Panera Bread Essay

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.

At the end of 2007, Panera Bread Company was in an unfamiliar position where taking out debt was a necessary action to gain funding. Raising prices would be an option to help with the deteriorating margins, but there is fear that this move will slow the growth of the company. Other options, such as lowering the quality of food, would go against Panera’s fundamental goal of serving high quality food. At this time, Panera is in a position where it needs to repurchase stock. The $75 million buy-back should help give confidence to their shareholders. However, to accomplish their growth goals and stock repurchase, Panera will require external funding for the first time.

Expanding the target market of Panera Bread is a good growth opportunity for them. This can be achieved by product line (menu options) extension or by entering international market outside the American continent so as to increase their geographical coverage. In addition, Panera has an opportunity to get additional market and growth by adapting rapidly to changing market and customer preferences. They need to advertise and market themselves as a healthy option for eating out. Health oriented food or food that are low in calories, sugar, cholesterol, etc. is getting very important as people started becoming very health conscious and selective. Their effort to roll out new products with fresher ingredients such as antibiotic-free chicken needs to be further expanded. Recognizing the health risks associated with transfat, Panera had completely removed all transfat from its menu by 2006. Organic food, non GMO, etc. They could increase number of their franchises. A number of markets were still available for franchise development. The have opportunity in front of them to open more outlets, both company-owned and franchises. They could open within North America and mainly in areas where they are not present now, and those areas where the growth potential is good, like some of the suburban markets. Many good locations for fast casual dining options are available in many of the untapped areas. Panera has a good market opportunity outside the small urban niche where greater growth

Over the last few decades there has been a huge change in operations. This change has occurred due to the demand for time consuming goods to be delivered faster and faster to the public. The growing population wants goods quicker and more efficiently than ever before; Panera Bread would be

Panera has three business segments: Company-owned bakery-café, franchise operations and fresh dough operations. The company’s growth strategy was “to grow their store profits, to increase transactions and gross profits per transaction, use capital wisely and put into place drivers for concept differentiations and competitive advantage” (Vincelette & Fogarty, 2010, p7.). In 2009 while everyone else was experiencing the hard economic times Panera Bread was sticking to their strategic plan. Panera did not lay off employees, or worry about closing underperforming stores. Instead, they continued to add menu items and even increased prices on existing items. This strategy worked for them and they were able to take advantage of clientele that came from fine dining. The company has

The Panera Bread Company is starting 2007 with unfinished goals and missed targets previously set and a review of their strategy is in order to continue their ongoing success. The company has grown substantially since its inception in the competitive restaurant industry; however, an aggressive target of 2,000 Panera Bread bakery-cafes will require a focused strategic plan. The company has a strong base with loyal customers who appreciate Panera’s unique dining atmosphere with a focus on quality products at a reasonable price. Panera will need to continue its market research and focus on environmental issues, which are an important core value. The opportunity for

In order to know how Panera can benefit and grow in the coming years and increase market share moving forward, an analysis of their business gives an idea of where they 've been, where they are, and where they want to be. By analyzing their past performance we are able to determine their situation moving forward. In this analysis we will identify what external factors have and will continue to influence Panera, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as they pertain to Panera, key decisions that need to be made in order to overcome their slowdown, explore any alternatives that may provide benefit, and our recommendations for Panera Bread Company today to capitalize on their successes as well as improve from their failures.

Panera Bread Company’s strategy comprises of offering a premium of the specialized bakery as well as excellent cafe experience to its customers who include suburban residents and urban workers (Arthur, 2016). The strategy is further enriched by an effective broad differentiation strategy. The company seems to be concerned with designing and producing its products in unique in ways in order to cater for its wide range of consumers and satisfy them adequately. The company developed this strategy after a thorough market research that aimed at identifying what consumers could want. The company had a pack of product that significantly excited customers that constituted of fast food as well as casual dining.

-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

Being a nationally recognized brand and a dominant in restaurant operations in the specialty bakery café segment and to expand broadly in the regional market is Panera’s strategy. And by giving high quality product Panera is following their strategy.

Its current objective is to develop and increase its bakery-cafe restaurant locations by more than 2,000 before the year 2010. With this, Panera Bread Company has the opportunity to increase market share by attracting potential customers away from their competition amongst the fast-food casual restaurants.

The biggest opportunity the case study presented was the untapped markets that Panera could potentially expand to including large U.S. cities and in the international markets. Exhibit three on page C-166 of the case study shows the markets where Panera Bread has limited or no presence. Each of these cities provides potential opportunities for the company. With Panera’s high rate of return, in the sense of customers returning to the restaurant once they have tried it once, the company needs to strive to get more first time customers in the door. To do this they need to “raise the quality of awareness . . . and boost trial dinning at multiple meal times” (C-169). In addition to getting first time customers the company also needs to strive to get customers to come in for meals that they usually do not eat at Panera. For example, the case explained that most individuals who come in for lunch will only consider

Panera Bread is a widely popular company that has been in business since the early 1980s, starting small and expanding with extensive growth successfully to where they are today. This paper will give a snap shot of how the company began, who they are, what they do as a business, and how to continue to compete in their market.

Panera Bread’s intention is “to make Panera Bread a nationally recognized brand name and to be the dominant restaurant operator in the specialty bakery-café segment.” Panera experienced competition from many numerous sources in its trade areas. Their competition was with specialty food, casual dining and quick service cafes, bakeries, and restaurant retailers, including national, regional, and locally owned. The competitive factors included location, environment, customer service, price, and quality of products. Panera learned from its competitors, none of its competitors had yet

The well-known company, Panera Bread; has been in business since the early 1980s, starting small and expanding with extensive growth successfully to where they are today. This paper will give a snap shot of how the company began, who they are, what they do as a business, and how to continue to compete in their market.