Panera Bread Case Study Answers

1. What is Panera Bread’s strategy? What type of competitive advantage is Panera Bread trying to achieve?

Panera Bread’s strategy is to not be like a McDonalds kind of fast food, but more of a casual quick meal kind of place. They are using the focused differentiation strategy to target their main customers which are urban workers and suburban dwellers. They are pushing this strategy though by selling different types of products. They sell their own signature baked goods that set them apart from their rivals. They also sell signature sandwiches and soups that taste better than their rivals. They are making meal choices that are healthier than their rivals in their meals and give the customer a comfortable dining area for them to eat. They

What strategic issues and problems does Panera Bread management need to address? Based on your findings formulate a new strategy and create an execution process (Make sure you address each stage in Figure 2.1)

There are always things that could be changed or updated in a business. The strategic issues and problems in Panera are very little but do have things to be fixed. They need to find a way to fix their narrowing profit margins. They also need to boost the amount of people in their stores during the dinner time. Lastly, they need to increase the sales at the company owned bakeries they have. Stage 1: Panera will continue to be a causal place but will be offering more food during the dinner hour to increase the profit margin and foot traffic in the stores.

Stage 2:

Panera will be looking at the profit margin over time to see if it will be increasing since the profit in the has decreased from 196 million to 179 in one year. Also, will track the sales in the bakery department to see if they increase

Stage

The first thing they can do is start offering their fresh artisans breads they make to other chains. This will allow them to increase their bakery sales and will also help them improve the profit margin a little by giving them more money from the sales. This could be linked to customer being happier by being able to get their bread at different locations. Another thing they can do since the economy is allowing them to get more debt cheaply is to be able to open more stores rapidly in prime locations. This will allow them to gain profit and steal customers away from the competitors. It will also help them establish their brand more in different areas. If the economy starts to slow down than they can slow down opening stores. They have the resources right now to open many stores and to try to rapidly grow. They can also use the resources they have of people making new means which is keep them very competitive in the industry. That if they keep coming up with new menu’s it will increase the dinner traffic that are looking to increase. They have the capabilities of doing this since they are already good at making new menus all the time. They just need to focus more on menus that will increase the foot traffic during the dinner time. They can also try to continue the franchise and company owned stores to make money off the