* Student: -Miguel Etchebarne
Question 1
What is Panera Bread’s strategy? Which of the five generic competitive strategies discussed in Chapter 5 most closely fit the competitive approach that Panera Bread is taking? What type of competitive advantage is Panera Bread trying to achieve?
-Panera strategy was to make great bread broadly available to consumers across the United States. They have an attractive menu and the dinning ambience of his bakery-cafés provided significant growth opportunity, despite the fiercely competitive nature of the restaurant industry. Also was recognized as the nationwide leader in the specialty bread segment and scored the highest level of customer loyalty among quick-casual restaurant.
-The generic competitive strategy used by Panera is the best-cost provider. Why? First, we are going to explain this strategy. The best-cost provider strategy give customers more value for the money by satisfying buyers’ expectations on key qualities, features, performance and service attributes while beating their price expectations. The aim is to have the lowest (best) costs and prices compared to rivals offering products with comparable differentiating attributes. The driving concept of Panera was to provide a premium specialty bakery and café experience to urban workers and suburban dwellers. Panera target market was urban workers and suburban dwellers looking for a quick-service meal. They compete in 5 submarkets of the food away from home industry: breakfast, lunch, daytime “chill out”, light evening fare and take home bread. The company 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.
-The competitive advantage of Panera was their dough facilities, scale economies (franchise system) and the software.
Question 2 What does a SWOT analysis of Panera Bread reveal about the overall