Ref. No.

: QM0001

College Canteens Decreasing Sales: Analysis

Dilemmas
One fine morning, Raghu, the owner-manager of the college canteen, was thinking seriously
about his canteen business. He sells a variety of fast food items and beverages. One of his friend
and also a supplier, Ramesh, came to meet him to discuss about the pending payment and further
supplies. As the canteen was not doing well over the past few months, he wanted to identify the
reasons for the same. His friend suggested him to conduct a survey about the sales of beverages. So
he randomly selected a sample of 60 students comprising of 38male and 22 female students. The
studentswere asked to fill in a comment/feedback form. Raghu believed that this surveywould help
him to better understand its customers needs, and help in serving them better.
He decided to take up some statistical measures to assess the following information obtained
through the survey:

Name, age, gender and phone number

Impressions on the service offered by canteen employees

Preference of beverages

Amount spent on beverages.

After he collected the data through feedback forms, he computed simple statistical measures for
analysing the data. First, he divided the entire sample into two broad categories based on gender, i.e.
Male & Female and assigned numeral 1 for male numeral 2 for female (Exhibit I).
To find out the actual interests of the students with respect to the beverages (Pepsi and Coke)
and brewed beverages (Coffee and Tea), the students were asked to rank the four beverages based
on their preferences. Respondents had to rank the most preferred beverage as 1 and the least
preferred as 4. The reasults are given in Exhibits II (a) and II (b).
This case study was written by Thalluri Prashnath Vidya Sagar, under the direction of R Muthukumar IBSCDC. It is intended to be
used as the basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation. The
case was prepared from generalised experiences.
2009, IBSCDC.
No part of this publication may be copied, stored, transmitted, reproduced or distributed in any form or medium whatsoever without
the permission of the copyright owner.

License to print 18 copies to IBS Mumbai, for Sem I, Class of 2014.

College Canteens Decreasing Beverages Sales: Analysis Dilemmas

Exhibit I
Coding of Broad Categories of Students
38

40
35
30
25

22

20
Students

15
10
5
0
Female (2)

Male (1)

Prepared by the author

Exhibit II (a)
Ranking of Preferences of Beverages by Students
Student 1 Student 2 Student 3 Student 4 Student 5 Student 6 Student 7
Pepsi

Coke

Coffee

Tea

Prepared by the author

Exhibit II (b)
Students First Preferences of the Beverages
Rank

Beverages

Frequency

Pepsi

18

30.0

Coke

12

20.0

Coffee

15

25.0

Tea

15

25.0

Total

60

100.0

Prepared by the author

2
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......

College Canteens Decreasing Beverages Sales: Analysis Dilemmas

Raghu analysed his percentage of profits with the sales of the beverages, including Pepsi, Coke,
Coffee and Tea. He also observed that most of the students prefer the cold beverages particularly
Pepsi. He has tabulated his observations (Exhibit III).

Exhibit III
Students First Preferences of the Beverages
Beverages

Gender
Sales

Male (1)

Female (2)

% Profit Margin

Pepsi

10

18

Coke

12

Coffee

15

Tea

11

15

Total

38

22

Prepared by the author

He came to understand that most of the students like Pepsi to any other beverage. He also
wanted to find out the service quality of his staff as he believed that it would help himto improve the
quality of service. Respondents were asked to state their degree of agreement or disagreement with
the statement Quality of service is good by selecting a response from the following: 1.Agree
very strongly, 2.Agree fairly strongly, 3.Agree, 4.Undecided, 5.Disagree, 6.Disagree fairly strongly,
and 7.Disagree very strongly (Exhibits (IV (a) and IV (b)).
With all his observations, Raghu wants to implement certain measures later on to increase the
sales by improving his productmix andmarketingmix to get better profit without investing into new
ventures.

Exhibit IV (a)
Students Response towards Quality of Service
Student 1 Student 2 Student 3 Student 4 Student 5 Student 6 Student 7 Student 8 Student 9 Student 10 Student..
Quality
of
Service

Prepared by the author

3
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...

College Canteens Decreasing Beverages Sales: Analysis Dilemmas

Exhibit IV (b)
Students Preferences of the Quality of Service
Assigned Codes for Quality of Service

Frequency

1 Agree very strongly

10

16.7

2Agree fairly strongly

15

25.0

3 Agree

17

28.3

4 Undecided

15

25.0

5 Disagree

5.0

6 Disagree fairly strongly

7 Disagree very strongly

Total

60

100

Prepared by the author

4
License to print 18 copies to IBS Mumbai, for Sem I, Class of 2014.