Question
Chick-fil-A Strategic Planning
For this assignment, company ChikFila in the fast food industry.
You have just been hired by (your selected company) as its new vice president of strategic planning. The corporation’s performance in recent years as well as the changes with business and economic conditions will be a central focus of your new job.
Given the size of the corporation and the fact that it is in a highly competitive industry, the chief executive officer (CEO) to whom you report has already given you permission to hire a staff of recent Master of Business Administration (MBA) graduates to assist you in your efforts. You recently completed the interviewing and hired four people with minimal real business experience.
In coming months, you and your team will be creating a completely new—and, presumably, more effective—strategic plan. You plan to begin by holding a kick-off meeting with your team.
Deliverable Length: 1,000 words
To feel confident that all of the employees in your strategic planning team understand all that you have taught them, you require each to prepare a streamlined version of the key elements of a strategic plan. You require each employee to prepare the following sections of a strategic plan for the corporation’s next 3-5 years:
Mission and Vision Statements (Simply copying from an existing real company is unacceptable.)
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound (SMART) Goals and Objectives
Industry Analysis
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats, and Trends (SWOTT) Analysis
A Perceptual Map
Choose any criteria that you think are important to plot.
Explain why you picked the criteria.
Your task is to create a plan, following the same parameters, which will be the sample standard that your employees’ submissions should match.
Sample paper
Chick-fil-A Strategic Planning
Mission Statement
Chick-fil-A mission is dedication to serve quality and delicious foods to customers using the highest customer service standards while adhering to Christian ethics and all for the benefit of the various stakeholder groups including employees, shareholders, and the community at large.
Vision Statements
Chick-fil-A vision is to become the largest fast-food chain in the United States by offering quality and healthy foods and snacks to all customers in exchange for long-term relationships.
Goal and Objectives
- Achieve the highest possible levels of customer satisfaction each year
- Develop long term relations with customers by offering the quality and delicious foods and excellent services that will make them come back always
- Improve on nutritional value of the food without compromising its delicacy
- To introduce a new and healthy foods to out menu each year
- Ensure shareholders get high returns
- To embrace corporate social responsibility with regard to the community by reducing the environmental footprint
- Influence the lives of the employees positively by giving them a chance to grow and by offering them better wages
Industry Analysis
Porter’s Five Forces
Threats of new entrants: High
It is easy for companies to enter the fast-food industry, as there are no substantial barriers to entry. There are no patents in the fast-food industry as firms can make their own types of food items. There is limited government regulation in the industry. Firms in the industry are required to comply with normal government regulations such as safety regulations, building, sanitation, health, and among others (Meister, Parker, Slaughter, & Underwood, 2012). Nevertheless, larger firms are bound by more regulations including franchising regulations. There are low barriers to entry in terms of costs. This is because individuals can start with a few outlets and still make profit while expanding over time. The fast food industry profitability could attract more firms. This makes the threat of new entrants high.
Threat of substitutes: Moderate
Despite the availability of substitutes – preparing the meals at home, purchasing from stores, and other food services, the threat level remains moderate. While consumers can prepare the meals at home, convenience remains a critical factor that drives consumers to spend their money at fast-food chains (Meister et al., 2012). Fast-food outlets offer quick services to consumers who do not have time to prepare the meals at home (“Virginia’s Community Colleges,” 2016). The fast-food outlets are located at reach of consumers making it easier for them to buy food. In addition, fast-food outlets offer delivery services making it even more convenient to extremely busy consumers. As such, the threat level is moderate.
Bargaining power of customers: Moderate
Customers hold a moderate bargaining power. A major reason why consumers have lower bargaining power is the high brand value of Chick-fil-A’s chicken sandwich products and high customer loyalty. Chick-fil-A is well known for offering quality and delicious chicken sandwiches (“Virginia’s Community Colleges,” 2016). It is difficult for customers to opt for rival products, as they believe Chick-fil-A serves the best chicken sandwiches. Chick-fil-A has developed an effective advertising campaign meant to develop and sustain awareness of its products (Meister et al., 2012). All this erodes consumers’ bargaining power. Nonetheless, Chick-fil-A cannot make drastic price improvements as they may turn away customers.
Bargaining power of suppliers: Moderate
The suppliers have moderate bargaining power. Fast-food outlets such as Chick-fil-A rely can switch suppliers. There are many suppliers in the fast-food industry. As such, they cannot be able to leverage power over the firms. In addition, the presence of global supply chains in the fast-food industry means that the firms can be able to make use of the global chains to import materials from overseas countries. Suppliers are in constant competition to maintain and improve their client base. There also low switching costs from one supplier to another.
Industry rivalry: High
There is high competitive rivalry in the industry marked by strong competition among the many fast-food firms. The firms in the industry compete based on price, quality, and convenience. Chick-fil-A’s major competitors are KFC, Popeye, McDonald’s, Sonic, Burger King, and other smaller restaurants. KFC and Popeye are Chick-fil-A’s major competitors. It is worth noting that these competitors offer chicken sandwiches and other fast-food items (Meister et al., 2012). This makes the competitive rivalry high. Chick-fil-A offers a limited selection on its menu. The fast-food chain has added very few menu items since its inception. Almost all of the additions include chicken, for instance, spicy sandwich, Chick-fil-A deluxe sandwich, chick-fil-A nuggets, and other items derived from poultry meat (Chick-fil-A, n.d).
Chick-fil-A SWOTT Analysis
Strengths
- Strong brand presence in the U.S.
- Chick-fil-A has witnessed remarkable growth over the last decade driven by high demand for its products
- The most popular for chicken sandwiches which differentiates it from other fast-food outlets
- Strong market share across the U.S. region
- Successful promotional and advertising campaigns, for instance, the slogan ‘Eat morchickin’ (Peterson, 2016).
Weaknesses
- Concentrates operations in the U.S.
- Limited menu items as chicken is the main serving
- Closed on Sundays which affects business leading to lower profits
- Negative image due to hard stance of its management over same-sex marriages
Opportunities
- Opportunity to expand into the international market where the firm has no presence
- Diversifying the menu items to include variety of food items
- Ability to take advantage of franchising to open more outlets in the United States
- Chick-fil-A is involved in college sports sponsorship. It has the opportunity to promote its products to the young generation through advertising and by directly interacting with the youth (Peterson, 2016).
Threats
- Strong competition from the many fast-food outlets such as KFC. In addition, Chick-fil-A’s competitors offer menus with a variety of items including chicken. Chick-fil-A’s menu has limited items.
- Possibility of recession affecting business
- High cost of raw materials such as white meat poultry
- There is threat of brand devaluation especially if franchisees fail to adhere fully to the franchise policy
Trends (SWOTT) Analysis
- Diversifying the menu to include healthier items due to rising health consciousness among consumers
- The fast-casual dining restaurant concept
A Perceptual Map
The following is the perceptual map basing on Nedelman (2017) quality report card on fast-food outlets and their commitment to source meat that has less antibiotics traces. Some producers use antibiotics to accelerate muscle gain in farm animals. The perceptual map is also based on the menu item variety.
The perceptual map utilizes the quality and number of items on the menu. The reason for picking this criterion is that quality and numbers of items on the menu are some of the most important things that consumers take into consideration while making a choice on which fast-food restaurant to purchase food.
References
Chick-fil-A. (n.d). About. Retrieved from https://www.chick-fil-a.com/
Meister, M., Parker, E., Slaughter, J., & Underwood, J. (2012). Chick-fil-A situational analysis and marketing strategy. Retrieved from https://emmabparker.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/chick-fil-a.pdf
Nedelman, M. (2017, Sept. 28). Restaurant report card: what’s in your fast food meat? CNN. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/27/health/fast-food-antibiotics- grades/index.html
Peterson, H. (2016). Chick-fil-A is making big changes to take on Shake Shack and Chipotle. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/chick-fil-a-is- reinventing-itself-2016-3?IR=T
Virginia’s Community Colleges. (2016). Chick-fil-A analysis. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/a/email.vccs.edu/chick-fil-a/analysis
Related: Case Analysis ‘A’ – Chick-fil-A: A Bird of a Different Feather
