This document outlines research conducted on the fast food market in Vietnam and students' preferences for fried chicken. The research included secondary data on the Vietnamese and international fast food industries as well as a focus group with HUTECH students. The focus group found that students prefer KFC for its price and taste but would pay 20,000-25,000 VND for crunchy, warm chicken. They want convenient dipping sauces and air conditioning and expect fast service within 10-15 minutes. Regularly eating fried chicken 3-5 times per week was deemed unhealthy. The research concludes Vietnamese customers want affordable prices and services for dining in rather than takeout.

1. MARKETING RESEARCH
BBRS4103
CHANCE for VIETNAMESE FAST FOOD
BRANDS
Group 2 – 12MK

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
OUTLINE___________________________________________________________________________3
RESEARCH TOPIC PROGRESS ________________________________________________________3
WORKS DISTRIBUTION ______________________________________________________________3
BACKGROUND INFORMATION_________________________________________________________4
HUTECH BACKGROUND _____________________________________________________________4
VIETNAM FAST FOOD BACKGROUND_________________________________________________4
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES _____________________________________________________________5
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY __________________________________________________________7
RESEARCH DESIGN _________________________________________________________________7
QUANTITATY RESEARCH – SECONDARY DATA ________________________________________7
QUANLITATY RESEARCH – FOCUS GROUP QUESTIONS & OBJECTIVES___________________9
FOCUS GROUP DESCRIPTION & LIMITATIONS ________________________________________11
Construction: ______________________________________________________________________11
Question: _________________________________________________________________________11
Limitations: _______________________________________________________________________11
FOCUS GROUP SUMMARY __________________________________________________________11
CONCLUSION______________________________________________________________________ 15
RESEARCH SUMMARY______________________________________________________________15
RECOMMENDATIONS_______________________________________________________________15
PROBLEMS DURING RESEARCH _____________________________________________________16
REFERENCES ______________________________________________________________________ 17

3. OUTLINE
3
OUTLINE
RESEARCH TOPIC PROGRESS
 Topic: Chance for Vietnamese fast food brands.
 Problem: Can Vietnamese fast food brands compete with foreign brands by
using advantages in understanding Vietnamese taste.
 Purpose: Provide information of creating the best Fried Chicken product.
 Research question: What type of Fried Chicken that interest students?
WORKS DISTRIBUTION
1. Background Information Phương Hảo
2. Research Objectives Thuý Hà & Quốc Hùng
3. Research Design Thuỳ Dương
4. Quantitative Data Đình Du & Quốc Hùng
5. Quanlitative Data Nhật Hào
6. Conclusion Quốc Hùng
7. Editor Quốc Hùng
8. Focus Group Preparation Quốc Hùng
9. Interviewer Quốc Hùng
10. Slides Quốc Hùng

4. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
4
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
HUTECH BACKGROUND
Ho Chi Minh University of Technology (HUTECH) provides high-quality labor resources in both
short and long term for a modern and active Vietnam industry especially Southern area.
HUTECH’s students are prepared with practical knowledge, skills and opportunities to be
creative, proactive, productive and responsible to society’ current needs as well as achieved the
requirements of domestic and international organizations.
Therefore, most students of HUTECH from both Full-Time and International-Joint Training
Programs are mostly Y-Generation who are creative, proactive, productive and responsible. This
research will mainly conduct on HUTECH’s students to find out what are their favorite fried
chicken style.
VIETNAM FAST FOOD BACKGROUND
In February 2014, McDonald’s came to Vietnam and draw in around 25 thousand customers on
its first opening day at District 1. In near future, McDonald tend to open over 100 stores around
Vietnam within next 10 years. Before the arrival of McDonald, Dunkin’ Donuts and Dairy Queen
outlets were opened within the previous year. The appearance of three global fast food chains
proves that fast food industry in Vietnam has a promisingly look in the eyes of foreign investors.
KFC is considered as one of the fast food foreign brand earliest presence in Viet Nam. Represent
of this brand said it incurred losses continuously for 7 years just to create the habit of using the
Vietnamese fast-food.
According to statistics of Ministry of Industry and Trade, the total sales of fast-food industry in
Viet Nam in 2011 were estimated at 870 billion – up 30% compared to 2010. However, the market
share focused mainly belong to foreign brands such as KFC (US), Lotteria (South Korea) and
Jollibee (Philippines). Currently, the fast-food brands in Viet Nam is a little or no ability to
compete with imported brands, excepts for some brands known as the pioneer of fast-food Viet
Nam such as Pho24, Vietmac...

5. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
5
Picture 1 No list of great street food would be complete without banh mi1
Previously, people in Vietnam thought that large and luxury fast food companies could not
survive since the street food, considered as Vietnamese fast food, was already there with cheap
price and everywhere. But when fast food corporations joined in the Vietnamese market, they did
not use the same meaning of street/fast food. They promoted “fast food” definition as a symbol
of modern, quick pace and stylish lifestyles along with a high quality food safety.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
With the blooming and vivid Vietnam fast food industry as mentioned above, our group
conducted a research focusing on what kind of fried chicken, one of the primary kind of fast food,
that HUTECH’s students prefer and what they really want within each and every fried chicken
pieces they are buying. In the end, this research will provide a brief report for a new fried chicken
1
THE BEST STREET FOOD AROUND THE WORLD
Retrieved from http://www.roughguides.com/gallery/the-best-street-food-around-the-world/#/0

6. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
6
fast food chain to create tasteful and suitable fried chicken products for students especially
HUTECH’s ones.

7. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
7
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH DESIGN
This research conducted exploratory research method while overlooked causal research and
descriptive research design because this is a small project without any sponsors or funds to make
field test on real products.
Exploratory research with secondary data obtained from books, magazines, online newspapers,
journal, research, and reports and primary data gathered from focus group will provide in-depth
information and ideas from target participants, students, about main topic: “Do Vietnamese fast
food brands have a chance to compete with international fast food brands are coming to
Vietnam?”
QUANTITATY RESEARCH – SECONDARY DATA
There are many reports and journals had mentioned the first landfall of McDonald has large
impact on Vietnam fast food market (Levine, 2014) became a wake up call or even a threat to
current Vietnam fast food industry. The Vietnam fast food chains are considered as “Elves” in
fast food big-fight market (Thùy, 2014) front the huge wave of many large multi-national fast
food companies who are rushing to Vietnam after Free Trade Agreement was signed. Most of
newspaper articles focused on forecasting how medium and small fast food or even street food
in Vietnam cuisine will be crushed or wipe out by those “big boy” with large amount of money
to spend and professional attitude (Hoàng, 2014). They also predicted that while current
Vietnamese fast food chains are struggling to compete with those foreign companies in order to
draw customers back, new entrance or start up company will have very little chance to emerge
in the already crowded fast food market (Sương, 2013).
But in the other hand, some of other reports and research stated out many “odd” habit (Thành,
2015) and definition (Đăng, 2014) about fast food of Vietnamese can prove the contrary fact
mentioned above. For example, one of the new Vietnam fast food chain has joined in fast food
field namely the Five Star (Thu, 2015). They are successfully drawing many attention of
Vietnamese people within the year of 2015 right after they opened, which proved that the fast
food market still has space for Vietnam investors (Minh, 2014).

8. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
8
Overall, Vietnam fast food sector before the arrival of McDonald already has intense competition
between many international fast food brands such as KFC, Lotteria or even Popeye’s (Nguyen,
2015). One of the key point that many other Vietnam fast food stores missed out is those large
fast food brands are very good at applying integrated marketing including social media such as
Instagram, Twitter and especially Facebook which is the most favorite social network channel of
Vietnamese people.
Picture 2 Top fast food brands which are most discussed on social media2.
Based on those secondary data obtained above, we decided to conduct a focus group research in
order to figure out in-depth discussion to find out there are any chance of creating new fast food
chain in current Vietnamese fast food market and how to satisfy or overcome most problems
related to the Vietnamese prejudices, tastes and habits on fast food.
2
KFC, LOTTERIA VÀ MCDONALD’S: Cuộc chiến các chuỗi cửa hàng thức ăn nhanh tại Việt Nam
Retrieved from http://buzzmetrics.vn/kfc-lotteria-va-mcdoanlds-cuoc-chien-cac-chuoi-cua-hang-thuc-an-nhanh-
tai-viet-nam/

9. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
9
QUANLITATY RESEARCH – FOCUS GROUP QUESTIONS & OBJECTIVES
There are 6 questions in Vietnamese language were conducted and discussed within
approximately 1 hours as below:
1. Which are your favorite Fried Chicken brands? Why do you choose them?
This warm-up question will filter out main favorite Friend Chicken brands for easier to compare
and provide a gist background why participants choose those brands.
2. How much it usually cost to buy one piece of Fried Chicken? Is it reasonable or not?
If not, which price level will be reasonable? Why?
This question will gather the information of price level and the reason why students think it is a
reasonable price.
3. With the price set above, please state the factors for a satisfying Fried Chicken piece.
Why do you think those factors are important?
Combine with the question above, we will know that the price list above is suitable or not. Then,
we can also balance between price and quality. And finally, we will know what is a “perfect”
Fried Chicken product on their mind.
4. Please stateany factors relate tothe store such as environment, surrounding,condition,
temperature, chairs, toilet, light, customers or any other elements affected to your
decision of buying Fried Chickenproducts. Why do you thinkthose factors are affected
to your decision? Do you have any suggestions to improve those problems?
This question will figure out what other factors can affect the choice of the students and their
solutions to improve those problems.
5. How long will you accept to wait for one set of fried chicken (both eat inand take away)
to be served? Did you ever feel that you waited too long? Is there any suggestion to
improve it? Is there any other service related problems that need to be improve? If yes,
any suggestions?
This question will provide the most critical factor of “fast food” product: time and also know
how can we improve this aspect through students’ opinions.

10. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
10
6. In your opinion, regularly consume Fried Chicken product (approximate 3 to 5 times
a week) will affect your health or not? Why or why not? If yes, is there any suggestions
to improve it?
Health always an important concern of customers who consume fast food products. This question
can provide many information about students’ thought towards consuming Fried Chicken
regularly.

11. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
11
FOCUS GROUP DESCRIPTION & LIMITATIONS
Construction:
- 1 hour of discussion in Room B05.03, October 28th 2015.
- Consist of: 6 members from
o Full-time undergraduate HUTECH students (2 males & 1 female).
o International-Joint Training undergraduate OUM students (2 females & 1 male).
- The whole discussion was recorded by both voice-recorder & video-recorder and also
being taken notes by 2 observers, one from the laptop and one from the black-board for
easier to discuss.
Question:
- All of participants were given pens and questionnaire sheets with questions and hints to
take note and discuss.
- All questionnaires are in Vietnamese language with 2 pages.
- Each questions ‘part is read out loud and wait for in-depth discussion before moving to
the next part.
Limitations:
- Small focus group with 6 students and low variant may not represent the whole idea of
HUTECH students.
- Limited in one specific fast food product which is Fried Chicken product to narrow down
the amount of information and increase the level of intensive data acquired from
participant.
- Interviewer’s skills may affect the result of the participant during the discussion.
- Others’ opinions may create leading effect or biases although we tried to prevent it as
much as possible.
FOCUS GROUP SUMMARY
At first, we asked participants to point out which brands are providing Fried Chicken product
they love most. 5 out of 6 participants choose KFC, having the similar result with the secondary
data we harvested above. Their reasons are KFC has cheaper price range, Fried Chicken is

12. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
12
crunchier and the quality is better. Second, it often cost around 25,000 to 45,000 VND per Fried
Chicken but they think that the suitable price range is 20,000 to 25,000 VND for each.
With that price range, their expectations are the Fried Chicken must not friable and soft. It must
still in crunchy, warm and firm condition when is served. Some of the participants love the slight
salty taste while most of the others think the Fried Chicken should not have any sweet or salty
flavor at all because they already have ketchup and chili. Size is also an important factor which
must not too small visually. The chicken must be clean and safe is important no matter they do
not know how to check it except over certificates and putting their trust in brand name.
Participants also mentioned the light yellow color of the Fried Chicken which will create more
delicious feeling.
Picture 3 Lotteria guarantee using high quality products’ ingredients3
3
LOTTERIA - Cùng thưởng thức các món ăn fastfood ngon rẻ
Retrieved from http://forum.diadiemanuong.com/home/f43/lotteria-cung-thuong-thuc-cac-mon-fastfood-ngon-re-
71902/

13. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
13
Other surrounding environments such as the store, toilet and children section were the next
question. Participants are all agreed that air conditioner is a must in any fast food chain, which is
why some of them do not like Five Star fast food chains who lack of cool artificial air. One
sudden suggestion of dipping sauce was emerged during the conversation that fast food store
should left two bottles of each dipping sauce on every tables for customers feel convenient. All
of the participants do not like the process of go and take chili or ketchup from specific corner of
the store by small plates for so many times. They also think that will make some mess or even
waste if they took too much.
The fifth part we discussed about time and satisfaction level of service quality. Participants
agreed that they will willing to wait the maximum amount of 10 to 15 minutes for eating in or 5
to 7 minutes for taking away orders. Most of them agreed that although fast food chain in Vietnam
are trying to persuade customers that they are professional but usually they do not control their
employees’ attitude well toward customers, especially in Lotteria chains, which is similar to the
secondary data we previously obtained (Nguyen, 2015).
Picture 4 Which factors make customers did not satisfy4.
4
KFC, LOTTERIA VÀ MCDONALD’S: Cuộc chiến các chuỗi cửa hàng thức ăn nhanh tại Việt Nam. Retrieved from
http://buzzmetrics.vn/kfc-lotteria-va-mcdoanlds-cuoc-chien-cac-chuoi-cua-hang-thuc-an-nhanh-tai-viet-nam/

14. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
14
The final part of focus group discussion is participants’ opinion toward regularly consuming
Fried Chicken product from 3 to 5 times a week and its affection on consumers’ health. All of
participants agreed it is not healthy because it will cause diabetes, raise cholesterol rate and cost
too much money. Although there are some suggestions to reduce those risks such as change to
other chicken products such as steamed or slow cook or reduce the sugar intake from coke by
substitute healthy drinking products but participants still think that regularly consume a large
amount of chicken products regularly is not healthy.

15. CONCLUSION
15
CONCLUSION
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Combine both quantitaty and quanlitaty research above, we can see that every international fast
food brands are struggling with Vietnamese’s expectation and taste. On one side, they love the
professional management system, store, international brand and services, but on the other side,
they still want cheaper price level and especially want many services related to staying in to eat
rather than take away. Besides, both of the focus group discussion and secondary research pointed
out some same disappointed aspects of international fast food brand are: employees’ bad attitude
although they have professional management process, foods are not fresh and taste not so good
which is one of the characteristic of fast food compare to Vietnamese street food, and the
prejudice of fast foods that easily cause obesity because they were mostly processed over deep
fried oil instead of slow cook as Vietnamese foods.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Therefore, to successfully compete with other international fast food brands, there are some
suggestions from our research:
 Vietnamese people previously think that spring rolls, breads or even Pho is Vietnamese
fast food and some of them try to bring them to luxury food chains in order to compete with other
fast food brand. But those foods may or may not considered as fast food because they can easily
be bought from roadside kiosks and then slowly consume or savor. Therefore, thanks to KFC or
even McDonald, fast food definition nowadays is changed and clarified the fast food awareness
of Vietnamese.
 International fast food chains succeed because they provide a professional, luxury and
modern look and feel to customers. Those places become a good place to satisfy their need for
hungry and quite place to avoid noisy and dirty environment outside where street food could not
compete. But better environment may come with higher price because of added value “brand
name”, imported ingredients and center location rental cost. Nowadays, young Vietnamese
people are becoming smart consumers, they will seek for reasonable price level compare to the

16. CONCLUSION
16
product value rather than brand value. Moreover, they are willing to go further, deeper into
smaller alleys for acceptable price while keeping the same service quality.
 International brands had professional marketing strategy but they are playing in Vietnam
market, where is our play ground. Therefore, with proper marketing strategy especially integrated
marketing strategy to reduce budget but still have comparative amount of customers. Additional,
we can use Vietnam cultural promotion such as Vietnamese people use Vietnamese product to
compete with others.
 When Vietnamese come to international fast food chains, they prefer food safety over
taste. Many foods can come from many countries which create variety but they are still foreign
taste and flavor. No one can understand the Vietnamese cuisine like Vietnamese. Therefore, if we
can create a fast food product that satisfy customers’ taste and expectation while follow food
safety procedure, no one will deny Vietnamese fast food.
PROBLEMS DURING RESEARCH
Fast food in Vietnam is a vast topic, therefore our group want to narrow down to Fried Chicken
product. But the consumer information of Vietnamese Fried Chicken product is too little and
outdated. We tried to filter out Fried Chicken product from fast food reports and articles in order
to make secondary data become useful and suitable for our research. Besides, most of them are
in Vietnamese language which make the extracting, sorting and translating procedure cost more
time.
Distributing workforce is also a hard job because the uneven capability of team members and the
lacking of responsibilities of them make the research become burden to some minor members of
the team.

17. REFERENCES
17
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