Case Study : Panera Bread Company

For this discussion, I have chosen a company that’s a lunchtime favorite in my office—Panera Bread Company, a steadily-growing national restaurant chain headquartered in Sunset Hills, Missouri. Ron Shaich, the creator of Panera Bread, joined with partner Louis Kane, the founder of the bakery-café chain Au Bon Pain Co., Inc. (ABP). In addition to ABP, Mr. Shaich started a “fast casual” sandwich shop that he eventually named Panera Bread, and once ABP was sold in 1999, Mr. Shaich focused on growing the Panera Bread brand. Within the next 15 years, Panera Bread practiced a slow but steady growth pattern and there are now more in 2,300 Paneras in the United States (Panera Bread Company, 2017).

Another organizational crisis arose in 1995 when efforts to expand the Saint Louis Bread chain in order to increase brand awareness backfired as consumers favored Saint Louis Bread over its parent company. To solve this conflict, new divisional presidents were created for each chain, and in 1999 Shaich convinced the board of directors to sell all the Au Bon Pain cafes and restructure the Saint Louis Bread chain under the name Panera Bread. Panera’s current organizational structure utilizes vertical integration, with 17 fresh dough facilities that deliver to 1,591 cafes and franchises (“Our History”). Upper level managers now make menu and pricing decisions and overlook the marketing, franchise, concept development, legal, technology, supply chain, and human resource departments (“Organizational Chart”). Lower level

A key aspect of Panera Bread’s business that protects the company from direct competition in the fast food industry is their product niche, artisan fast food. Fast food chains are often criticized for offering unhealthy foods. But, Panera Bread focuses on a higher nutritional value in their products. Dine in restaurants are very susceptible to drops in consumer spending, so Panera Bread’s

Panera Bread has established itself as one of the most popular, fast growing “bakery-café” restaurants in the United States as well as in Canada. With 1,800 locations in 45 states, the franchise appears to be unstoppable. This in part is due to the superior customer service experience that keeps customers coming back time and time again. Just to give you an example, in 2012; the most recent year that data is available, Panera Bread brought in an astounding $2.13 billion in revenue, about $1 billion more than its revenue in 2008.

Panera has three business segments: Company-owned bakery-café, franchise operations and fresh dough operations. The company’s growth strategy was “to grow their store profits, to increase transactions and gross profits per transaction, use capital wisely and put into place drivers for concept differentiations and competitive advantage” (Vincelette & Fogarty, 2010, p7.). In 2009 while everyone else was experiencing the hard economic times Panera Bread was sticking to their strategic plan. Panera did not lay off employees, or worry about closing underperforming stores. Instead, they continued to add menu items and even increased prices on existing items. This strategy worked for them and they were able to take advantage of clientele that came from fine dining. The company has

The Panera Bread Company is starting 2007 with unfinished goals and missed targets previously set and a review of their strategy is in order to continue their ongoing success. The company has grown substantially since its inception in the competitive restaurant industry; however, an aggressive target of 2,000 Panera Bread bakery-cafes will require a focused strategic plan. The company has a strong base with loyal customers who appreciate Panera’s unique dining atmosphere with a focus on quality products at a reasonable price. Panera will need to continue its market research and focus on environmental issues, which are an important core value. The opportunity for

The generic competitive strategy that Panera best fits is broad differentiation. This is primarily because Panera sought to be the first choice for patrons looking for fresh-baked goods, a sandwich, soup, a salad or a beverage in a pleasing environment. In this platform Panera has set their eyes on people who may not necessarily be looking for an expensive meal, but might also not want cheap, fast food but instead are looking for a fresh meal that can be enjoyed in a relaxing environment. In this Panera is looking for a

The Dollar General is an American wholesale company that was first initiated in Scottsville, Tennessee by Turner and Cal Turner. Its headquarters are located in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. The mission statement of the Dollar General is "Serving Others." This mission statement helps to bring out the innate requests and intentions of the company in the United States of America and other countries in the world. The company has a vision that describes how it manages to cater for four different types of people. These four groups of people include the customers, the community, employees, and shareholders. Within these categories of people, Dollar General aspires to serve others through deliver of price quality and terrific prices for customers, opportunity, and respect for employees, a superior return for shareholders and a better life for the communities.

This case involves a mid-sized, regional grocery store chain called Reed Supermarkets. Reed has 192 retail stores, two regional distribution centers and 21,000 employees in five states in the Midwest of the United States. This case discusses Reed’s market strategy for the Columbus, Ohio, market in particular, which is one of Reed’s largest markets. The Columbus market has grown slightly over the past five years, while Reed’s market share has dwindled slightly in the market. Reed has watched their market share stagnate with the entrance of new competitors (10% growth in stores) and a dramatic shift in customer preferences to value or

Among the crowded field of casual, quick-service restaurants in America, the distinctive blend of genuine artisan bread and a warm, comfortable atmosphere has given Panera Bread Company a golden opportunity to capture market share and reward shareholders through well-planned growth. With the objective of opening approximately 1,000 more bakery-cafes in the next three years, Panera Bread Company must make prudent strategy decisions about new store locations, supply-chain management and expanded offerings, all the while continuing its above-average earnings per share growth of at least 25 percent per year.

Panera Bread is considered to be one of the U.S. most successful fast-casual restaurants. The company is one of the revolution makers in the industry of fast food, which managed to transform the traditional image and perception of to-go products that are available at an acceptable price on the market. As its initial founding company was established in 1981, Panera Bread managed to gain up to 4.5 billion USD in sales by the year of 2015, whereas the average sales per one store made up to 2.5 million USD annually (Thompson). Nevertheless, the company that once managed to upgrade bread and pastry into a trend of fast and healthy eating, today is struggling with massive competition on the fast food market. Its previous strategic strengths now became a burden that stops innovation and creativity and does not

When examining Panera Bread Company, it possesses several strengths. One of the greatest strengths in providing great bread is the actual menu. Panera prides itself on the commitment to the quality and reliability of its products, which is supported by its focus on creating the menu. With an understanding of customers ' needs Panera has developed an extensive product line to satisfy a variety of tastes. Panera continually adapts the menu in response to seasons and changing customer preferences. For example, it introduced whole grain breads because customers were concerned with consuming good carbohydrates. Each bread product is artisan made in one of the seventeen dough facilities to ensure freshness

Panera bread’s growth strategy was to capitalize on Panera’s market potential by opening both company-owned and franchised Panera Bread locations as fast as was prudent (A. A. Thompson). Panera Bread work closely with franchised branches in order for the company to broaden its market penetration (A. A. Thompson). Panera Bread has taken the appropriate measures to gain a competitive advantage to make franchising a successful market for the company to enter. Considering Panera Bread Company keeps interaction with the franchised branches to ensure success gives them the upper hand to ensure continued success.

1. Continuing their commitment to provide crave-able food that people trust, served in a warm, community gathering place by associates who make guests feel comfortable

Golden Valley Foods, Inc. is a 127-year-old company that prepares packages and sells canned and frozen foods which include fruits, vegetables, pickles and condiments. Golden Valley has more than 30 processing plants in operations and annual sales of approximately $650 million. Much of Golden Valley’s management staff comes from their parent company with the previous president saying “The influence of our old parent company is still with us. As long as new products look like they will increase the company’s sales volume, they are introduced. Traditionally, there has been little, if any attention paid to