Analysis of Sonic Corporation In 1953 Sonic Corporation was founded by Tony Smith in Shawnee, Oklahoma under a different name of the Top Hat. Tony Smith started the company as a drive-in restaurant featuring hot dogs, hamburgers, and french-fried onion rings. In the mid-50s Smith was asked by Charles Pappe for assistance in establishing a similar restaurant in a rural town also located in Oklahoma. This was the beginning of a partnership between the two men . CURRENT INFORMATION In 1991 Sonic Corporation was the fifth largest chain in the fast-food industry, servicing in the hamburger segment, behind McDonald's, Burger King, Hardee's, and Wendy's. Sonic has and is still carrying the tradition of being a high-quality franchise-based organization in the Sunbelt states. The following case will be broke down into five different stages beginning with early strategies, problems, new strategies, a ratio analysis, and a recommendation. EARLY STRATEGIES UNDER TONY SMITH Tony Smith introduced the Top Hat as a drive-in restaurant that reduced start up cost by not having eat-in space. This new restaurant featured drive-in stalls for automobiles, that were equipped with a two-way intercom enabling customers to order as soon as they drove in, opposed to conventional practices of waiting for a carhop to take an order. Delivery of the fresh fast-quality products was do to the unique design of the kitchen, and the use of carhops. Sonic Corporation preferred to do things as easy as possible and avoid sophistication. Another strategy Smith implemented was a collection of franchise royalties. This was done in a way such that Sonic franchise holders were required to purchase printed bags at an additional fee that Smith arranged through a paper-goods supplier. Pyramid-type selling arrangements were formed by franchisees in money making efforts by starting other franchises through friends. This lead to original store managers having a percentage of their own store earnings and a portion of the new operation of the recruited friend manager. This idea further developed to multi-ownership of almost all Sonic operations as store managers were also part owners. This concept of pyramid-type selling carried Sonic forward with rapid growth. PROBLEMS RAPID GROWTH In the later-70's almost one new Sonic store... ... middle of paper ... ...the past year. This ratio also measures the risk that a company has in financing its debt. RESEARCH IN 1992 Research in 1992 shows that Sonics typical customer is female between the age of 18-24 with an average income between $10,000-$15,000. Forty-six percent of Sonics business was done during lunch hours, and 44 percent done during supper. Sonic's average meal price was $2.25. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION Sonic Corporation is an ever improving company that is striving for efficiency, freshness, and quality. Over the life of the company management has always been trying to increase profits and taking steps into the future. Sonic Corporation also learned that in maximizing profits one must incorporate all the ingredients from attitudes of the mangers and owners to the products they offer their customers. In looking at the ratio's Sonic Corporation is looking stronger every year. I would recommend to keep management minds striving to new and better innovations that could again revolutionize the company as it had under the leadership of Mr. Lynn. In doing so the company assure itself and ever lasting life in the fast-food drive-in industry.
According to Gibbens, Robert. The Gazette, he states that, past 20 years Dollarama Inc. and chief architect have built 721 unit of national retail chain exceeding $4 billion market value from a small discount store in Matane in Quebec’s Gaspe region. As per the article Rossy open his first store in Montreal in 1992 and was the head buyer besides being the chief executive. “Rossy also innovated on the buying side, cutting deals with the manufacturers, not the distributors that most retailers deal with. He scouted out competitive retailers for items worth $5 and $10 that his suppliers could copy for him to sell for a Lonnie. This enabled Dollarama to offer higher-quality $1 merchandise than most of its competitors, while offering a more attractive (and predictable) shopping experience than most low-end discounters. In early 2009, Dollarama added additional price points of $1.25, $1.50 and $2, but offered loyal shoppers new, higher-quality products at those amounts, rather than simply raising the prices of existing inventory”, according to Gibbens, Robert. The Gazette. The passage states non grocery items will gradually be introduced by August at $2.5 and $3. In the article, its state that introduction of new electronic inventory management system and productivity program by 2014 and 2015 will prove beneficial. Subsequently will reduce most of the increased cost resulted by working through the retailing industry which includes transportation and energy as well. The article also tells, China covers majority part of Dollarama’s supply needs and the rest is spread around other countries including Canada and US. Yet buying is done directly in order to reduce the cost. “You need top rate regional managers but also dedicated indivi...
The advent of new technology such as the automobile, refrigerator, food processing and preservation provided a way for business entrepreneurs to start new businesses that allowed for large scale production, distribution and centralized retailing of both meat and plant foods. The result being CAFO’s.
As a natural resources company, BHP Billiton is vulnerable to changes in the environment and policies regarding the environment. With each environmental downfall, profit is jeopardized, which can push growth and innovation back. BHP Billiton has been heavily affected with blackouts in South Australia that has been interrupting production in Olympic Dam since September 28 during a two-week blackout. Without power supply security, BHP Billiton is having difficulty keeping power prices affordable in South Australia. The total estimated profit loss of the power outages was $450 million. These obstacles have disturbed BHP Billiton’s ability to compete globally with electricity price rises.
The Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Corporation (3M) was founded in 1902. It reported sales revenues of $16.7 billion during the year 2000. These revenues came from 3M's six business divisions: industrial; transportation, graphics, and safety; healthcare; consumer and office; electro and communications; and specialty materials. All business divisions were profitable in 2000. The same year, the company made more than 60,000 products and about $5.6 billion sales came from products that had been introduced during the prior four years and another $1.5 billion came from products introduced during 2000. Annually, more than 75,000 employees worked to create more than 500 new products. The company was recognized for its vertical organizational structure, with businesses established by technologies and markets. It was one of the most admired corporations in America and was awarded the National Medal for Technology, the U.S. government's top award for innovation, in 1995.
Sonic is the largest drive-in chain in the United States. Under the slogan "America's Drive-In," a Sonic features fast service by roller-skating carhops and unique menu items that cannot be found at McDonalds, Burger King, or Wendys. Sonic restaurants operate in 27 states so it is smaller than leading fast food chains however it is still a significant competitor. Founded by Troy Smith and Charlie Pappe in 1953, Sonic went from a single root beer stand to a popular franchise. In 1973, Sonic restructured as a franchise company and later became Sonic Corporation. The company experienced financial decline due to the lack of consistency from its franchisees so they were bought out by Sonic Corporation and restructured. In 1995, Sonic introduced "Sonic 2000," an aggressive multi-layered strategy to further unify the company in terms of a consistent menu, brand identity, products, packaging, and service. The campaign was successful and Sonic's brand recognition increased. Strengths include a strong competitive nature, flexible strategies, and employee/franchisor relationships. Weaknesses include lack of communication and domestic expansion. Threats in the external environment include company size, employee turnover, weak economy, rivals in similar industries, overseas expansion, and slow growth markets. Sonic can overcome these threats with opportunities such as global expansion, increase in the number of quick service consumers, and appealing investment opportunities. Alternative strategies and recommendations suggest that Sonic should concentrate on a low cost strategy and focusing on niches such as the health food market.
Dansk Designs Ltd., founded in 1955, is a company that markets stainless steel flatware. The firm traditionally followed a strategy of differentiation. They produce high quality products for the “top of the table”. Their goal was to reach a small market segment, which consisted of upper class, prestigious customers. Dansk Designs wanted to sell the concept of the Dansk brand, and believed their consumers would purchase the Dansk products because of the prominent brand name and because the products were the very best in taste and quality. Ted Nierenberg, the founder of Dansk Designs has recently decided that he wants to keep Dansk growing at 15% to 20% per year. Nierenberg feels as if his current product line will not provide sufficient growth to meet his objectives, and believes it is in the company’s best interest to introduce a new line of house ware products called Dansk Gourmet Designs Ltd. Nierenberg believes they should market this new line to a much wider group of consumers at competitive prices. However, I believe that although expanding into a new market with a new product line will increase short-term revenues, in the long run it will be detrimental because the new line will dilute the brand identity of Dansk Designs. If Nierenberg wants to grow every year 15% to 20%, I believe he should consider ways to lower costs instead of increasing volume and revenues.
Several systems of making goods had grown up by the time of the Industrial Revolution. In country districts families produced most of the supplies that they used, while in the cities merchandise was made in shops, and manufacturing was strictly regulated by the guilds and by the government. The goods made in these shops were limited and costly. The merchants needed cheaper items, as well as larger quantities, for their growing trade. They had to establish another system of producing goods. The cottage or domestic industry filled in the gap for some time, because it gave the merchant a large supply of manufactured articles at a low price. It provided employment for every member of a craft worker's family and gave jobs to skilled workers who had no capital to start businesses for themselves. A few merchants who had enough capital had gone a step further. They brought workers together under one roof and supplied machines. These establishments were factories.
Resources are being classified into tangible and intangibles assets as the followings: *Resources of *Virgin Group Tangible Resources Intangible Resources Capabilities of Virgin Group are established by the integrated resources that assisted it to stay competitive and to outdo its competitors. Valuable capabilities will aid Virgin Group to effectively tap and explore spotted opportunities as well as to minimize threats in the external environment. Should capabilities are consistently and effectively utilized, they will turn significant and be difficult to be imitated or substituted. With the resources discussed above, 3 capabilities of Virgin Group are identified as follows: - *Capabilities 1: Unique C*ulture of *"Making difference and creating uniqueness"* (*Contributed Resources: *Financial, Organizational, Human, Innovation*, Technological*) Creativity, Innovation are the foundations to Virgin and Richard Branson’s success! Technology push is the spine for innovation and likely to simulate process innovation in how service is provided when looking into Virgin. Technology is more likely to simulate process innovation. Every turn and businesses Branson venture has been with some kind of innovation or creativity element if not something unique, something that has not been seen or heard of before in the relevant market. Virgin Group has achieved a competitive advantage among its competitors by uniformly followed its culture in all business in serving good value and service to the customers in different ways. The basic and the core competence of all Virgin Group's business ventures are to do things just a little bit differently from the rest. And also they always tried to add value by adding a little fun to the business. By differentiating in strategy itself to fit of the activities and the ways of doing business have also differentiated itself from the rivals and make it difficult to imitate Virgin’s strategy. Hence, they have established their business to an untouchable position. How would you characterize the corporate strategy of Branson's Virgin Group? The answer to that question will not be so different from the ones above. However to better understanding we can characterize the corporate strategy of Virgin Group as "Making difference and creating uniqueness" in any kind of customers' service. They are not stuck to any business field so that makes them flexible of thinking and creating new ideas for their customers and the whole consumers around the world who need (or will need) Virgin's service.
In this paper I will be reflexing on the Corporation of Sonic. This paper will indicate the history of the company; the person who first started the company. It will tell you the name it was before it got its original name. We will also get an idea of the Background where Sonic was first established and how it expanded throughout other states.
Strategic management is the way of implementing different business strategies and plans to attain certain specific aims and objectives. It involves collection of decisions and different rules and policies that tend to define the results that are generated in the form of better business performance. For undertaking these activities, management should possess an in depth understanding and be able to assess the general and competitive external and internal business environment to take proper business decisions (Cornelis, 2010). McDonalds is an organization that offers a range of products and services in a very effective manner that makes it a market leader in providing fast food services all over the world. By enforcing suitable strategies, McDonalds can increase its level of sales and will also help in upgrading as well as sustaining the market by acquiring competitive advantage (Schoenberg, Collier and Bowman, 2013).
The McDonald's Corporation is the largest chain of fast food restaurants in the world. It is franchised in over 119 countries and serves an average of 68 million customers daily. The company started in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald in the United States. They reorganized their business as a hamburger stand in 1948. In 1955, Businessman Ray Kroc joined the company as a franchise agent. He purchased the chain from the McDonald brothers and oversaw its global-wide growth (McDonald’s 2014).
On the other hand, most factors prove otherwise. The retail industry does not have high Economies of Scale to be exploited in general . Yet, it is impossible to run department stores like Metro on a small scale . A large retail space, inventory, and warehouse are necessary to host a specialized portfolio of brands and products to better attract both customers and suppliers. Heavy capital requirements and operational expen...
In the last few decades, America’s automotive industry has been losing revenue, decline of market share, and employment reduction but international business in the auto industry has been the opposite. For instance, General Motors (GM) have been doing poor in the automotive business while Honda, a Japanese manufacture have been increasing their sales, market shares and employment.
Each category will be analyzed using IKEA student info website, IKEA group corporate website, resources from University of Phoenix library and articles from magazines. The key questions that the author will address are
Many people dine at restaurants’ and hotels’ but are unaware of the system utilized within the kitchen. They simply go to enjoy the food, unaware of how it is prepared. Interestingly, the kitchen is run by a Kitchen Brigade system (Brigade de Cuisine) which is a hierarchy system invented by Georges Auguste Escoffier to ease and simply the operations of a kitchen. There are two types of kitchen brigade which are the classic kitchen brigade and the modern kitchen brigade. This report aims to explain each of the system, the individuals involved in it and the responsibilities of each person.