Executive Summary
Beginning with one restaurant, Sonic has become the largest drive-in chain in the United States. While they are smaller than their competitors, they are still leading in sales growth, customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. Sonic restaurants saturate the southern U.S. This gives them the opportunity to expand to other area. However, Sonic is reluctant due to the colder climates and their basis as a drive-in restaurant. Sonic should look at adding or combining capabilities to it’s restaurants to increase competitiveness and make it easier for them to expand into other areas without limiting themselves.
Situational Analysis
In 1953, Troy Smith, the founder of SONIC and World War II veteran, was living in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Troy dreamed of owning his own restaurant business. In fact, he had already tried twice.
Troy first owned a small diner called the Cottage Café. The income he received was barely enough to make a living for himself and his family. Troy sold the Cottage Café and bought a bigger restaurant. His next business, the Panful of Chicken, was so successful that he tried opening more. Unfortunately, fried chicken didn't do well in early 1950s Oklahoma and Troy closed his Panful of Chicken restaurant.
Troy then owned a steak house that had a root beer stand attached. This root beer stand, called The Top Hat proved more profitable and eventually outlasted the steak house.
While traveling to Louisiana, Troy saw some homemade intercom speakers in use at a local hamburger stand. He contacted the innovator in Louisiana and asked him to make an intercom for the Top Hat. He then hired some local electronics wizards to install the system. He then added a canopy for cars to park under and servers to deliver the food right to customers’ cars. During the first week after the intercom was installed, the Top Hat took in $1750.
With his new partner, Charlie Pappe, four more Top Hats were opened. However, their lawyers informed them that the Top Hat name was copyrighted. They changed the name to Sonic to go along with the restaurant slogan of "Service With the Speed of SoundSM."1
In 1973, a group of ten principal franchise owners became the officers of the company. Shares were offered to each store owner. Because of the amount of stock offered, Sonic became a publicly traded company with 165 stores in the chain.
Between 1973 and 1978, Sonic grew tremendously. 800 new stores were opened and a Sonic School that formally trained new managers was established.
1.1 Brief History Chipotle Mexican Grill was founded in Denver, Colorado in 1993. In 1998, McDonald’s became the majority shareholder; however, in 2006, McDonald’s divested its controlling interest. Chipotle became a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006. It currently has 1,083 locations across the United States and Canada. In May 2010, Chipotle expanded into Europe, opening their first restaurant in the United Kingdom.
For many companies, marketing to the Hispanic community has proven to be very challenging. Sonic drive-in is one of these companies that are currently exploring the ways to target this group.
The United States is nation dependent on restaurant industry, over the past 60 years the allocation of the family food dollar toward restaurants has grown from 25% in 1955 to 47% in 2012. Bubba Gump, a young restaurant company (founded in 1996), leveraged a brand based on the Forrest Gump movie (1994). Scott Barnett, President and CEO knew his brand would gain immediate recognition. In the highly competitive hospitality industry all restaurants are looking for the competitive advantage, capturing as much of the food dollar expense. In 2001, Mr. Barnett fully understood that most new brands must differentiate themselves from similar concepts by quality food, excellent customer service and consistency across all units. (Case study: Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. 2007) He facilitated a program centered on a “culture of care and concern for people”. It the late 1990’s, Bubba Gump was facing a management retention issue and was positioned for aggressive growth. The combination did not align. We will diagnose and provide an aligning strategy for reducing management and employee turnover, as well, specify career paths for management, empowering Bubba Gump Growth.
As a result of Troy being unable to find a place to live or a job he started stealing to get by. Eventually the situation escalated and he murdered someone in a robbery gone wrong; this led to him being sentenced to 15 years in prison. Prison is where he found his love for baseball. He became quite good with a bat and hoped that when he got out he could play professionally. Unfortunately due to the segregation of the MLB Troy was never able to pursue that career and he is resentful of the situation his whole life.This caused him to be a very bitter person for the remainder of his life and this also caused him to shoot down the hopes and dreams of his son Corey by telling him things like “...The white man ain’t gonna let you go nowhere with that football
They were only a mail order store at the time. They would not become a department store until 1925. In 1925, they opened one retail store in Chicago. They immediately made a profit. They opened 7 new stores that year, and by the end of the 1927, they had 27 retail stores. They boosted ahead in the retail business with the opening of 400 stores in 1933. "In 1931 Sears retail sales topped mail-order sales for the first time. Stores accounted for 53.4 percent of total sales of more than $180 million." By 1941, Sears's retail stores totaled 600....
The company started its activity in 1971 as small coffee shop located in Seattle specialized in selling whole arabica coffee beans. After being taken over by Howard Schultz in 1982, following a rapid and impressive growth, by mid 2002 the company was the dominant specialty-coffee brand in North America, running about 4,500 stores, 400 international stores and 930 licenses.
On July, 2nd 1962, Sam Walton realized a dream when he opened the first Walmart location in Rogers, Arkansas (Rowell, 2016). The concept behind the store was simple, “The Lowest Prices Anytime, Anywhere” (“Our History”, 2016). Within the first ten years of opening its first location, Walmart had become an incorporated company, opened 23 additional locations, and was publicly traded on the NYSE (“Our History,” 2016).
The first Starbucks was opened in Seattle, Washington in 1971 by three partnersEnglish teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegel, and wrier Gordon Bowker. The three were inspired by Alfred Peet, whom they knew personally, to open their first store in Pike Place Market to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment.
In 1987, Howard Shultz purchased the Starbucks name and assets and presided as the new CEO. Three years later, he approached Smith, who was then working at Danzas (a freight shipping company) to enlist him as the company’s CFO. Smith was able to see the vision and future potential of Starbucks. It was then, that Smith began driving Starbucks through its delicate years of raising capital, becoming a public company, and developing goals for future growth (Moix 1).
The story of Starbucks coffee history begins in Seattle in 1971 when the first Starbucks opened at Pike Place Market, which is Seattle's and the Nation's oldest Farmer's Market. At this time the company was a local coffee roasting facility. That remained their core business until 1982 when Howard Schulz joined the company. He was the new marketing executive and began right away to convince more and more local cafes, upscale restaurants, and hotels to buy Starbucks coffee. The turning point for the company and the beginning of coffee history should be one year later when Schulz traveled through Italy. He got inspired by the Italian coffee bar tradition to serve fresh brewed Espresso and Cappuccino. He convinced the Starbucks founders to give his idea a chance and in 1985 he opened the first coffee bar in Seattle, named Il Giornale. (Wilson)
Starbucks has come a long ways since their first store opened in 1971 in Seattle. By 1988 Starbucks
Walmart serves about 14 million customers each day. When Sam Walton founded Walmart in 1962 I’m sure he didn’t expect it to become as big of a retail store as it is now. 42 years after being founded, Walmart now has 4,253 stores across the world, and brings in $405 billion dollars a year. This kind of success doesn’t just happen overnight.
Starbucks is a worldwide company, known for is delicious brews of coffee and seasonal varieties of tasty drinks for any occasion. Starbucks opened with two main goals, sharing great coffee with friends and to help make the world a little better. It originated in the historic Pike Place Market of Seattle, Washington in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker. The creation of Starbucks’ name came from the seafaring tradition of early coffee traders and the romance evoked from Moby Dick. At the time, this individual shop specialized in the towering quality of coffee over competitors and other brewing services enabling its growth to becoming the largest coffee chain in Washington with numerous locations. In the early 1980s, the current CEO Schultz saw an opportunity for growth in the niche market. After a trip to Italy he brought back the idea of a café style environment of leisure and social meetings to the United States we now see in Starbucks locations today. Schultz ultimately left Starbucks to open his own coffee shop, Il Giornale which turned out to be a tremendous success. Fast forward a year later, Schultz got wind that Starbucks was going to sell all their components of Starbucks including their stores and factories, he immediately acquired the funds to buy Starbucks and linked both operations. Within five years he was able to open more than 125 stores starting in New England, Boston, Chicago, and gradually entered California. He wanted Starbucks to be a franchise system based on the mission of telling the truth and emphasize the quality,
3. WHAT HAS SEVEN-ELEVEN DONE IN ITS CHOICE OF FACILITY LOCATION, INVENTORY MANAGEMENT, TRANSPORTATION, AND INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE TO DEVELOP CAPABILITIES THAT SUPPORT ITS SUPPLY CHAIN STRATEGY IN JAPAN?
The first step in any business is to think of or create a business idea. Without an idea, one cannot launch their business off the ground. A right direction is needed to create a business with a unique idea. However, other options include franchising or buying an existing business (1). Franchising allows an individual to run stores such as Burger King or McDonalds under the corporate name. It involves taking training classes and a heap of money in order to start a franchise. A Franchisee will have to buy products and services from the corporate entity they are franchising from, which is often required. Buying a franchise is like taking a piece of the pie from the company that is franchising and sharing that pie with everybody else. In addition having a franchise allows one to communicate and in essence become a big part of an added business opportunity (4). Franchising is far from easy to start and maintain for that matter. Starting a franchise involves a l...