Burger King - Core Competency, Value Chain - Case Study Example

Scholarly Activity Name Institution 1. What is Burger King’s core competency? How does it relate to its chosen strategy? Core competency: - Innovative advertising campaigns. The company uses innovative advertising campaigns to attract more customers, even those who have never tasted hamburgers thus increasing its market share in the long run. Product quality: another strategy in which Burger King differentiates itself from competitors is the way in which it books the hamburgers – by its flame-broiled method as opposed to grills that fry-and the options it offers customers as to how they want their burgers. This makes their hamburgers outstanding in comparison to other similar producers. 2. How would you explain how Burger King has decided to configure and coordinate its value chain? Which of Burger King’s value chain activities create the most value for the company? Burger king have configured its supply chain in such a way that all the affiliate businesses are located within close proximities within the same region with similar market and consumer characteristics. The similar characteristics depicted within the American and Canada markets make it simpler to manage the premises in that similar strategies and policies can be implemented within the company to manage several premises located in different geographical locations. The close proximity of the affiliate businesses also makes the overall managerial tasks easy as the company finds it easy to implement central management that runs over all other premises from a central point. For 8nstance, Burger King’s central headquarters at Florida have been used as the central managerial point to manage all the company’s fifty-three business within the United States of America. One of the activities that create the most value for the chain is the advertising strategy employed by the company. It is evident that Burger King has employed efficient and effective advertisement as the major market entry strategy often used to penetrate and break through new markets. By widely and continuously advertising, the company manages to not only attractive new customers and clients but also to retain the existing customers through the various activities incorporated in the advertising strategies. Advertising makes it easy for the company to introduce its brands in new markets hence make reasonable sales even within the initial stages of introduction of the same brands. 3. Burger King globally expanded later than its main fast food competitor. What advantages and disadvantages has this created? Advantages: - It hard for the company to penetrate new markets since the competitors have already established their brands in the same markets through well-established supply infrastructure as well as established demand for their products. Disadvantage: - access to a very small market share due to few adequate suppliers of Burger King’s products as most of the suppliers might not be willing to work with more than one customer. 4. When entering another country, discuss the advantages and disadvantages that an international restaurant company, specifically Burger King, would have in comparison with a local company in that market. Advantages:- International companies, in this case acting as new market entrants, often come along with associated competition sustainability techniques, approaches and strategies that might have never been exploited by local market players. In this case, such companies quickly seize a large market share upon arrival hence overall introduction and success in a new international market. Disadvantages: local companies have a tendency of learning and copying from fast growing foreign companies hence sometimes alter their menus and flavors to appeal to the local consumers. This increases their competitive advantage over foreign companies. 5. About two-thirds of Burger King’s restaurants and revenues are in its Americas region (United States and Canada) and one-third elsewhere. Should this relationship change? If so, why and how? This relationship should change in a manner that the company should make arrangements to venture in diverse customer cultures as well as explore other markets for its products in order to increase revenue and returns. There are more established hamburger eating cultures that could offer significant market for the company’s products besides the American market where it currently operates. This would enable the company to explore other markets outside the United Kingdom that might have even more potential than the current markets. This should be done through diversification of the company’s affiliate business to other markets in other countries besides the existing ones. 6. The case mentions that Burger King prefers to enter countries with large numbers of youth and shopping centers. Why do you think these conditions would be advantageous? The major target age group for the company’s products is the youth who consume most of these products. Therefore entering a market dominated by the youth as the predominant age group offers ready market for the company’s products. Existence of more shopping centers on the other hand offers chance for a higher number of supplies for the company’s products (Hamburgers). This therefore results into a constantly higher supply of the company’s products on the new market. Once supply is sufficient enough to satisfy the customer demands the company is assured of higher chances of realizing huge sales on the same market. 7. How has Burger King’s headquarters location influenced its international expansion? Has this location strengthened or weakened its global competitive position? The location of the company’s headquarters has limited the expansion of the company in the sense that Burger King’s only tends to venture in markets around its headquarters hence most of the affiliate businesses are situated within the United States and United Kingdom. This has weakened the company’s global competitive position in a way that it the expansions as currently exhibited has prevented the company from entering markets in other geographical locations of the world which might have more customers and consumers of Burger King’s products. 8. As CEO of Burger King, what tools and strategies would you use when deciding on possible future locations for the company. The initial strategy would be evaluating the competitive advantage and potential of the existing similar producers. In this way, the major aim is to identify the existing entrepreneurial lapse in form of an existing gap or weaknesses on the side of such existing producers and capitalizing on the same to beat competition in the new market. The second strategy would be evaluation of the general viability of the new market. I would make subsequent exhaustive analysis to ascertain various facts such as the consumption potential of the buyers, the consumer culture and market patterns in order to gauge whether entry into such a market would be a profitable venture or may result into losses in the long run. 9. What do the implications of the challenges identified in the case have for Burger King’s strategy today and in the future? The current situation in which Burger King operates clearly implies that the company, as one of the major dealers in production, supply and sale of hamburgers, has exhausted the current markets in which it is operating. There is an imminent need for the company to forge into new markets in different geographical locations of the world in order to realize continuous higher revenue returns. Such a move into different new markets or existing markets in which the company isn’t currently operating will greatly serve to increase the operational scope of the company as well as generate significant profits. This should be a measure to improve the current sales as well as future sales. The company should thus begin working on expansion policies that will enable it subsequently expand its businesses far and beyond the United states and Canada. Read More