...Overcoming Weaknesses and Threats to Succeed in a Competitive Market Company Analysis of Chick-Fil-A Each business has strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that contribute to the overall performance it achieves in a market. All companies vary in these four categories to create individual competitive advantages associated with its success and all companies strive for this competitive advantage. A competitive advantage occurs when an organization acquires or develops an attribute or combination of attributes that allows it to outperform its competitors. Chick-Fil-A is an excellent example of a business that uses a SWOT analysis (see Appendix A) to exhibit its strengths and opportunities, as well as overcome its weaknesses and threats to allow them an attainable competitive advantage in their industry. As with any organization, Chick-Fil-A faces threats in their industry; these range from the standard threats of Porter’s Five Forces Model (see Appendix B), to specific issues such as the negative publicity gained from the company’s stance on LGBT rights. Threats from one aspect, may also play a role as a strength for some companies. For example, Chick-Fil-A’s political stance on LGBT caused a wave of protests and a loss in a particular customer base, but it also showcased the strong company core values, which in turn skyrocketed the support of the Christian customer base. Dan Cathy, CEO, admits that ultimately it was an unwise business decision that alienated...
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...initial introduction to the driving public. Has “small” finally become better than “large, extralarge, and supersize”? The manufacturer of the Smart car is betting on it. Investigate the Smart car. Once this is done, construct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis for the Smart car. Evaluate the car’s likelihood of success. Strengths: The Smart car has many • Economically priced, beginning at just $12,500 • Small enough to park anywhere • Up to 45 mpg- good for the environment and your wallet • Customizable • 2. Is there a Chick-fil-A in your neighborhood? If there is, you’ve probably eaten at one of the fastest-growing food franchises in the southern United States (seehttp://www.chickfila.com). Chick-fil-A has a unique approach to running their business. Using the company’s Web site and search engines, your task is to investigate the Chick-fil-A organization in order to conduct a situation analysis. During your investigation be sure to comment on the perceived competitive situation, customer situation, and economics and costs that impact or affect the company and its industry. Once you have completed your situation analysis, conduct a brief brand audit of Chick-fil-A. What are your conclusions about Chick-fil-A and its business model? Discuss your audit and opinions with...
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...McDonald’s Healthy Happy Meal: Marketing Plan Group 1 Christopher Odiah Michele Parker Caratrella Woodberry Marketing Management: MKTG-522 Professor Yabs Semester: Summer B 2012 Table of Contents 1. Executive Summary 2.0 Situation Analysis 2.1 Market Summary 2.2 SWOT Analysis 2.3 Competition 2.4 Product (Service) Offering 2.5 Keys to Success 2.6 Critical Issues 3.0 Marketing Strategy 3.1 Mission 3.2 Marketing Objectives 3.3 Financial Objectives 3.4 Target Markets 3.5 Positioning 3.6 Strategies 3.7 Marketing Mix 3.8 Marketing Research 4.0 Controls 4.1 Implementation 4.2 Marketing Organization 4.3 Contingency Planning 5.0 Conclusion 2.0 Situation Analysis McDonald’s is a late entrant to the healthy food choice market for kid’s meals, even though they have added healthy food items like premium salads and wraps to their menu for adults within the last five years. Competitors like Chick-Fil-A, Arby’s and Subway have made more penetration into this market by offering kid’s meal choices to its customers that are lower in calories and fat content. McDonald’s can leverage the prime position it occupies in the $236 billion fast food industry in the US to strategically position itself to compete for this market through innovation and creativity. It is currently re-branding as part...
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...CASE 7 CHICK-FIL-A: BIRD OF A DIFFERENT FEATHER STRATEGY MANAGEMENT COMPETIVENESS AND GLOBALIZATION, CONCEPT AND CASES BY 02/23/2016 Executive Summary. This case analysis evaluates Chick-fil-A. It is designed to show the Strength, weakness, opportunities and threat. It delineates how the founding principles have guided the company over the years, and how it has responded slowly to change over the years. CFA has grown to be a force to reckon with in the industry with strength in customer experience and sandwich trademark. However, the emerging markets, social changes, economic issues and intense rivalry will continue to pose threat to this strong cultured company. At the end of the case analysis, we would have been able to devise possible solutions for the present and future times. Background. The story of Chick-fil-A will be incomplete without the man who turned a dwarf house into a giant brand. Samuel Truett Cathy was born in 1921 into a religious family and in fact was named to honor a Baptist evangelist. These factors would plan a significant role in Cathy’s life. At an early stage, Cathy developed entrepreneurial skills; he delivered papers and sold Coca cola and helped with the meals. And at the age of 25, he and his brother opened their first restaurant- Dwarf House. Cathy soon realized he could prepare chicken faster and insert between two buns. He went ahead to trademark the name Chick-fil-A borrowed from the then steak fillets. Cathy explored expansion...
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...competitive strategies discussed in Chapter 5 most closely fit the competitive approach that Panera Bread is taking? What type of competitive advantage is Panera Bread trying to achieve? Panera Bread utilizes a differentiated strategy. While it should be acknowledged that to some extent all firms in the quick service industry are cost leaders, within that category firms must differentiate themselves further. The food options and free Internet provide points of differentiation that can attract consumers. Panera targets a broad market with this differentiated strategy. The company is seeking to have a competitive advantage in product quality and customer experience within the framework of the quick service business. 2. What does a SWOT analysis of Panera Bread reveal about the overall attractiveness of its situation? Does the company have any core competencies or distinctive competencies? Panera has a few strengths from which it can draw competitive advantage. The food is generally of good quality for the industry. Panera has good profitability for the industry, and this profitability has been stable over the past five years. In addition, there is good balance sheet strength, with strong liquidity and no long-term debt. Operationally, Panera is strong but nothing unusual for the industry. The major weakness for Panera is that it lacks economies of scale relative to other competitors in the industry like Subway. There are no glaring weaknesses, however. For Panera, the major...
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...Market Segmentation and Product Positioning The ultimate goal of market plan for my product is making most popular chicken franchise chain restaurant first in the U.S and then in the world 1. Identify the marketing segment for the product and explain why this segment was selected; My product will be Korean style soy source fried chicken. It is kind of popular food in Korea especially, chicken business field. The uniqueness of product concept is simple. Comparing to Kentucky fried chicken, this chicken is fried by oil with soy source and other auxiliary ingredients. The other condition of business will be basically very similar to KFC. According to the study “ Market segmentation on the basis of food-related lifestyle of Croatian families,” the author, Tanja kestic, divides five category for food market segmentation such as buy motives, quality aspects of food, buy decision, cooking method, and consumption situations. Among these five different elements, I decided to focus on cooking method. There is clear reason why I selected this standard for this product. Most of all, I believe that taste is the most important decision factor for food. From the continual viewpoint, a cooking method determines most portion of taste of food. Especially, Chicken is the most popular food regardless of age, male or female, culture, region, etc. Actually, that is one of the reasons why I choose this criterion. Chicken has already too much similarity as favorite food through...
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...industries, regions, and countries. Teaching Objectives 1. Develop skills in industry analysis 2. Develop skills in global industry analysis. 3. Develop knowledge of franchising and the costs and benefits of expanding globally using franchises versus company-owned stores. 4. Develop skills in international business risk analysis. 5. Develop skills in country portfolio evaluation and assessment. Suggestions for Using the Case This case has been used successfully in undergraduate, MBA, and Executive MBA classes in strategic management, marketing management, and international business. It can be used in undergraduate courses to develop student skills in industry structure analysis, strategy analysis, and international business risk assessment. The teaching note is designed to give students practice in each of these three areas. Instructors may choose to use the case to discuss only one of these three areas during a single class period or to cover all three areas over two class periods. The case can be also used for student presentations and projects, especially for projects on country evaluation and risk assessment. This note was prepared by Professor Jeffrey Krug as an aid to instructors to accompany the case Yum! Brands, Pizza Hut, and KFC. It is designed to stimulate student discussion, develop student skills in business analysis, and promote creative thinking of alternative approaches...
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...Kentucky Fried Chicken and the Global Fast-Food Industry Case Analysis 1.0 Source Problem The change in demographic trends in the past two decades has seen an overall increase in costs for KFC and other fast food chains. Due to immense price competition and saturation of the US market, KFC is unable to raise its prices to cover the increased costs. The slower US population growth rate, oversupply of fast food chains and the minuscule 1% growth in the US restaurant industry per year has resulted in KFC¡¦s focus on expansion of their international markets. 2.0 Secondary Problems 2.1 Short Term - New product introductions are slow. - Market research inefficiency. Eg. Germans were not accustomed to buying takeout or ordering over the counter. McDonalds performed better in this aspect. - Crispy strips and chicken sandwiches cannibalized the fried chicken sales. 2.2 Long Term - Differences between the PepsiCo and KFC corporate strategy and culture. - PepsiCo/KFC poor relationship with franchisees. - Increased competition from direct and indirect competitors. - Reduction in market share in the US market. - Risks involved in international operations: long distances made it difficult to control quality and service, increased transportation and other resource costs, and time, culture and language differences increased communication and operational problems. - Fast food sales grew at a slower rate (5%) in comparison to other sectors in the restaurant industry. ...
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...TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction of KFC....................................................................................................2 2. Operations of KFC.......................................................................................................3 3. SWOT analysis.............................................................................................................5 1. Strengths...........................................................................................................5 2. Weaknesses.......................................................................................................7 3. Opportunities....................................................................................................8 4. Threats..............................................................................................................9 4. Positioning..................................................................................................................10 5. Conclusion..................................................................................................................14 References........................................................................................................................15 1. INTRODUCTION OF KFC KFC Corporation, based in Louisville – Kentucky, is the internationally most famous restaurant chain...
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...McDonald’s Corporation Marketing Plan Susie Ransom MKT Abstract This paper discusses McDonalds Marketing Plan for the future. Below I will cover the goals and objectives of their current and future coals for the corporation. Topics that will be discussed include the Situation Analysis, customer environment, competition, economic growth and stability, political trends, technological advancements, sociocultural trends, marketing goals and objectives, marketing strategy, marketing implementation and finally the timeline in which it will take McDonalds to implement these goals. Executive Summary McDonalds is known as the world number one selling Fast Food Company. They serve their famous burgers and fries in over one hundred countries around the world. While the majority of their restaurants are stand alone, they also have many franchises that are owned by everyday people like me and you. Their franchises have been their ticket to success; they are the top in the fast food industry because they stay unified in quality and marketing aspects. No matter which type of restaurant, whether corporate or franchised owned. Although, McDonalds are number one in the industry, in order to stay in their position they need to increase sales through expanding into new markets. They have been successful in the past in China and other markets. One of their strengths lies in their versatility to adapt to the culture of foreign markets. By serving traditional cuisine along...
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...Case Analysis Project, McDonald’s Corp, Introduction McDonald’s Corporation franchises and operates McDonald's restaurants in the United States, Europe, the Asia/Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Canada, and Latin America. The company was founded by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald when they opened their first restaurant in San Bernadino California in 1948. At the time, McDonald’s core business was inexpensive and fast food, burgers, fries and shakes. The present corporation dates its founding to the opening of a franchised restaurant by businessman Ray Kroc, in Des Plaines, Illinois, on April 15, 1955, the ninth McDonald's restaurant overall. Kroc later purchased the McDonald brothers' equity in the company and led its worldwide expansion, and the company became listed on the public stock markets in 1965. Today McDonald’s has grown to become is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving more than 70 million customers daily in 119 countries across the globe. As of December 31, 2013, the company operated 35,429 restaurants, including 28,691 franchised and 6,738 company-operated restaurants. It ranks 111 in Fortunes top 500 companies, with revenues of usd$28.1B at the end of calendar year 2013. Problem Statement McDonald’s problems started in the 1990s as a result of rapid global expansion at the expense of service, cleanness, and quality. Solving for cleaning up stores and improving service were short term fixes. CEO Skinner realized...
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...Organizational Behaviour Journal 10th Dec'2012 Session 1: Introduction to the field of organizational behaviour Reflection : Even after working in Information Technology MNC's for almost four years, I never realised that organizational behaviour plays such a pivotal role in the survival of an organization and its employees. I got to know about how both the entities: organization and employee are interdependent and their survival depends on an important factor called Organizational Behaviour. I understood that to get a bird's eye view about any organization, first I need to understand about the organizational behaviour. Organization is a complex open system that depends on external environment for effective functioning. I believe that the intellectual capital is definitely a valuable asset and its sharing can be a growth factor for organization. For an effective management, we need to go through planning, organizing, leading and controlling aspects of a job in hand. Management and leadership must be important traits for a manager to enable team and organization to achieve more than just task completion. I need to develop soft skills and hard skills in a proper ratio i.e. conceptual, human and technical skills to be an effective manager in future. Also learnt how important are values and ethics to an organization and about its responsibility towards the society (CSR). Understood the fact that more globalization and increasing workforce diversity has changed the structure...
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...MGMT 3800 Business Policy and Strategy Lowell Miller April 14, 2016 Kiara Gitlin MGMT 3800 Business Policy and Strategy Lowell Miller April 14, 2016 Kiara Gitlin Strategic Case Strategic Case I. Core Problem/Issue McDonald’s current challenges consist of many things including their menu, product quality, appealing to millennials, and labor concerns. The new president and CEO, Steve Easterbrook, came at a time when the corporate giant was on its knees in desperate need of way to get back up. One of bigger issues is product quality because it relates to getting the younger customer as well as how the company is perceived worldwide. McDonald’s is one the top 10 biggest brands according to Forbes and Easterbrook desperately wanted to improve public perceptions of the McDonald’s brand. McDonald’s wants to position themselves as a modern, progressive “healthy” burger company in a highly competitive market. Their size made them a convenient target, and more than a decade of negative press including the 2001 book “Fast Food Nation,” the 2004 documentary “Supersize Me,” and Jamie Kennedy’s 2012 “pink slime” exposé had taken its toll. In July 2014, the Big Mac earned the dubious distinction of being America’s worst hamburger, placing last out of 21 in a study by Consumer Reports. McDonald’s also ranked lowest among peers in the 2015 American Customer Satisfaction Index. Fast food restaurants overall dropped 3.8 percent, but McDonald’s fell by 6 percent from 2014...
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...Each organized business is classified into an industry (United States Census Bureau, 2012). NAICS stands for North American Industrial Classification System. These specific codes are used by the government and businesses to classify different organizations by a certain type of economic activity (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland, 2012. The NAICS code for Domino’s Pizza is 722513 (United States Census Bureau, 2012). This code is for Limited-Service Restaurants (United States Census Bureau, 2012). The definition of the code is stated as, “This U.S. industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in providing food services (except snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars) where patrons generally order or select items and pay before eating. Food and drink may be consumed on premises, taken out, or delivered to the customer's location” (United States Census Bureau, 2012). Next, is the SIC Code. This code is only four digits and is another code used by the government and businesses to classify industry areas. The SIC code for Domino’s Pizza is 5812 (United States Census Bureau, 2012). These codes are mostly based on similarities within industries. Vision/Mission Statement According to their website, Domino’s Pizza mission statement is the following: Sell more Pizza, have more fun (Domino's Corporate, 2013). The mission statement consists of two important aspects- Products and/or services offered and the Target Market (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland, 2012). Both...
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...Letter of transmittal December 09, 2009. Suntu kumar Ghosh Course Instructor MKT 301 (Marketing Management) BRAC Business School BRAC University, Bangladesh Subject: Submission of the Project Work on the Marketing Plan of McDonalds Dear Sir, With due respect, we want to state that, it was a great pleasure and honor for us to submit our project report of MKT 301 in the context of Marketing Plan of McDonalds in Bangladesh. Basically in this report we have tried to develop different Marketing strategies, like- product strategy, pricing strategy, distribution strategy and promotional strategy. We are very much glad that you have given us the opportunity to prepare this assignment and hope that this project work will meet the standards of judgment. But there may be some mistakes due to various limitations. Therefore, we beg your kind consideration in this regard. Any kind of suggestion and clarification will be accepted cordially. Your kind advice will encourage us to perform better Project work in future. Yours sincerely, Sifat Afrin (07204009) Tamanna Lutfa (07204012) Sadia Afrose (07204033) Md. Khaleduzzaman Sowrav (07204005) EXECUTIVE SUMMERY To make the customers satisfied and maintain the long lasting relationship with the customers are the main things to exist in the business world successfully but to make customers satisfied is the most difficult thing for a company because almost everyday people...
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