South 2 Mouth: Innovative Fusion Food Deal on Wheel
India has been known for most unique food cultures in the world and it is hard to imagine Indian cuisine without spices. To add variety in flavour and taste, Indians prefer delicious and economical street foods during their leisure and holidays outings. Street foods are ready-to-eat foods sold on streets sides, which could be on a bicycle, a stall or a small shop. In India, street food vendors or peddles are very common outside schools & colleges, in markets, near bus stands & railway stations, etc. Some of these street foods are authentic regional delicacies; others are fusions of different tastes. This case is about a street-side food joint, South 2 Mouth at Ahmedabad, India (Annexure I). Pradeep Parekh (Pradeep), founder of this food-joint, wanted to pursue his passion as entrepreneur with a vision of providing tasty food to customers as well as employment to the needy. He succeeded in winning hearts of many customers through his unique business model and strategic innovation in fusion menu.
The street entrepreneurs are the persons who offer services (services include foods, apparels, vegetable selling, etc.) or goods for sale to public with temporary infrastructure either static or mobile stalls (pushcarts, cycles, baskets or motorized carts) moving from one place to another. Motive to use the word street entrepreneur instead of street vendor differentiates the class as self-employed person with self-direction, creative vision, imagination and ability in generation of employment. The Government of India had inclusively defined both street entrepreneur and urban vendor as traders or service providers to local/regional public through their static or mobile infrastructure. Other Indian terminology used to describe them are hawker, pheriwalla (cadger, cheapjack, pedlar, rounds man), rehri-patriwalla (packman, pitchman, huckster) etc.
Genesis of South 2 Mouth
South 2 Mouth canvased a case on Pradeep Parekh’s dream venture, who decided to start an entrepreneurship different from mainstream business orientation. Pradeep (a native of Ahmedabad), popularly known as Peddy, started South 2 Mouth as a street-side food joint in October 2014. After completing graduation in Commerce, he joined his family business of transportation2, however, found it difficult to sustain. The issues, which hunted him to shut down that business, were truck driver’s hostile behaviour, road accidents causing owner’s sleepless nights, lot of hassles due to assignment not reaching destiny on time, etc. Within few years Pradeep realised that, he was not born for those old monotonous family business and chosen to change his line of business as per his passion and propensity..................
Business Model and Innovation
South 2 Mouth was started in October 2014 with start-up fund INR4 lakh ($25,420,000) with a simple mission to achieve ‘delight to hunger and be right to customer’. The self-financed business model had four simple sections to handle, viz. market mix, production unit, revenue model and value chain strategy (Exhibit III and Annexure IV)................
Idea Validation: Customer’s Feedback
To analyze the critical success factors of South 2 Mouth’s innovative business model as well as to understand customers’ perception on South 2 Mouth’s menu and service quality, a qualitative survey was conducted by two researchers Silk and Raghav, who were IIM-Ahmedabad scholars. They were keen to support Pradeep and explore business outcomes to plan future strategies. Their support was a friendly gesture, as Pradeep was mostly busy dealing with customers and he hardly had time to conduct such survey on his business.............
Business Challenges
The scenario of street entrepreneurs struggling for existence reveals the tough fight for their business sustainability. In fact, Pradeep was in a big dilemma when he thought of starting a street food joint in such a competitive milieu. Cut-throat competition from street food vendors offering similar menu was one of the prominent issues bothering Pradeep. To differentiate himself from the rest of the players, Pradeep first tried to analyze the nature of the business. He listed out various factors which highlighted customers’ perception about street side food outlets such as low price, poor hygiene and ambience, lack of innovative products and poor interpersonal skills of the owners.............
Road Map Ahead
South 2 Mouth succeeded in marking an impression in hearts of Ahmedabad people. According to Polka Café survey, back in time there were food carts and roadside vendors serving sumptuous food. However, in recent times, food trucks have replaced those old food carts and they seemed to be catching people’s fancy as well. There were many food vans serving food all over India. Some were externally eye-catching vans, while others had finger-licking fast food as per at the survey results of Polka Café (Exhibit XVI).............
Assignment Questions
I. What is street entrepreneurship? Elucidate pros and cons of street entrepreneurship.
II. ........................
Exhibits
Exhibit I: Pradeep Parekh’s Innovative South 2 Mouth Food Wagon
Exhibit II: South 2 Mouth, a Unique Street Entrepreneurship
Exhibit III: South 2 Mouth Business Model
Exhibit IV: Evening Ambience and Siting Arrangement
Exhibit V: South 2 Mouth Product Innovation
Exhibit VI: Traditional View of Idly and Dosa
Exhibit VII: South 2 Mouth Unique Servicing Style
Exhibit VIII: Customer’s Feedback through Social Media
Exhibit IX: South 2 Mouth’s Organizational Chart
Exhibit X: Monthly Salary of Employees
Exhibit XI: People’s Choice Award 2015 from City Shor
Exhibit XII: Content Analysis and Coding the Reason of visit to South 2 Mouth
Exhibit XIII: Content Analysis and Coding for Positive Feedback
Exhibit XIV: Content Analysis and Coding for Negative Feedback
Exhibit XV: Qualitative Model based on Interview of Service Quality
Exhibit XVI: Other Competitors of South 2 Mouth in Different Cities of India
