How to Grow in an Increasingly Competitive Market?
Whole Foods Market (2010): How to Grow in an Increasingly Competitive Market? (Mini Case) 20-1 (Contributors: Patricia Harasta and Alan N. Hoffman) Whole Foods Market is the world’s leading retailer of natural and organic foods. The company differentiates itself from competitors by focusing on innovation, quality, and service excellence, allowing it to charge premium prices. Although the company dominates the natural/organic foods category in North America, it is facing increasing competition from larger food retailers like Wal-Mart, who are adding natural/organic foods to their offerings.
CASE 2 1 Burger King (Mini Case) 21-1 (Contributor: J. David Hunger) Founded in Florida in 1953, Burger King has always trailed behind McDonald’s as the second- largest fast-food hamburger chain in the world. Although its total revenues dropped only slightly from 2009, its 2010 profits dropped significantly, due to high expenses. Burger King’s purchase by an investment group in 2010 was an opportunity to rethink the firm’s strategy.
CASE 2 2 Sonic Restaurants: Does Its Drive-In Business Model Limit Future Growth Potential? 22-1 (Contributors: Alan N. Hoffman and Natalia Gold) Sonic is an iconic American drive-in fast-food chain with nearly thousands of franchises established across the United States by 2014. As Sonic continued to expand, it ran into various hurdles. The most daunting challenge was to enter urban environments where space was too scarce to make drive-in possible. At the same time, while the drive-in model was highly effective in the US, thanks to nostalgia, it did not have the same emotional appeal to international
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consumers. Should Sonic move away from the drive-in model and reinvent itself? If so, would it become just another fast food burger joint with a customizable menu? And how could it compete with larger players such as McDonald’s and Burger King that already had a substantial urban and international presence?
CASE 2 3 “Breaking Up is Hard to Do”: PepsiCo in 2014 23-1 (Contributor: Ram Subramanian) On April 17, 2014, Indra Nooyi, the Chief Executive Officer of the Purchase, New York-based PepsiCo, a diversified beverage and snack foods company, met with Ian Cook, the Presiding Director of the company’s Board, to discuss a response to Nelson Peltz’s (the head of Trian Fund Management, an activist fund) latest call for breaking up the company into two independent entities. Peltz had threatened to approach the company’s stockholders directly if the Board did not accede to his demands.