Strategic Plan
MeiChan
BusinessPlanAssessmentPart2-PitchingthePlan.pptx
Business Plan Assessment Part 2- Pitching the Plan
Threats and Challenges within the current Strategic Plan
Slowing sales growth
Ethical issues with FDA
A tight and competitive market
The company's reputation is heavily linked to supplying fresh meal items, and its marketing and branding, which is focused on "food with integrity," emphasizes obtaining ingredients from ethically oriented suppliers. Twenty years into the company’s operation, Chipotle had opened over 2000 stores across several states in the US. However, from 2008 through to 2018, the company has faced ethical blows in its operations, especially after the FDA and other medical organizations established the increasing rates of food poisoning in its operations (Thompson, 2019). This led to the closure of all Chipotle stores in 2016.
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Executing the Strategic Initiatives
The aim is to focus on maintaining the current consumers and attracting potential ones.
Utilize the company’s competitive advantage strategy by focusing on differentiation that targets a narrow market.
SWOT analysis
Differentiation strategy
Exercise corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability by the choice of natural ingredients ad sustainable process of food production.
Chipotle should target a narrower market by giving its consumers variations in product choices, which is a unique way of operation compared to its competitors. Chipotle’s external and internal environments play a vital role in its strategic planning, which is evident in its SWOT analysis. As it focuses on regaining and restoring consumer trust and confidence, the company management ensures that it works hard on outdoing its competitors because they are the biggest threat to its operations. Therefore, Niccol's management has resolved on using a differentiation strategy to gain a competitive advantage. Today, consumer preferences have changed, and many people are health conscious, unlike before (Thompson, 2019). Therefore, differentiation and focusing on natural ingredients in foods will be essential.
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Proposed Process Improvement
Maintain its existing customers and do the best it can to attract more customers.
Differentiation as a market development initiative in the company.
Product differentiation
Focused menu
Great taste, reasonable prices and readily served.
Awareness and respect for the environment, organic produce and unprocessed meat.
Differentiation targets a narrow market, hence improving the company’s overall competitive advantage. Chipotle intends to give its customers variations of products to choose from with a target for a narrow market. This will increase the competitive advantage within the company and strengthen its overall operations in the business market.
The company intends to strategically differentiate its products, with a focus on the production of food with only natural ingredients. Initially, Chipotle used to process products from both natural and synthetic materials. However, after the ethical blow where many customers suffered from food poisoning, the company has learned its lesson and resolved to focus on the safety and health of the consumers (Thompson, 2019). The differentiation of its food products is about having the best quality food which will change the narrative regarding the company’s reputation.
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Additional Resources
Sufficient funds and enough time to support implementation
Commitment from staff
Apart from market analysis, Chipotle should ensure that there are enough resources available to implement the strategies. The resources include funds that will facilitate research and development as well as staff motivation. Chipotle has a performance culture based on employee development and promotion of employees from within the company. Employees are given a path of ascension and opportunities to advance their employment levels and job positions. More so, the company provides the workers with a balanced work-life and financial incentives to the employees.
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The Use of Resources in Application of the Strategic Plan
Update the menu
Increase the number of workforces
Improve marketing: use traditional outlets, social media and word-of-mouth.
The resources would used to find the very best sustainable raised ingredients and update the menu. The organization will use the resources to prepare and cook using classical methods in front of the customer and serve the food in an interactive format which provides a unique dining experience. The number of employees would also be increased, and compensation packages included to improve their morale and work towards ensuring that they satisfy customers needs and expectations. The resource would also be channeled towards the marketing strategy that includes a broad differentiation strategy. The company would seek to differentiate its products and services from competitors in ways that appeal to broad spectrum of consumers. Funding the strategy would be helpful and powerful as it would enable the company to abide to its “food with integrity” philosophy, attain larger target markets and remain a top competitor in the food industry.
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KPI for Measuring the Strategic Plan Success
The key performance indicators at Chipotle include:
Product mix performance value, which are the frequently ordered items on the menu
The rate of client retention; the rate of customers in house per hour;
The online order values and reward anniversaries.
These KPIs will help the company to have robust marketing effort segmentation. With the product mix performance, Chipotle would be able to assess if its updated menu has a good response from customers in terms of the frequency of orders they will make. The rate of client retention is also essential since the company has restructured to focus on a narrow target market. The retention rate will help the organization determine if they have achieved customer loyalty and if they have acquired new customers. Lastly, with digitalization in the food industry, order of values and products has risen. The online order value and reward anniversaries would be able to measure if the strategic plan of differentiation and the use of technology would have improved the organization’s operations.
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Recommendations
Chipotle’s management should carry out employee training and awareness.
The company should have a digital medium to diversify its customer base through review.
Chipotle's management should conduct employee training and awareness to ensure that they are working in accordance with the strategic strategy, according to the recommendation. More importantly, the business should have a digital platform to broaden its consumer base through reviews. Training relevant stakeholders and acquiring talents that identify with the company's mission are the only ways to adapt to the changing environment.
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