An emerging south-east Asian brand: MK Restaurants

This case study examines in detail the factors responsible for the emergence of a highly successful South-east Asian brand – MK Restaurants. MK restaurants is a privately owned company that has grown from humble beginnings to a chain of over 250 restaurants in Thailand and tasted success in expanding into Europe and Japan. Our analysis suggest that MK Restaurants has built the brand from through living a set of brand values, astute positioning that appeals to a wide demographic and the global trend towards healthier eating, and a marketing communications budget that exceeds McDonalds and KFC in Thailand. Furthermore, brand extensions, a genuine customer centric philosophy that is practiced at all levels in the firm, an adherence to the service-profit-chain concept (i.e., happy staff are more likely to deliver better service quality, which in turn drives customer loyalty and repeat patronage), and a state of the art logistic and supply chain system have all driven brand success. Key lessons for other service brands are drawn and explicated in the paper’s final section.