Iggy's Company

This Harvard Business case is about two individuals, Ludmilla and Igor, who are the creators of Iggy’s Bread of the World and their determination to their unique mission statement of not only making the highest quality breads with the highest standards of service and integrity but cultivating a caring environment with plenty of communication in order to have a successful growing company. This is evident in their mission statement which states: “We are committed to providing a nurturing and respectful environment at our workplace that fosters cooperation, communication and sense of accomplishment for all employees. We provide tools for growth through education, health benefits and access to alternative medical treatments. We

Another organizational crisis arose in 1995 when efforts to expand the Saint Louis Bread chain in order to increase brand awareness backfired as consumers favored Saint Louis Bread over its parent company. To solve this conflict, new divisional presidents were created for each chain, and in 1999 Shaich convinced the board of directors to sell all the Au Bon Pain cafes and restructure the Saint Louis Bread chain under the name Panera Bread. Panera’s current organizational structure utilizes vertical integration, with 17 fresh dough facilities that deliver to 1,591 cafes and franchises (“Our History”). Upper level managers now make menu and pricing decisions and overlook the marketing, franchise, concept development, legal, technology, supply chain, and human resource departments (“Organizational Chart”). Lower level

As mentioned in the case study, Panera Bread Company is known to be one of the leading bakery/café that offers freshly baked pastries and French inspired entrées across various states in the US. However in the recent years, Panera Bread faced a decrease in their usual high growth rate from 9.1% and 12.0% in the year 2000 to merely 0.2% and 0.5% of comparable sales and annualized unit volumes respectively.

Any business, no matter what, is going to fail if the product is not of good quality. You wouldn’t watch a poor quality movie, or eat a meal that wasn’t to your taste. So a business needs to work hard to ensure that their produce is of high quality, and Bakers Delight does so by making their products fresh and in good environments. Through quality food, Bakers Delight has stayed, and remained Australia’s most successful

The focal point of this is essay is none other than Panera Bread. Louis Kane and Ron Shaich established a bread kitchen bistro called Au Bon Pain Company Inc. in 1981. The organization developed and succeeded through the 1980's and 90's. Saint Louis Bread Company was purchased in 1993 by the association the company already had 20 different locations that covered vast areas of Saint Louis in the first place. Saint Louis Bread Company was at first established by Ken Rosenthal. In May 1999 Panera Bread ventured into a national eatery, Au Bon Pain Co. sold their different chains including Au Bon Pain, which is currently claimed by Compass Group North America. Panera moved its central command to another area in Richmond, Heights Missouri in 2000.

The RemyCake bakery created a cohesive team and an established clientele and became a staple within the community. Their exemplary customer service and the charismatic presence of their founders created a unique work and customer environment. However, with the recent retirement of the RemyCake bakery founder, a number of issues have arisen. Our Task Force identified the origin of their organizational issues. The following summary addresses and provides solutions for the RemyCake Bakery’s issues of ineffective leadership style, lack of organizational hierarchy, under-developed employee training program, and poor communication at all levels.

The company’s main objective is to introduce ‘; Beyond the bean’’ to the Canadian market in London Ontario on the Richmond road and open up a café for mainly students, to get together and serve as a recreational center. This will be possible through the café and/or by having a variety of board games for the public. The initial approach will be to gain a market share for leveling out the playing field and being a root competitor for similar types of businesses. In the external and internal analysis you will be able to find all the necessary information that will provide you with a generous overview of the company’s

One of the valued but demanding customer, who had considered Engstrom as a certified supplier, was requesting a large order but Engstrom was unable to deliver on time due to the low productivity problem. The plant manager along with his assistant were already dealing with the troubling numbers when this happened. While the task was a tough bone and not easy to tackle, and there were a lot of factors needed to be taken in to consideration. The leadership started to analyze and break down the main causations other than the overall economic trend that dragged the company into the turmoil, as it turned out, it was the low, frustrated employee morale and diminished work satisfaction.

After his stint in school, Gregory J. Aziz began to work at his family’s wholesale food business, Affiliated Foods. Placed in the position of a manager, he spearheaded various methods for building up the business and took it from local status to a global entity, within a 16 year timeframe.

The purpose of this memo is to offer a recommendation in the restructuring of Interstate Bakeries. This advice has been initiated at the request of company CEO James Elesser so that he can better ascertain which option, filing for bankruptcy or seeking further mergers and acquisitions, would be the best direction to take to counteract flailing profit margins. This is an independent recommendation made from researching the company’s financial history as well as the company’s product portfolio and market segments.

The sale of Au Bon Pain lead to their corporate name change to Panera Bread Company. In the early 2000’s the company grew through franchise agreements, acquisitions and expansion. In 2010 Shaich stepped down from his roll of CEO to the company’s executive chairman to focus on concept and strategy. Shaich had what he referred to as concept essence the blueprint of what he wanted to achieve. “Concept essence included a focus on artisan bread, quality products and a warm, and friendly, and comfortable environment” (Vincelette & Fogarty, 2010, p4.).

McRae started with Iggy’s as a consultant less than a year prior to him deciding to bring in an organizational consultant when he failed to resolve his communication issues with the Ivanovics. This option itself was suspect and I personally would not have trusted McRae’s choice of consultant since I would have already felt some hesitation about McRae’s hiring competence that he had made thus far. The number one essential ingredient to all relationships is trust and although the Ivanovics perhaps gave that trust blindly to McRae, I feel that he not only abused his responsibility to them and their company, I feel that he did not return any faith.

Rip Van Waffles was started by two Brown University students in 2010, today Rip van Wafels sells its breakfast wafels online, in coffee shops and in specialty retailers throughout America. The case study revolves around the decision regarding a growth strategy for Rip Van Wafels. The company is currently working on a controlled expansion strategy involving expansion to other regions, expanded sales to coffee shops, and expanded sales to corporations. However, besides from this controlled growth strategy two other opportunities for expansion have arisen. In this paper I will explore the two alternatives and make a recommendation on how should the company expand. Certainly, a slow and steady expansion strategy would continue to succeed but the two proposals are opportunities for global expansion that would speed the business’s development. The question is, should Rip Van Waffles pace itself or pursue a risky and ambitious growth strategy.

After staying so many nights in order to figure what I am going to do with Bud, the division manager of the Financial Services Inc., I have finally come to my decision. Instead of firing Bud, I have decided that I will hire a new employee to work with as a co-manager, which means that there are going to be two division managers. I have considered the negative and positive consequences of many solution, and my final decision is the most reasonable among the others. Having Bud working along side with a new manager will be the best for me, for Bud himself, for his family at home, and for other employees/Bud’s co-worker under his division.

Panera is said to be the benchmark of a relatively newfangled restaurant segment titled fast casual. Nevertheless, the effective origin of this unbeatable amalgamation of organizations and concepts humbly embarked on the scene way back in the mid 1970’s, as an oven manufacturing firm’s demonstration bakery (Wheelen 16-2). The French-based brand-name of Panera’s elder: Au Bon Pain, translates to ‘where good bread is;’ and as it turned out, this tucked away industrial R&D implement was just too good to keep a secret. Hence, throughout the next few years, the fledgling concept-eatery tried its luck with a multitude of Boston area locations; and then in 1981, a young Ronald Shaich, owner of Boston’s new Cookie Jar Bakery got together with Au Bon Pain’s, Louis Kane, and merged the two companies together as the Au Bon Pain Co. Shaich and Kane ran the enterprise, together, until Kane’s retirement in 1996 (Wheelen 16-2).