Panera Bread

Panera Bread by NICOLE MARLEAU
Independence University
July 25, 2013 Panera Bread
Ever wanted to eat healthy without having to wait for restaurant prepared meal, but still get the same experience as a restaurant? Then seek out a Panera Bread bakery-café! Panera Bread is a café bakery, established in 1981 by Ronald M. Shaich and William W. Moreton in St. Louis, MO (Panera Bread, 1999). It serves healthy food alternatives to the food you normally find in a fast food restaurant. They serve bread that is baked right in the store, sandwiches, soup, salads, and a variety of hot and cold beverages. The company provides a comfortable environment for its customers. It hires employees who share the company’s pride. Panera Bread is a company
that will succeed because the company not only strategically plans and sets visions for the future, but it also takes care of its stakeholders by collaborating with them to execute the company’s strategic plan.
According to McGraw Hill Companies (2008), Panera Bread decided on the bakery-café strategy to allow customers to feel like they are dining at home and eating nutritious foods, while keeping the fast paced style of a fast food chain without all those fatty foods. Panera Bread’s sole mission is a “loaf of bread in every arm” and they achieve this goal by baking fresh bread daily in their stores, using the best ingredients (Panera Bread, 1999). When the company decides to expand its business and create another franchise, they look for the prime location to keep that at home feeling so the employees and customers feel valued. Panera Bread’s co-CEO Ronald Schaich manages his bakery-café’s using the SWOT method (McGraw Hill Companies, 2008). By analyzing the company’s strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats (SWOT), he established a company he feels proud about. It’s not enough to just create a strategic plan, it needs to be implemented. As the company grew, they added more to their menu and they began to trim down to one chain that provided the best sales. Because of all these reasons, I believe Panera Bread has properly used all six steps in the strategic planning process. Now that Panera Bread has established its mission, its company has to think long-term, and that is done through a vision statement.
“A vision statement clarifies the long-term direction of the company and its strategic intent” (Bateman & Snell, 2001). I believe the company’s vision statement is: To be the leading bakery-café by providing healthy foods to eat, with the best ingredients, all the while maintaining a comfortable and inviting environment. The most important component of this vision statement is providing healthy foods to its customers in a comfortable and inviting environment. This improves the lives of all that eat at the café. Without this key component, Panera Bread would be just like any other bakery or fast food joint, serving fattening foods in an uncomfortable and stale setting. In order to achieve this vision, Panera Bread must continually analyze the input from customers they receive and implement it into the company’s strategic plan. Panera Bread’s CEO consistently asks customers for their input, whether it is good or bad, and decides from there where the company will
go. A company’s success relies on the goals it ascertains; however, its stakeholders are just as important to achieve this success.
According to Bateman and Snell, stakeholders are anyone involved in the success or failure of a business; such as, customers, suppliers, employees, competitors, owners and shareholders. Collaboration between the company and its stakeholders will allow this company to achieve the highest level of success. Customer input is constantly advised upon so that the company can provide a menu that the consumer will enjoy. Open communication between the company’s suppliers allows Panera Bread to provide the best ingredients. Employees need to feel valued so they can take pride in their company and treat the customers the same. Walk into a Panera Bread store and ask an employee if they feel valued and the answer would most likely be yes, because that value is instilled into the core of every store. How a company handles its competition determines how strong a company really is. When the company first started, it was only one bakery-café, but as it grew, the company decided to buy out a local competitive chain and create a better stable company in the process. As it is clearly noticed, Panera Bread continues to prove its status as the leading bakery-café by providing a highly nutritional menu in a comfortable setting for all its stores. The company and those associated with the company pride themselves in creating the best environment for everyone
involved. Panera Bread continues to follow a very strategic management decision process, in which the input from various stakeholders is accumulated and implemented to continue the goals to create a successful company.
References
Bateman, T. & Snell, S. (2001). Management – Leading & Collaborating in a Competitive World (9th ed.). New York, New York: McGraw Hill/Irwin.
McGraw Hill Companies. (2008). Panera Bread. Retrieved from http://www.mhhe.com/business/management/videos/Mgmt2007/Flash/Panera.html
Panera Bread. (1999). Company Overview. Retrieved from http://www.panerabread.com/about/company/?ref=/about/company/history.php