ended in November, the extra “circuit breakers” have had a negative effect. Their weekly customers may have reduced to around 240. QUESTION ONE – Freshchoy's (15 marks in total) (a) Using the consumer decision-making process, discuss the steps that Mr Zhang went through in deciding to order from Freshchoy's. (5 marks) (b) Name and discuss five (5) possible risks that he might have considered before placing his first order. (5 marks) (c) Discuss what Freshchoy's might do to mitigate the five (5) risks discussed in part b of this question (5 marks) QUESTION TWO – Delivery (15 marks in total) (a) What is the core service of delivery companies such as UberEats, Menulog, Deliveroo or any other delivery service you are familiar with? (5 marks) (b) Begin by creating a diagram showing the 3 (three) circles of the service product concept - core, supplementary and augmented services that Mr Sanjaya currently provides. Then, fully discuss each service you have identified in this diagram.(5 marks) (c) Suggest five (5) additional supplementary or augmented services that you recommend Mr Sanjaya could also provide and discuss how each suggestion could increase his weekly wage.(5 marks) QUESTION THREE – basil leaf and St Ali (20 marks in total) Now that there are many hand sanitiser and mask suppliers, Basil Leaf Pho and St Ali’s wish to concentrate on their core restaurant businesses. They both wish to increase the customers who wish to eat-in at their restaurants (when lockdown/s are lifted) by 25% by the end of 2021. (a) To help them increase customers who wish to eat-in at their restaurants (when lockdown/s are lifted), suggest a segment that each restaurant could target. (5 marks) (b) Discuss why you have chosen those customers to target(5 marks) (c) Develop a 6-month marketing communications plan for each restaurant for each segment proposed in part (a) of this question. Your timeframe is July 2021 until December 2021. You are required to give evidence for each of your suggestions using your in-depth secondary research. You are also required to discuss how your plans will achieve both restaurants’ objective of 25% increase in dine-in patrons.(10marks)