Panera Bread Chain

1. In the case it describes Panera Breads strategy is to aggressively expand its market presence in North America and to improve the quality of the dining experience for its customers. As for how Panera Bread is assessed within The Five Generic Competitive Strategies the group has determined they are a best cost provider. The best cost provider is deemed as a hybrid strategy combining both differentiation and best cost strategies to provide the best value for customers over fellow competitors. To make it different compared to other fast casual dining locations Panera Bread has made a wide variety of items on their menus available and established a superior dining environment. As for being a low cost provider the average check sizes are 8-10 dollars at Panera Bread. This is reasonable as most of Panera’s competitors are in this price range. Also Panera Bread offers an assortment of higher quality foods, thus creating value for the customer. The group sees Panera Bread as gaining a competitive advantage in dining experience and offering higher quality food items at lower prices than competitors.

2. A SWOT analysis is a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Strengths

Panera Bread has many strengths as they have shown major growth since their early existence. They now own over 1,500 stores and have corporate revenues of $1.8 billion. Some of them include the ability to differentiate from competitors, market research, and quality dining. Panera prides themselves at being a top notch “best cost provider.” Panera provides quality foods in a quality dining area for an affordable price. This allows them to compete in a highly competitive North American food industry.

Weaknesses

The team had a hard time seei...

... middle of paper ...

...es. The bread making facility’s employ over 1,300 people and make daily trips to restaurants primary in a 300 mile radius. All products are made with no chemicals or preservatives to add to Panera’s quality. The group likes that Panera primary uses an integrated approach to their distribution processes. This form of backwards integration cuts costs for Panera and simplifies delivery. However, Panera does receive orders from other logistical company’s for some products.

Service

Panera definitely creates value for its customers with their top quality service by providing a relaxed casual dining atmosphere and providing higher quality foods in a timely manner. As stated before Panera try’s to establish a competitive advantage by offering differentiated products, high quality dining, and offering higher quality foods for the same price or lower than competitors.