Centennial College MKTG 719. Developed by Professor Michelle Belchetz, and used with her permission. Project Charter Practice Case At a recent Marketing Management meeting at the restaurant chain, McDan’s, it was determined that a project should be initiated to introduce the company’s new dessert options into stores in Canada. You are selected as the project manager for this initiative and you will need to get approval from the senior management team that includes the Chief Marketing Officer (Jon Smith), the Chief Financial Officer (Marissa Bell) the Chief Operations Officer (Josh Blini) and the Senior Vice President of Customer Relations (Elizabeth Rond). Sales at McDan’s in Canada have declined in recent years (5%-7% decline each year for the past 2 years) due to increased competition from other restaurants and coffee shops offering fast food options, take-out, delivery through apps such as UberEats as well as new types of competitors offering international foods appealing to the variety of tastes of Canadians. As the results are taking a downward slide, it is imperative that these new dessert options are launched as quickly as possible to hopefully attract new customers into the restaurant or increase the spending of those customer already coming to McDan’s for lunch and dinner items. To ensure the new food items are launched as quickly as possible, the team has been told that they must leverage as much as possible from the US launch of the same items the year prior. The Canadian team will not develop any new dessert items, they will just introduce the same ones that were introduced in the US last year. The names of all of the dessert items will stay the same. Additionally, the Canadian marketing team will use all of the same in-restaurant signage such as posters that will hang in the restaurant windows and displays at the counters promoting the new desserts. The Canadian team will need to translate the names of the desserts to French and all posters/signage must also be bilingual to meet the Canada bilingual legal requirements. The Canadian marketing team is expected to execute a digital marketing campaign, using the US ads, which too will need to be translated. There is a small part of the budget set aside for a launch event at some of the most popular McDan’s locations across the country. Some celebrities will be invited to help promote the new items and draw customers to the restaurants to sign autographs and speak about the new tasty desserts. The US launch increased the company’s sales by 15% in the first year the new desserts were launched and similar results are expected in Canada within one year following the launch. The budget for the launch will be $500,000 that includes the changes to the digital ads and signage as well as the launch events across the country. The expectation is that the desserts will be launched in Canada prior to Christmas and there is a lot to complete before then if the team is to meet that date.
