competitive advantages
Making a business decision, a case of the Broadway Café
The Broadway Café was opened in 1952, as a family business and has been inherited over the generations by relatives and it specializes in full service bakery, sandwiches, soups, tea and coffee, and salads. However, the business has been experiencing some challenges arising for the competition of similar investments in the same catering and hospitality field. According to Buttrick (2005), the decline of the café, which has been primarily blamed on the failure to integrate information technology, has led to implementation of the Porter’s five Forces model in order to keep up with the competitor and also with the demands of the 21st Century.
The first focus will be on the buying power of the consumers. It has been known that the buying power will increase when the consumers have many options to choose from especially with companies and outlets offering similar products.competitive advantages Hence in order to improve this, the Broadway Café needs to pay attention to provision of customer’s services, maintenance of customers rather than having bulk customers, provision of quality products, and establishment of relationships that will help in the long-term growth of the business. However, a customer’s relations needs top be established through information technology that will help in increasing efficiency and optimization of operations.
The supply power of the Broadway Café has been low and this has been revealed from the analysis of involvement of direct and indirect parties. There are various methods which can be adopted in order to increase the strength of Broadway Café which could be chosen from procurement of raw materials together with the equipments necessary for the operations of the business. However, according to Kerzner (2009), provisions of such products will simplify the acquisition form vendors and other suppliers of the most important commodities.
The Broadway Café should be aware of threats of new substitutes products and services which might open up around the business and may add injury to the business if they are ignored.competitive advantages Among the know competitors as Starbucks and others which offers similar products should be watched out. Hence the Broadway Café needs to find out unique products from tea and brands together with new services in order to be unique among the competitors and also try to maintain the existing customers. Furthermore, adjusting the prices of the products towards the needs of the consumers without affecting the profits of the company will help to increase the sales and maintain customers.
Within the same areas that the Broadway Café has opened the outlets, they should be aware of emergence of rival businesses (threats of new entrants) such as McDonald and Starbucks which offer similar products. However, as stated by Buttrick (2005), in order to maintain the sales, Broadways should offer unique brads, maintain customer relations and also be friendlier to customers as well as responding to their feed backs as fast as possible to increase efficiency.
Rivalry among the existing competitors will always be there since all the other shops offering the same products, mist struggle to maintain their own customers’ and increase the sales.competitive advantages Following the arguments of Porter (1979), the Broadways Café should be aware of this and should respond by increasing advertisements as well as to work on the marketing strategies in order to make the business more known to the customers.
Porters three generics is one of the models that Broadways Café needs to implement in the provision of their services and products. Due to the long foundation history Broadways Café has a unique history and menu as well as recipes which are not normally found anywhere else as they are able to provide meals from local and international products.competitive advantages Use of simple and basic ingredients makes their meals to be unique although some of their products may be seasonal but the products are offered at customer pocket friendly prices. The experiences gathered over the years makes the products offered to be unique and affordable to the consumers.
References
Buttrick, R. (2005). “The Project Workout. Glasgow: Prentice Hall Financial Times.
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Kerzner, H. (2009). Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling and controlling. New Jersey: Wiley and Sons Publishers.
Porter, M. (1979). How Competitive Forces Shapes Strategies. Harvard Business Review.57 (2), 137-145