Subway vs. Jimmy John’s History Mason Cothran borrowed one thousand dollars from family friend, Peyton Vandiver, to start his first sandwich shop on August 28, 1965. Subway restaurants have been consistently ranked in Entrepreneur magazine’s top five hundred franchises, and Subway was selected as the number two overall franchises in 2008. Additionally, it was ranked as the number three “Fastest Growing Franchise” and number one “Global Franchise” as well. In March 2011, Subway was ranked the most popular Fast-Food restaurant in the United States in a poll of over 43 thousand social media users. At the end of 2010, Subway restaurants surpassed McDonald’s restaurant with 33,749 restaurants across the globe.
Jim Buckington A.1. Steak Sauce MKT 6100-001 29 February 2012 Problem/Issues A.1. Steak Sauce has seen dollar sales increase recently due to price increases but has not seen unit or sales volume increase lately indicating they are in a mature market. One of A.1. Steak Sauce’s competitors, Lawry’s, has chosen to undertake a market-challenger strategy and directly take on A.1.
McDonald’s started investing in Chipotle in February of 1998, and supported them financially for seven years.1 This financial backing enabled Chipotle to expand nationally and become large enough to offer stock. In 2006, Chipotle and McDonald’s went their separate ways in order to focus more on each company’s core activities. Currently Chipotle operates 956 restaurants in 35 states in the United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada.2 The company is expected to open up between 120 and 130 new restaurants in the upcoming year. Clearly, the history of Chipotle’s business demonstrates a success rare in the fast casual food business. (Appendix A) 1 2 (Investor Relations, Chipotle Mexican Grill) Ibid.
Kathy would like to build the company up to a point so that in the next few years she’s able to retire (Kudler strategic plan, 2003). The employees want to be able to earn a good salary and have job security by working for a profitable and growing company. The customers want a large selection of high quality products at reasonable prices. The company’s suppliers have the similar interests as the employees – steady orders from a profitable and growing company able to pay its bills in a timely manner. Problem Statement Kudler Fine Foods can become the premier gourmet food store in its marketplace by developing effective leadership that enables the company to be
Strategic planning is crucial at this stage and there are tools available to help any business perform the analysis needed to succeed. Kudler Fine Foods is an upscale food store specializing in foods and services that appeal to a niche market; gourmet chefs and gourmet chefs in training. The firm had good initial success with its first two stores, but its third store is suffering with lower than expected sales. The firm wishes to continue expansion and increase profitable growth. Before moving forward the company’s owner, Kathy Kudler, needs to understand her company fully and have accurate knowledge about the firm’s internal and external environment.
Over the course of years new items would be added to the menu; however the original Chick-fil-A sandwich would always be the leading sandwich. Since 1967 Chick-fil-A has become the second largest quick service restaurant in the United States. Currently, there are over one thousand seven hundred locations in thirty nine states. In 2012 sales reached four point six billion dollars, this was a fourteen percent increase since 2011. Chick-fil-A’s SWOT analysis Strengths *Established in the United States *1700 locations in 39 states *Successful advertising slogan: “Eat morchicken” *Well known for its chicken sandwich and other chicken products.
For example, McDonalds’ philosophy is based on value and price more then on quality, they are providing fast service and affordable prices. However, McDonalds state their goal is quality, service, cleanliness and price value. Everybody knows that McDonalds’ food is frozen and not daily fresh. Their best advantage is a price and fast service. According to Wendy’s philosophy, it is oriented on quality of the food as well, their competitive advantage is fresh non-frozen meat, made to – order hamburgers.
Mrs. Kudler recognizes the importance of word of mouth promotion, which re-enforces the idea of in store gatherings and cooking classes. Over time, the organization will increase profitability if these events are positive and properly promoted. This is best done when attempting to increase the customer’s value chain. Catering and the Local Growers Both the catering service and direct buying from local growers will potentially increase profit for Kudler Fine Foods. Making good use of real estate (using the in store kitchen for catering cooking) and improving efficiency/lowering cost (agile inventory system) gives the organization a competitive advantage in the gourmet food industry.
In 2008, the souring economy hit Whole Foods rather hard. Sales increases at Whole Foods stores open at least one year rose only 0.8 percent in 2008 versus 8.2 percent in the previous year. In August of 2008, Whole Foods announced that planned new store openings for 2009 would be reduced. Whole Foods had to back out of signed leases or revise the lease terms of 70 new stores that had been scheduled to open in 2009 and 2010. Whole Foods recently arranges to sell $425 million of preferred stock to private equity investors, which equated to an ownership interest of 17 percent in the event the private equity investors exercised rights to convert their preferred stock into common
The Murrell brothers chose the latter opening their first restaurant location with their parents’ supervision. The family operated five restaurants by the year 2001 and began to offer franchise opportunities in 2002. Now, 26 years later, there are in excess of 1000 Five Guys’ locations throughout the nation, with plans for 1500 locations in development. This paper examines what differentiates Five Guys’’ from other restaurant chains. The literature notes the factors that contributed to Five Guys’’ success and rapid growth.