Panera Bread Company SWOT Analysis Assignment - 2475 Words

Panera Bread Company SWOT Analysis Assignment (Term Paper Sample) Content: Panera Bread Company AnalysisStudents NameInstitution AffiliationPanera Bread Company Analysis1.0 IntroductionAccording to Rao and Krishna (2005), organizations do not operate in isolation but operate in an environment that is affected by various factors. Therefore, it is essential to the organization to conduct an analysis of its internal environment with the aim of ascertaining its strengths and weaknesses and also its external market with the aim of identifying its threats and opportunities. There are a number of tools that management could rely on like the SWOT analysis and Porters Five Forces model. A careful analysis using these tools could help an organization to understand its position in the market and how it could enhance its competitiveness. This report will evaluate Panera Bread Company internal strengths and weaknesses, external opportunities and threats (SWOT).2.0 Company profilePanera Bread is an American public company operating in the fast food indust ry and was founded in the year 1987. The company operates a chain of fast-casual restaurants and bakery caf in Canada and United States. Panera Bread is headquartered in sunset hills, Missouri and some of its offerings include sandwiches, soups, flat bread, bakery items, iced drinks, fruit smoothies, pasta, and salads. The company has a food policy which was unveiled in the year 2014, and details Panera Bread commitment to transparency, clean ingredients and to positively impact on the food system. Additionally, Panera Bread is engaged in social responsibility and community outreach programs which provide baked goods and unsold bread to the local community charities and hunger relief agencies.3.0 Internal Strengths and WeaknessesPickton and Wright (2012) argue that strengths are organization factors that have a positive implication on its operations and activities. As such, the strengths add value as well as offering a competitive advantage to the organization. Organization streng ths include both tangible and intangible assets. On the other hand, weaknesses refer to the organization characteristics that are detrimental to its growth and future success. As such, weaknesses place a company at a disadvantage in comparison with the competitors.Panera Bread strengths and weaknesses will be analyzed on the four major elements of the management process, demonstrating the manner in which each of the element is related to a company strength or weakness.3.1 LeadingLeading refers to the ability to communicate, inspire, encourage and motivate employees to achieve higher productivity. As such, in organization leadership plays a crucial role its failure or success (Weihrich Koontz, 2015). In the case of Panera Bread, leadership is one of its strengths. Panera Bread has a strong leadership at all its levels of management, which has been instrumental to its success over the last 30 years of its operation.An evaluation of two senior managers in the company reveals strong tr aits for effective leadership like enthusiasm, dominance, self-assurance, social boldness and tough-mindedness. Additionally, the managers exhibited skills and behaviors for effective leadership like the ability to build relationship, courage, trust, collaboration, drive for results, strategic perspective and walking the talk.According to Weihrich and Koontz (2015), motivation is the ability to get other people to do something because they love and want to do it. Motivation plays a significant role in organization success and should thus, be at the centre of leadership. Panera Bread observed managers employ various strategies to motivate their employees like recognizing hard work, encouraging employee even after they fail and involving employees in setting targets and goals. As such, motivational strategies adopted by managers at Panera Bread would be considered as effective.Situational leadership refers to a leadership style that enables a manager to adjust his style to fit his fol lowers development level (Vecchio, 2012). The managers have adopted different situational leadership style. One of the managers has adopted coaching and delegating styles of leadership while the other manager uses directing and supporting style. Employee empowerment is the means in which employees are given the authority to take proactive decisions and to autonomously analyze situations. Both managers use similar strategies to empower employees. These strategies include granting sufficient authority, building the confidence of the employees, providing adequate resources and information as well as providing the necessary skills for the job.3.2 ControllingControlling refers to the process of establishing a mechanism to compare the actual results with the targeted outcome. As such, controlling involves directing and measuring the actual performance against the standards or organization planned goals (Weihrich Koontz, 2015). Panera Bread has established a number of productivity control s such as comparing the number of units produced per hour against the expected production, comparing the total cost against total sales, comparing the actual sales revenue against the projected sales revenue and ascertaining the number of customer complaints received in a particular period. The productivity controls established by Panera Bread are a source of strength as they ensure production of quality products at reasonable costs.Also, Panera Bread quality practices include Total Quality Management and ISO. Panera Bread has adopted total quality management as a means of ensuring its long-term success by ensuring customer satisfaction. As such, the total quality management approach has enabled Panera Bread to use data, effective communication and different strategies to integrate quality into the organization activities and culture. Additionally, Panera Bread adoption of ISO quality management helps ensure the organization meets the regulatory and statutory requirements related to its products, thus, helping meet the needs of other stakeholders and customers.Panera Bread uses a management information system which uses collected data through transaction processing to create reports used by managers to make day to day decisions to solve and respond to problems. The system has been quite effective and instrumental in helping managers make day to day decisions.3.3 PlanningPanera Bread major weakness is its planning. Planning involves formulating detailed plans to facilitate efficient use of the organization scarce resources. As such, the planning process should involve; identifying the goals to be achieved, formulating the various strategies to achieve those goals and implementing, directing and monitoring the steps involved in its implementation (Weihrich Koontz, 2015).Panera Bread has a strategic plan in place which is supposed to guide its current and future operations in the market. However, the strategic plan has not been reviewed since its adoption. The f ailure to continuously review the strategic plan is one of the weaknesses of Panera Bread. Therefore, it could be argued that Panera Bread lacks a plan for the current and future competitive market.The Panera Bread planning process does not adequately address the changes in the industry environment as it does not provide a guideline of how to address changes in technological forces, environmental requirements as well as the legal and political factors. The failure of Panera Bread to ensure proper planning process erodes the ability of the company to take advantage of the available in the environment as well to adopt the right strategies to address the threats posed by the external environment. Also, it affects the company competitiveness as it puts it at a disadvantage compared to its competitors. As such, the planning aspect of Panera Bread is a major weakness to it, and if not addressed it could limit its future growth and success.3.4 OrganizingOrganizing is the logical process of co-coordinating, structuring and integrating organization activities and task goals to attain organization specific objectives (Weihrich Koontz, 2015). Panera Bread management has strong organizing skills which a strength of the company. Panera Bread has adopted a hybrid organization design which integrates functional organization design and the matrix organization design. The adoption of the hybrid design enables the company to enjoy the benefits of the functional and matrix designs while easing each other disadvantages. As such, the chosen organization design acts a source of Panera Bread competitive edge. Some of the issues relating to job design in Panera Bread include; job sharing, task revision, telecommuting and skill development. However, the disparity in salaries and wages between various employees level is an issue of concern to Panera Bread. The Panera Bread management should consider addressing the issue so as to boost employees morale especially those at the lowest l evels of management.Panera Bread has a strong organization culture which supports flexibility for the future need to change. As such, there are no identified issues in Panera Bread related to its culture that could affect the organization flexibility with respected to future need to change.4.0 External opportunities and threatsAccording to the Cole (2009), the opportunities and threats of an organization relate to its external environment analysis. The external analysis in important as it helps the management assess the opportunities available to an organization and the level of threat faced by an organization from the external environment. Panera Bread opportunities and threats could be better analyzed through the use of porters five forces model as well as considering the role of macro-environment forces and their relevance as discuss...

Social groups Essaypilot

The author characterizes Angies method to reach out to other members of the society like fellow students and administrators as village politics. They reached out to many individuals and groups like other schools and churches. Such groups are essential as they help to raise fundamental issues in the society. It is in these organizations that the rest of the society start to take the agenda seriously unlike when one person raises them. It is also very critical that such groups remain independent from any governmental influence. It is only then that the members can express concerns and raise awareness to common challenges (p 199). Dialogue is the best way in which most people can get involved in matters of the society. It makes it possible for people to speak out and have an input in everyday choices. Power, by all means, must also hinge on rules and structures that allow people to debate thus preventing conflicts from arising (p 200). Village politics help to dare mechanisms to enhance the discussion of national and global issues. Such networks should be built on already existing relationships to promote social visions on a good spectrum. For the growth of any citizenry, the neighbor to neighbor outreach remains very instrumental. A student group from the University of Michigan for instance was responsible for raising critical social issues. This was despite the fact that their society had been traditionally disengaged (p 201). Therefore, this passage expounds on the importance of an individual or group working hard to educate the rest of the society on matters environment. As a recognized group it is easier for Angie and her group members to carry the message around. Fishing Together Villages should be built in a way that enhances their engagement with the rest of the world. With globalization and everything it comes with the world has become a global village. Pete Knutson was a fisherman and the son of a Lutheran minister (p 206). He initially supported the Vietnam War until his friends who had participated in the war came home feeling betrayed. The instructed him not to trust the military because they always lie (p 207). He had a boat that he used for fishing to support his family. He was also part of those who brought up the Puget Sound Gillnetters Association which helped the members to market their fish together. It was like their lobby group against large canneries. There had been a longstanding mistrust between the environmentalists and the fishermen. Pete took upon himself to unite the two groups which were no mean task, but he managed it with a coalition even formed. The alliance proved instrumental in the coming years as the fishermens operations were threatened at some point. They used the partnership to picket and held press conferences to champion for what they said were their rights against their wealthy opponents (p 207). Through Pete and the others, the group survived having changed their vision from narrow to more complex and sustainable interests. They wanted to have a better future for their kids and the generations to come (p 208). From this passage, the audience learns that for a community to sustain any of their campaigns there has to be unity. Pete and the group had to transform their shallow mindedness to see the bigger picture. That is when they decided to form an alliance to champion for their liberties and a sustainable future for their children.