Chipotle Organizational Structure

Chipotle ventured into a new territory when it was created, as it had an innovative vision for fast-casual restaurants. By using fresh and quality ingredients, Chipotle raised the bar in their segment. The service line where customers could see their order being prepared enhanced the experience of Chipotle. Consumers who were used to eating at fast-casual restaurants where the food was frozen and made out of sight were able to savor the uniqueness of Chipotle. These differences helped Chipotle become successful. However, as competitors copy the traits that make Chipotle unique, Chipotle must adapt and overcome in order to remain a profitable company.

Chipotle’s organizational structure is centered on the functional structure. The top levels of management include the co-CEOs, CFO, Head-Media Relations, and Chief Creative and Development Officer CCDO (Chipotle). Chipotle is a smaller corporation relative to its competitors, which allows it to focus on a vertical hierarchy based on functions. The fact that there are few departments demonstrates that Chipotle is still a growing corporation. Chipotle is a highly centralized corporation as all of its stores are corporate owned and they must follow the rules set by the corporate headquarters this involves the same menu throughout the country and the same prices. The restaurant business follows high levels of formalization a set of guidelines must be followed in order to comply with food and health regulations. There is low division of labor at the restaurant level as those cooking can shift to serving and cleaning when needed, allowing the allocation of labor to match whatever is needed in the situation. A unique aspect of Chipotle’s upper management is the fact that there are two CEOs (Feloni). The two CEO help ease job functions and enables them to be more accessible. Another managerial aspect of Chipotle is the through the position of restaurateur. There are 183 of these positions and they work to manage several Chipotles, bringing management close to each store (Investor’s Business Daily). From their organizational structure we can see they place high importance on

Chipotle Mexican Grill is a fast casual Mexican Restaurant that operates from the United States. Although the restaurant is specifically segmented to the fast casual Mexican restaurant market, it does not simply operate in this realm. Chipotle is also successful operating in the restaurant market as well. According to the Trefis Team (2014) Chipotle Mexican Grill has managed to take market share from restaurants in the fast food industry.

The actions taken by Chipotle after the E.coli outbreak can be seen as both exacerbating the problem and finding ways to resolve the problem. However, as the crisis began, leadership coming from CEO Steve Ells and Co-CEO Monty Moran painted a picture of denial. One of the first decisions made in reaction the crisis was to purchase full-paid advertisements. This marketing tactic was done to mask the severity of the e-coli outbreak, sooth investors, and retain loyal customers. In addition to television advertisements, Chipotle decided to advertise using direct mail (Wahba, 2016). This practice does not correlate with traditional chipotle advertising; their last paid advertisement was in 2012. Chipotle has always operated in a fashion that let

Chipotle’s organizational structure is centered on the functional structure. The top levels of management include the co-CEOs, CFO, Head-Media Relations, and Chief Creative and Development Officer CCDO (). Chipotle is a smaller corporation relative to its competitors, which allows it to focus on a vertical hierarchy based on functions. The fact that there are few departments demonstrates that Chipotle is still a growing corporation.

Chipotle’s resources are their advanced technology tools that eliminate pathogens while maintaining food quality. Their source from farmers who adhere to the company’s mission of food with integrity. Their continuing education and training programs offered to their employees to make sure that they are implementing industry-leading food safety protocols.

This includes the 5Cs, SWOT, and Porters five forces. The 5Cs analysis include the company, customer, competitors, collaboration and climate. Starting with the company, Chipotle started by offering high quality food at an affordable price. They use a focus differentiator strategy, due to their focus on its target market of millennials and the high quality that no other fast food place had. Most of Chipotle customer base are from the age of 18-32, who want a high quality food at reasonable prices. The industry has over 200,000 fast food restaurants in which 50 million Americas eat at daily. Chipotle has established a collaboration with its suppliers, especially it farmers. They focus on the way that farmers care and slaughter their animals, which gave farmers, animals, and it environment the respect it deserves. Chipotle has collaborated with McDonalds on 1998, before they became public. McDonalds departed from it relationship once Chipotle went public, and invested about $360 million with a return of $1.5 billion. During the time the climate of the industry was a low cost and fast service, with little thought of quality. Chipotle established a new environment that focused on quality, healthier choices, and consumer power. This new climate was copied by many other companies in the industry, but chipotle was the first to try to change the culture of the fast food

As the text suggest a small group consists of 5 to 7 individuals, therefore the Chipotle group size fits into the small group category as there were 7 team members working. There are many different tasks that each individual completes to contribute to the overall customer service: Front line greeter takes your initial order finding out if you want a bowl, burrito, taco, or salad. It’s usually very crowded so the interaction is very quick and to the point. Next, there is an individual waiting to be informed of the toppings desired. Once those two individuals complete the task, the item is then marked for the cashier to correctly charge the customer (the marking allow the assembly line to move smoothly without much verbal communication). In the

Chipotle’s kitchen and restaurant design intentionally places employees up front to reinforce a focus on service, through interaction with customers and individual attention by creating one burrito at a time (Chipotle, 2011, p. 5). While Chipotle combines basic ingredients to magnify the flavor they also stick to the basics when staffing their restaurants. Chipotle only has two shifts and cross trains their

Chipotle’s competitive strategy is to use a focus differentiation strategy by aiming to target a narrow market. Chipotle wants to set itself apart from other fast food establishments by targeting a narrower market of consumers looking for variation among product choices. Chipotle uses a focus differentiation strategy through its’ “Food with Integrity” philosophy. Chipotle is focused on serving organic ingredients to deliver the best taste, nutrition, and value. The direct competitors of Chipotle are Panda Restaurant Group, Qdoba Restaurant Corporation, and Taco Bell Corporation.

Part 3 Chipotle’s first store opened in 1993, and since then has grown to more than 900 stores in the United States. However, Chipotle’s experimentation in international markets has evolved slowly. In 2008, Chipotle opened its first restaurant outside of the US, in Toronto, Canada. In 2010, a second restaurant opened in Toronto and in 2012, a third in Vancouver. Chipotle has also expanded to Europe, with its first European restaurant opening in 2010 in London of the United Kingdom.

Management is the backbone of any good company. In order for a company to successful, a strong management team is needed in order to meet goals in an effective and efficient manner. Chipotle opened its doors in 1993 when Steve Ells took a chance and began his business in San Francisco. Chipotle is a chain of Mexican restaurants that is based in Denver. Chipotle is often cited as the company that started the fast casual movement where customers can get a healthy prepared meal quicker than other traditional styled restaurant. The fast casual restaurant concept was well received and Chipotle’s popularity expanded all across the United States. Customers could not get enough of the Mexican chain and massive lines could be seen stretching outside the stores all across the country. Along with its popular food, Chipotle Mexican Style Grill is a company that contains a successful management style. Why? What sets this companies management apart from the rest? There are many factors that we could analyze to understand the success of Chipotle, yet for the purpose of this paper, we will look into the cooperate culture of the company, human resource management, their leadership style, and how Chipotle deals with and how the company manages in times of crisis.

One can only assume that Chipotle uses concentration strategies for their corporate level strategies, because they only concentrate on the restaurant industry. Market penetration and market development is their main focus, as they are attracting new customers as they increase brand awareness through their business strategies and their “Food With Integrity” campaign, Farmed and Dangerous live action story-telling comedy series, and Cultivate Foundation, which is a non-profit organization supporting sustainable agriculture, family farming and food education, and they are expanding into new markets with international expansion, so Chipotle can continue “to change the way people think about and eat fast food” (Chipotle, 2015). Chipotle also, uses ‘product development’, but not as aggressively as market penetration. The most recent product development is a meat alternative made from tofu, called “Sofritas”. Chipotle is highly invested in Pizzeria Locale, suggesting the possibility of horizontal integration in the near future, and is using an adjacent strategy with its sister restaurant ShopHouse Southeast Asian

It is also more widely spread geographically. Subway also offers the “choose your own” style of service, but it does not serve organic foods ("Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. SWOT Analysis."). Hot Head Burrito is another Mexican style restaurant that would be considered a competitor. These restaurants offer cheaper menu prices, lower-carb options and “diet menus” ("Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. SWOT Analysis."). While Chipotle offers none of these things, they have quite a large target market and have grown tremendously just in the last five years ("Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. SWOT Analysis.").

Chipotle is a fast casual dining establishment that serves Mexican cuisine, specializing in burritos and tacos. Like other fast casual restaurants, it does not offer full table service, but promises a higher quality of food with fewer frozen or processed ingredients than fast food restaurants. In fact, Chipotle is widely known for its mission to only use organic ingredients and