Din Tai Fung in Canada

1.1 Introduction

In recent times, many organisations have been developing their international marketing plan with the purposes of making their products or services going global. Due to the economics growth, the enhancement of technologies, the transportation make the world become smaller and the spread of universal values, the customers over the world are become more and more demanding ever. Larsson (2003) state that globalisation is the process of world compression. the world is getting connected, to interact and to mutual benefit.

1.2 Background information

In this essay, the legendary Taiwan restaurant Din Tai Fung dumpling house is (APEC Area) selected. Despite of the fact that Din Tai Fung was originate a cooking oil retail in 1958, Din Tai Fung dumpling house was founded in 1972 at Xinyi District due to the tinned oil replace the traditional oil retail. After the hardworking all these years and keeping the organisation philosophy of perfection, Din Tai Fung was awarded as one of the top ten restaurants of the world by New York Times in 1993 an awarded one michelin Star in 2010. And expanded to 111 branches all over the world in 2015. ( Dintaifung.com.tw, 2015)

1.3 Position and Portfolio

Porter (1980) related organisation’s positioning to two types, Differentiation and Cost. and total four sections divided by segments, Broad and Narrow. When Din Tai Fung fit in this Porter Generic Strategies, it will be located in the Segment ‘Differentiation’, it is because of Din Tai Fung’s philosophy ensure that the customers having a first-class dining and taste of Taiwan experience.

According to Doole and Lowe (2012: 265), the organisation has to keep their portfolio balanced. And we found that Din Tai Fung is success on making their portfolio balanced with standardise menu all over the world by BCG Matrix. As shown on Fig.3, Din Tai Fung’s Stars included ‘Truffle and Pork XiaoLongBao’ (Marketshare 40%), ‘Crab Roe and Pork XiaoLongBao’ (Marketshare 50%) and ‘Shaoshing Wine Marinated Chicken’ (Marketshare 35%). ‘Pork XiaoLongBao’ (Market share 100%), ‘Sautéed String Beans with Minced Pork’ (Marketshare 80%), Vegetables (Marketshare 90%) and ‘Noodles with spicy sesame and Peanut sauce’ (Marketshhare  70%) responsible for generate income and being Cash cows. New products like ‘Streamed red bean dumpling’ (Market share 60%) and ‘red bean sticky rice bun’ (Market share 40%) are question marks to Din Tai Fung’. Finally, the ‘Pickled cabbage’ (Market share 10%) and ‘streamed fish dumplings’ (Market share 20%) are the Dogs products as there are no room to growth and also got a low market share.

2.1 Situation Analysis

Reid (2014) states that it is essential for an organisation to conduct a self assessment and ask themselves a simple question, ‘Where do we want to go?’, for those organisations which are ready to go global. So, a situation analysis is a must. In the following part, we will conduct an internal and also an external analysis for Din Tai Fung.

2.1.1 Internal Analysis

According to Drummond (2003), an organisation’s assets is the best analytical tool for the internal factors. Din Tai Fung was founded by Yang Bingyi in 1972, Taiwan. The key to success of Din Tai Fung from a single, small restaurant to a world-class, international chain restaurants is their corporate culture, not just focus on sales target, but the quality of food and service. Din Tai Fung’s Philosophy is pursuit of perfection and customers always come first. From selection of ingredients, detail in food preparation, fine-tuning of the cooking process to serving the food in the best way to let the customers experiencing the first-class foods incorporate with the excellence services. The well reputation makes Din Tai Fung becomes famous and awarded by different media. The New York Times rated Din Tai Fung, the only Asian restaurant in the list, as the top ten restaurants of the world on January 17, 1993. And being the only one Taiwan based restaurant, the Hong Kong branches were awarded One Michelin Star from 2010 to 2013. Ranked as the number one and number six of best ‘101 best restaurants in Asia’ held by US website, www.the dailymeal.com, in 2013 and 2014 respectively (Mack, 2014). And beat out McDonald’s and Starbucks, CNN Travel names Din Tai Fung as the world's second best chain in the poll of ‘Golden chains: 20 best franchises for travelers’ (Dave Johnston, 2015).