...Darden Restaurants From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Darden Restaurants, Inc. | | Type | Public | Traded as | NYSE: DRI[1] S&P 500 Component | Industry | Restaurant | Predecessor | Green Frog Restaurant (1938-1967) Red Lobster Inns of America (1968-70) General Mills Restaurants (1970-95) | Founded | First Restaurant (The Green Frog) opened in 1938 in Waycross, GA. | Founder | Bill Darden | Headquarters | 1000 Darden Center Drive Orlando, Florida, U.S. 32837 | Number of locations | More than 1,500 - 2015 Annual Report | Area served | Worldwide | Key people | Eugene Lee (President & Chief Executive Officer) Jeffrey Smith (Chairman) | Services | Foodservice | Revenue | US$ $7.999 billion (FY May 2012)[1] | Operating income | US$ 638.0 million (FY 2012)[2] | Net income | US$ 475.5 million[1] | Total assets | US$ 5.944 billion (FY 2012)[2] | Total equity | US$ 1.842 billion (FY 2012)[2] | Number of employees | 200,000[1] | Website | darden.com | Footnotes / references [3][4] | Darden Restaurants, Inc. is an American multi-brand restaurant operator headquartered in Orlando.[3] The firm owns several casual dining restaurant chains: Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, Eddie V's Prime Seafood, The Capital Grille and Yard House. Until July 28, 2014, Darden also owned Red Lobster. Darden has more than 1,500 restaurant locations and more than 150,000 employees, making...
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...6 – Darden Restaurants: Balancing Standardization and Differentiation 1. Use the full spectrum of segmentation variables, describe how Darden segments and target the sit-down dining market? Psychographic Segmentation is represented by Olive Garden’s plan to build a dining experience around the concept of a fabled Italian family. Olive Garden’s marketing team learned that a primary customer insight shows that customers are as interested in emotional nourishment as they are in physical nourishment. Styling the restaurant as an Italian farmhouse, commercials that invite you to be “part of the family”, and training at their Culinary Institute in Tuscany has shaped a genuine Italian menu. Geographic Segmentation is something that Darden exhibits in the Longhorn chain. Longhorn Restaurants are currently only found in the eastern half of the US. This offers an opportunity for extensive expansion going forward. Demographic Segmentation is exemplified by Red Lobster’s efforts to fill the gap between fast-food seafood and upscale white-tablecloth restaurants. Behavioral Segmentation is realized in usage rates. Darden, along with all other sit-down restaurants, are seeing a decline in the frequency that diners are eating out at sit-down meals. This is a result of economic decline and consumers becoming more particular with how they chose to use their limited finance resources. 2. Has Darden differentiated and positioned its brands effectively? I believe that Darden has...
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...Kelly Chen HTM 223 September 25, 2014 Online Project 2 – Internal Control For the first annual report, I did an assessment of the widely known Darden Restaurant Group, which comprises of many different American cuisine restaurants, including Yardhouse and Red Lobster. This online project is a story of an incident that could’ve happened at one of one of their restaurant chains, Olive Garden. At Olive Garden restaurant, business is doing quite well. Their weekly sales are going up, which also means that the servers are receiving more than the usual amount of tips. The tips at the restaurant are pooled together, and at the end of each night, each of the waiters and waitresses get their share of the tips depending on how many hours they worked. However, one day, management notices that the tips are significantly lower than what it should be. It definitely cannot be because of the lack of service, as they are getting rave reviews from customers, and almost all of them leave satisfied. The total tips should be about 15 to 20% of the daily sales, but it is as low as around 8%. The servers begin to notice as well, and start complaining, as they are not making as much money as the hard work that they put in. It turns out that one of the head servers of the restaurant, Kim, who is in charge of counting the tips and creating the daily report, is stealing the tip money. Because she is the only head server, and the only one with the responsibility of handling the cash, tips, and the sales...
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... Background Darden restaurants is an American multi-brand restaurant operator headquartered in Orlando. The firm owns several casual dining restaurant chains which are Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, Eddie V's Prime Seafood, The Capital Grille and Yard House. Until July 28, 2014, Darden also owned Red Lobster. Darden has more than 1,500 restaurant locations and more than 150,000 employees, making it the world's largest full-service restaurant company. As of 2012, Darden is the only Fortune 500 company with its corporate headquarters in Greater Orlando. With all this restaurants, the company has 4 different types of supply chain methods as it needs different types of foods to supply to them. The first examples of this supply chain methods is Smallware; by having Darden Direct Distribution in Orlando, Florida, Darden easily manage the delivery path to restaurants by common carrier, lower cost in inventory. It also helps to give all restaurants are having the same quality of smallware. Second is frozen and canned food; With 11 distribution centers in North America, once again, it makes easier in inventory control and shipping will be more effective. Third is fresh food supply. Darden places order directly to independent suppliers, which are known as B2B. Darden tries to make sure it will get a freshest food from those who know their own product and grow them in a right way. Last one is worldwide seafood supply; Darden is doing business with...
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...Yum! Brands Yum! Brands started out as Tricon Global Restaurants in 1997 as the result of a separation from PepsiCo, and became owners of the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brand names worldwide. Yum! Brands is now a Fortune 500 company based out of Louisville, Kentucky and the world’s largest restaurant company in the world in terms of system restaurants. With over 37,000 restaurants in over 110 countries, Yum! Brands dominates four sectors of the quick-service food industry: Mexican with the Taco Bell name, chicken with the world famous Kentucky Fried Chicken brand, pizza with the Pizza Hut chain, and seafood with their Long John Silver’s restaurants. Yum! Brands also owns A&W Restaurants, the longest running franchise chain in the United States, and the world's largest delivery wing chain, WingStreet Restaurants. In their traditional form, units feature dine-in, takeout and, and drive-thru or delivery of fast service food items. Non-traditional units include “express” units and kiosks with limited selections on the menu. These venues are located in non-traditional locations for convenience and practicality, such shopping malls, airport terminals, gasoline service stations, sport centers and stadiums, recreational and amusement parks, convenience stores and colleges and universities (Yum! Brand “Our Brands”). Geographic Sectors Yum! Brands operations include three major segments: a) The United States b) China, Thailand and Taiwan and c) International. Although domestic...
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...Company Name: Darden Restaurants Inc. Website: http://darden.com/ Industry: Restaurant Background and History: Darden Restaurants Inc. was founded in 1938 by Bill Darden. At the time, Bill was just nineteen years old and opened his first restaurant called the Green Frog. It was a small restaurant, a twenty-five seat luncheonette, in Waycross, Georgia. It promised to give “service with a hop.” Thirty years later after the success of the Green Frog, Bill Darden and Charley Woodsby opened the first Red Lobster in Lakeland, Florida. A few years later in 1975, Bill Darden mentored his good friend Joe R. Lee who became the first president of Red Lobster. Twenty years later Joe R. Lee was named the first Chairman and CEO of Darden Restaurants. Today, Red Lobster is the largest full service seafood dining company in the world serving nearly three million people a week. In 1982, George McKerrow opened the first Longhorn Steakhouse in Atlanta, Georgia. The restaurant became famous when it remained opened during a very severe and infamous snowstorm offering $1.00 beers and food specials. Travelers who unfortunately got stuck and couldn’t make it home sought refuge in Longhorn. They were won over by great steaks, and hospitality leading Longhorn to become a huge success. By 2007, Darden celebrated the addition of the Longhorn Steakhouse brand to the company. Also in 1982, the first Olive Garden opened in Orlando, Florida. It was originally part of the General Mills Company...
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...Vanessa Rojas Ph.D. Gheorghiu BU 203 10/25/2014 Company Case 6: Darden Restaurants 1.) Darden displays geographic segmentation with the different cultures each restaurant portrays. The Longhorn steakhouse chain has a majority of its restaurants in the eastern half of the United States, giving it room for westward expansion. It portrays a Western rancher’s home and Olive Garden portrays an Italian family farmhouse. In demographics segmentation, Red Lobster filled the gap in the market between the still-young fast-food concept and upscale white-tablecloth restaurants. In psychological segmentation, Olive Garden builds a dining experience around the concept of a mythical Italian family. Olive Garden’s research shows that people go to a restaurant for emotional as well as physical nourishment. In behavioral segmentation, there is a drop in the frequency that diners are eating out at sit-down meals because of the economic decline. This is realized in usage rates. 2.) It’s believed that Darden has differentiated and positioned its brand effectively. All these chains have the same owner, but are completely different. They target a variety of different consumers. Darden is constantly tweaking its formulas to achieve the best mix of independence and collaboration among its brands. The different chains might use the same technologies for cooking and resources, but each brand retains its distinctive positioning. Red Lobster has changed its positioning for the concept of “stealth...
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...Darden Restaurants, Inc., is a multi-brand restaurant operator headquartered in Orlando. The firm owns several casual dining restaurant brands: Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Red Lobster, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, Eddie V's Prime Seafood, The Capital Grille and Yard House. Since opening their first Red Lobster restaurant in Lakeland, Fla., in 1968, Darden has grown to become the world’s largest full-service restaurant company. Today, more than 200,000 people are working together to make Darden a global leader in hospitality. Darden owns and operate over 2,100 restaurants and serve more than 425 million meals a year that create many lasting memories for the guests. Recognized by FORTUNE Magazine as one of the "100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2014, Darden offers its employees not just jobs, but opportunities to build rewarding careers. In our communities, just one of our restaurants creates 100-150 jobs. At Darden, strong values are just as important as business acumen and operational skills, and they have a solid track record of doing what’s right. Darden’s employees give them more than 200,000 reasons to create a great place to work and to teach enduring life-skills. For their employees including myself, doing what’s right means building talent and providing us with opportunities to achieve our personal and professional dreams. It’s having the opportunity to do meaningful work at the highest level of quality. Outside the walls of the restaurants, it means serving our...
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...Darlarna is a high-end Swedish furniture company that produces and sells various home and office furniture products across Canada. Despite having small distribution coverage, it managed to achieve high growth rates and profits between 2005 and 2007. As the company began expanding into the United States market in 2008, it found itself struggling to compete with the high rise in the factors of production and threats from competitors. The company soon reported a drastic decrease in net income and internal financial problems. Looking at the balance sheet and the information provided, the company should seek to retrench in 2009 in hopes of stabilizing profits and its financial problems. Despite the perceived potential in the U.S. market, Darlarna should reduce its growth and expansion because the financial crisis brings great uncertainty that would further threaten the survival of the company. From the balance sheet, it can be seen that the financial crisis has greatly impacted the financial outlook of the company. Prior to its entrance to the U.S. market, the company reported over $1.3 million in net sales with around $523 thousand in gross profits in 2006 and over $1.5 million in net sales with a gross profit of around $550 thousand in 2007. Despite the opportunity of gaining many potential customers in the U.S., the company only reported net sales of around $1.8 with $581 thousand in gross profits. Looking at the net sales and gross profits, the company’s rapid expansion into...
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...RED LOBSTER: MARKET RESEARCH REVEALS WHATS FRESH TODAY BACKGROUND 1968: Foundation: Red Lobster was founded in 1968 by entrepreneur Bill Darden and Charley Woossby. Originally billed as a “Harbor for seafood Lovers”, the original restaurant in Lakeland, Florida, was followed by several others throughout the Southest. 1970: General Mills acquired Red Lobster in 1970 as a five-unit restaurant company and rapidly expanded the company nationwide. As it reached more parts of the country, Red Lobster continually introduced guests to fresh dishes that quickly became favorites, with many guests getting their first taste of calamari, snow crab and Key lime pie here – not to mention the fact that it is where popcorn shrimp was invented. (after 1970, until 1980) In 1980, this year was one of the most important for the company, reaching and being in their stage of maturity, a stage in which all companies desire to be in there. In 1983, Red Lobster opened its first restaurant in Canada (Windsor, Ontario) Finishing, in 1995, after decades of success and growth, Red Lobster, together with Olive Garden and later Bahama Breeze, became part of Darden Restaurants, with Joe at the helm until 2005, when he turned the reins over to current CEO and Chairman Clarence Otis. Over the years, their passion for seafood and delicious experiences has kept Red Lobster evolving. Their menu has grown and changed with their guests’ tastes and their ability to bring the best of the sea to your table...
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...Assignment 1: Vice President of Operations, Part 1 Due Week 3 and worth 200 points Scenario: Imagine that you are the vice president of operations at a production or service organization. You have noticed that your organization’s current operations strategy is not supporting the challenges that the organization is presently facing. In order to maintain a competitive edge, you must address these challenges with your Chief Executive Officer immediately. Select an existing production organization. Analyze the organization’s current vision, mission, business strategy, operation strategy, supply chain, total quality management, just-in-time philosophy, forecasting method, statistical technique, facility location, work design, project life cycle, and project management. Note: You will need this information in order to complete this and subsequent assignments. As you collect the information for Assignment 1 and Assignment 2, remember that in Assignment 3 you must prepare a presentation for your Chief Executive Officer. Write a three to five (3-5) page paper in which you: 1. Evaluate key elements of the selected production or service organization’s operational efficiency with its operational strategy. Determine three (3) tasks that do not align with the operational strategy. Determine the weaknesses that are evident in each task. 2. Formulate a new operations strategy for the selected organization based on the four (4) competitive priorities (i.e., cost, quality, time...
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...2015年2月10日 Staples to buy Office Depot for $6.3bn - FT.com Home Energy UK Financials World Health Companies Industrials Markets Luxury 360 Global Economy Media Lex Comment Tech Management Transport Personal Finance By Region Life & Arts Tools Retail & Consumer Telecoms Last updated: February 4, 2015 7:39 pm Staples to buy Office Depot for $6.3bn James Fontanella-Khan and Stephen Foley in New York Author alerts Staples agreed to acquire Office Depot on Wednesday in a $6.3bn transaction that will create the largest office stationery company in the US, marking the latest victory for activist investor Starboard Value. The deal establishes Starboard and its founder Jeff Smith as one of the most prolific and successful activists, in a sector of the hedge fund industry that has traditionally been dominated by higher-profile names such as Carl Icahn and Bill Ackman. ©Bloomberg Sign up now Office Depot shareholders will receive $7.25 in cash and 0.2188 Staples shares. The transaction values Office Depot at $11 a share, a 44 per cent premium on Monday’s closing price, before it emerged that the two were in advanced merger talks. However, the deal faces intense regulatory scrutiny according to lawyers and dealmakers who worked on similar transactions, as it comes just under two years after Office Depot merged with smaller rival OfficeMax. FirstFT is our new essential daily email briefing of the best stories from...
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...Marketing Plan for Our Daily Bread Marketing Summary for Our Daily Bread The reason why I chose Our Daily Bread Soup Kitchen is to show how much gets donated and how many people we serve on a daily basis, and also helping the community. The Soup Kitchen is located at St Thomas Church in Taunton Ma and is open Monday Thru Friday from 10am-1pm. They serve from 75-150 people daily depending on the weather. They serve dounts at 10am that are donated daily from St. Vincent De Paul along with a hot breakfast such as eggs, home fries,and French toast. They also serve coffee and juice till about 11:15. At that time they serve hot lunch which is also prepared daily and usually two meals and first for example could be lasagna and the second could be soup. Salad and dessert is also available. After they eat they go to the window which is were they receive two sandwiches, a canned good, maybe some chicken, canned good and so much more. Our Daily Bread was founded in 1985 and its going into its fourth decade. The soup kitchen relys on donations so they can keep the kitchen running with annual expenses of $2000,000. ODB has a about 8-10 volunteers daily which help out and also the donations from the Greater Boston Food Bank, BJ's, Panera Bread, Longhorn Steakhouse, Trader Joes, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, and Olive Garden. Sometimes the donations that come in are so big in quantity that they give it away on the spot for example packages from BJ's that are Perdue Chicken which come 10 to...
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...SPLITTING THE CHECK: AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT DARDEN RESTAURANTS, INC. vs. BARINGTON CAPITAL GROUP LP Table of Contents Executive Summary 4 Position 5 Sense 6 Uncover 7 Solve 8 Build 9 Achieve 10 Bibliography 23 Executive Summary This is the first paragraph of your executive summary. It should be indented, it should be double-spaced, and it should be in 12 pt Times New Roman font (as should the rest of the body of your term paper). An executive summary should be no longer than two pages (and preferably shorter), and should be written after your paper has been completed. It is a complete summary of your recommendations, and the reader should get a clear picture from this section alone. Assume that the reader reads nothing else. Darden Restaurants, Inc., a multi-billion dollar full-service restaurant company, is facing – and will be facing many difficult challenges. In addition to billions in lost revenue from the economic downturn and a severe shortage in their most served menu item, they have recently been challenged by a new minority shareholder who is pressuring them to reorganize their corporate structure. This activist investor, Barington Capital Group, LP, is known for being particularly aggressive and frequently getting what they want. Darden’s revenues are down significantly over the last couple of years in their two flagship – and typically most profitable restaurants, Red Lobster...
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...all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and trends that should be considered prior to introducing this new appetizer to their menu. Finally, a marketing research approach will be decided upon and used to develop the marketing strategy and tactics for this new appetizer item. Olive Garden Restaurant General Mills originally created the Olive Garden restaurants in 1982. In June of 1995, General Mills moved the Olive Garden division to its newly developed Darden Restaurants, Inc. Olive Garden has quickly become the largest casual dining restaurant company in the world. Olive Garden uses Italy as its basis of inspiration and attempts to focus on hospitality and a pleasing dining experience. In 1999, Darden Restaurants, Inc. established its cooking school in the Tuscany region of Italy known as the Olive Garden’s Culinary Institute of Tuscany. Olive Garden creates all of its principles from two specific ideas: hold us to high standards and treat us with respect (Darden, 2011). Olive Garden believes there are five essentials to good, hospitable Italian cooking: olive oil,...
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