1. Introduction (100 words) Pret a Manger, French meaning is “ready to eat”, is a sandwich shop chain based in the United Kingdom. The two founders---Julian Metcalfe and Sinclair Beecham set up the first shop in 1986 driven by the idea of serving healthier, more natural and more delicious food after realizing there was a gap in the fast food market created by a lack of fresh, delicious and notorious food with no additives. They mainly serve sandwiches, salads, sushi, soups, coffees, snacks and so on. And one of the most worth to speak of is their front line staffs’ service attitude, which can be described as three words “feel like home”. Now, they have nearly 400 branches in many countries including the US, China, Japan and France. In a word, Pret a Manger has a large amount of loyal fellows and wins a high reputation among manga areas. 2. …show more content…
Background on the company, industry and competitors (250 words) As a fast food, how to stand out in such a competitive fast food market becomes a big challenge. McDonald's is one of the largest fast food chain shop, undoubtedly, is a big competitor for them. In 2001, McDonald's bought a 33% non-controlling stake in the USA branch of Pret a Manger, which was a blow to its reputation. In 2008, they ceased the relationship with McDonald's and sold stake to Bridgepoint (Bridgepoint is a pan-European focused on acquiring leading middle market business), which I think is a wise choice. According to the article, Pret’s approach to recruitment, training and retention has merit as it manages to build and retain productive, friendly crews out of relatively low-paid. The management selection of Pret is complete which included personality questionnaire, assessment, and manager training and so on. As for company culture, Pret’s hiring policy is: “We hire happy people and teach them to make sandwiches.” In a word, Pret choose employees carefully and devoted to make each employee and customer is