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Burger King: Selling Whoppers in Japan

Good Essays

This particular case is about the implementation of the popular fast-food chain, Burger King, into the Japanese market. Despite its’ strong market position in other countries, Burger King has some difficulties to face within the Japanese market. In this report, my team and I will analyze Burger King’s current situation and problems and suggest alternatives. The situation at hand is Burger King’s downfalls within the competitive Japanese market. Burger King faces tremendous competition. McDonald’s controls half of the entire fast-food market in Japan having 2,000 outlets and generating $2.5 billion in sales. KFC has 1,040 stores making it number two in the fast-food market. The most effective way to analyze Burger King’s situation is …show more content…

There was a lack of consistency in terms of marketing and long-term strategies for success. Ultimately, Burger King failed in defining its own company culture. This weakness incurs another weakness: the development of weak relationships between the company and franchisors.

Second, Burger King presents some weaknesses in the financial field. Burger King’s revenues have fluctuated since the economic recession. Noting important figures in 2010, revenues declined to $2.5 billion, a 1.4% drop from 2009. Those past performances are lower than others as we can see in this chart provided by Capital IQ:

Even if Burger King covers a large number of countries all around the world, the international brand depends heavily on the United States’ market which represents 60% of its sell points and about 68% of its revenues. Even though America is great for Burger King’s market success, that dependence can represent problems if the brand undergoes a local recession, social claims or regulation changes. The international franchises are also dependent on a few distributors. Both dependencies create weaknesses and increase risk of disruption in Burger King’s supply and distribution network.
Burger King’s main weakness regarding the Japanese market is facing all of its international brand competitors. Focusing specifically on the competition between McDonald’s and Burger King, we see that it was very intense with real “price

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