Today we started the real work. We started in the morning by gathering together in the “War Room” at the hotel. We met the translators that would be helping us, then we listened to an introductory presentation from the Min Sheng grocery management. We had the opportunity to meet Mr. Liu, one of the top managers for the stores in Yunnan. He is responsible for helping our group, along with 9 others! He will be very busy this week with all of us! Luckily, we also have Mr. Chen, who is an assistant manager to Mr. Liu. We actually were able to speak quite a bit with Mr. Chen prior to coming to Kunming, which was very helpful. We met with Ms. Mu, a 
general manager at one of the 2 stores in Kunming. She gave us quite a bit of detail about the issues at Min Sheng and told us about their customer segmentation and loyalty program. We found that the biggest issue is customer retention. Part of the problem is that customers are not willing to give information like their name, address, or phone number, because they feel it is too personal. This makes it very difficult to retain the customers because they are not able to contact them and get feedback from them. Part of our job will be to find ways to help the stores get this vital information. This makes me surprised at how loose we are in America sometimes with our personal information. We were able to learn some very key things today...I think we might be on the right track! The photo below is of part of our team with the translator and Mr. Chen. LtoR: Annie, me, Hu, Qiong
Later in the afternoon, our group took a trip to the local Walmart to see how it compares to the Min Sheng stores. There is a major difference!! Wal-mart does an amazing job in localizing their products (Min Sheng has no problem with this since they are local already). The store is huge. It seems most younger people prefer to shop at Wal-mart because they have larger selection, and they seem to have more happening music and décor. Most of the stores, including Wal-mart and Min Sheng also rent our space to retailers to sell their own items. For example, there are cosmetic counters and hair stylists placed strategically around Wal-mart. We discovered Wal-mart has their own brand of beer. Why can’t we get this in America?! (found out later it tastes like Natty Lite = yuck) I was surprised to see they were having a wine tasting at Wal-mart. I tried the Yunnan Red. Also was amazed to see live frogs, huge live fish, and other animals in the fresh food part of the market.
For dinner, we made an excursion to KFC. Being from Kentucky, you know I had to check it out. Again, the products are all localized. You do not see anything you would find in the US KFCs. They have a Chinese soup, Beijing chicken rolls (this is what I tried), corn salad, fish sticks, and all sorts of other items. But you could still get your good ol’ bucket-o-chicken too. 
(Teamwork: Me, Mike, and Annie)
Finally, we had a meeting with all of the groups from IUPUI and Hong Kong City Univeristy to discuss what we had all done and learned during the course of the day. This went from 9-1130, and it was exhausting! Yet I still came back to the room to read an article on customer loyalty programs from a book I picked up at the airport in Newark. It had a lot of good information I was able to summarize for the team.
Tuesday will be lots more interviewing and maybe some customer surveys too. I think we already have some ideas up our sleeves…
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