Black Canyon Coffee is a Bangkok-based company that operates a chain of coffee shops. Black Canyon differentiates itself from other coffee chains (e.g., Starbucks, Caribou, Gloria Jeans) by offering a broad menu of “fusion” Asian foods as well as a range of coffee products. Although the company operates primarily in Thailand, it has retail shops in a number of neighboring countries as well.

For this exercise, assume that you have been hired by the Black Canyon management team as consultants. Your group has been retained by management to conduct a preliminary review of several countries. The purpose of this review is to help prioritize the areas that are the most promising targets for international expansion.

Part One Working in teams of 5–7 persons, select three countries from the following list:

Malaysia Australia Singapore New Zealand Cambodia United Arab Emirates Japan Taiwan Indonesia Philippines Conduct research on the selected countries for the following criteria:

Economic characteristics: Gross national product, wages, unemployment, inflation, and so on. Trend analysis of this data

(e.g., are wages rising or falling, rate of change in wages, etc.)

is preferable to single point-in-time snapshots.

Social characteristics: Life expectancy, education norms, income distributions, literacy, and so on.

Risk factors: Economic and political risk assessment.

The following Internet resources may be useful in your research:

The Library of Congress has a collection of country studies.

BBC News offers country profiles online.

The Economist offers country profiles.

Both the United Nations and International Monetary Fund provide statistics and research reports.

The CIA World Factbook has profiles of different regions.

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor provides reports with detailed information about economic conditions and social aspects for a number of countries.

Links can be found at http://www.countryrisk.com to a number of resources that assess both political and economic risk for individual countries.

Part Two Based on your research, prepare a memorandum (3–4 pages, singlespaced, maximum) that compares and contrasts the attractiveness of the three countries you selected. In your report, include a bulletpoint list of other topics that Black Canyon management should consider when evaluating its international expansion opportunities.