kfc this day..

KFC was playing the obvious codes of snack representation and wanted to differentiate itself positively from competitors. By exploring fundamental codes around chicken and the KFC heritage, we uncovered a potential pleasure in the brand offer that existed beyond the physical. An identification of a specific KFC ‘magical spirit’ helped inspire KFC’s subsequent ‘Soul Food’ strateSWOT has a long history as a tool of strategic and marketing analysis. No one knows who first invented SWOT analysis. It has features in strategy textbooks since at least 1972 and can now be found in textbooks on marketing and any other business disciplines. It advocates say that it can be used to gauge the degree of “fit” between the organisation’s strategies and its environment, and to suggest ways in which the organisation can profit from strengths and opportunities and shield itself against weaknesses and threats (Adams, 2005). However, SWOT has come under criticism recently. Because it is so simple, both students and managers have a tendency to use it without a great deal of thought, so that the results are often useless. Another problem is that SWOT, having been conceived in simpler times, does not cope very well with some of the subtler aspects of modern strategic theory, such as trade-offs (De Witt and Meyer, 1998).



Strengths



Determine an organisation’s strong points. This should be from both internal and external customers. A strength is a “resource advantage relative to competitors and the needs of the markets a firm serves or expects to serve”. It is a distinctive competence when it gives the firm a comparative advantage in the marketplace. Strengths arise from the resources and competencies available to the firm.



Weaknesses



Determine an organisation’s weaknesses, not only from its point of view, but also more importantly, from customers. Although it may be difficult for an organisation to acknowledge its weaknesses it is best to handle the bitter reality without procrastination. A weakness is a “limitation or deficiency in one or more resources or competencies relative to competitors that impedes a firm’s effective performance”.



Opportunities



Another major factor is to determine how organisations can continue to grow within the marketplace. After all, opportunities are everywhere, such as the changes in technology, government policy, social patterns, and so on. An opportunity is a major situation in a firm’s environment. Key trends are one source of opportunities. Identification of a previously overlooked market segment, changes in competitive or regulatory circumstances, technological changes, and improved buyer or supplier relationships could represent opportunities fro the firm.



Threats



No one likes to think about threats, but we still have to face them, despite the fact that they are external factors that are out of our control, for example, the recent economic slump in Asia. It is vital to be prepared and face threats even during turbulent times. A threat is a major unfavourable situation in a firm’s environment. Threats are key impediments to the firm’s current or desired position. The entrance of new competitors, slow market growth, increased bargaining power of key buyers or suppliers, technological changes, and new or revised regulations could represent threats to a firm’s success.



Because SWOT is such as familiar and comforting tool, many students use it at the start of their analysis. This is a mistake. In order to arrive at a proper SWOT appraisal, other analyses need to be carrier out first.



• Since opportunities and threats mostly arise from the environment, SWOT analysis needs to take account of the results of a full environmental analysis.

• It is impossible to gauge what an organisation’s real strengths are until you have assessed its strategic resources – in fact, strategic resources and strength are the same thing. There is a tendency for students to put down anything vaguely favourable that they can think of about a company as a strength. This temptation needs to be resisted - a strength is not a strength unless it makes a genuine difference to an organisation’s competitiveness. The same is true of weaknesses.



For example, look at Southwest Airlines and Amazon.com. Both companies have important groups of potential customers to whom they offer poor service. Southwest ignores business passengers, and will not accept transfers from other airlines. Amazon makes people wait days to receive books that they can obtain instantly from their neighbourhood bookstores, and pay a delivery charge for the privilege. Surely, these are major threats. Southwest and Amazon have chosen not to give those customers priority. Serving them would divert resources from the firm’s core markets, and dilute service to their main customers. Not serving them is certainly not a weakness; in a paradoxical way, it may be a strength.



The wizardry of SWOT is the matching of specific internal and external factors, which creates a strategic matrix and which makes sense. It is essential to note that the internal factors are within the control of organisation, such as operations, finance, marketing, and other areas. On the contrary, the external factors are out of the organisation’s control, such as political and economic factors, technology, competition, and other areas. The four combinations are called the maxi-maxi (strengths/opportunities), maxi-mini (strengths/threats), mini-maxi (weaknesses/opportunities), and mini-mini (weaknesses/threats). Weihrich (1982) describes the four combinations as follows:



1. Maxi-maxi (S/O). This combination shows the organisation’s strengths and opportunities. In essence, an organisation should strive to maximise its strengths to capitalise on new opportunities.
Intelligence: KFC, as the company is now named, is eternally associated with Colonel Harland Sanders. The Colonel is one of the rare cases in which a company has used a real person (and in this case, the founder) as the template for a cartoon mascot. The television advertisements from KFC in the 1990s have already established the hip, dancing, animated Colonel as a fried chicken guru... so much so that it's unlikely that the majority of the web audience will remember the man himself from before his death in the 1980s. It is because of the tradition of Colonel Sanders that the majority of competence is assigned. If a person with no prior knowledge of that tradition saw the animated Colonel, however, that visitor might think the Colonel is a fool. Wearing a sheepish grin and often dancing while carrying a bucket of chicken, the icon does not inspire confidence among those who have not tried a sample of the restaurant's food.

Character: Especially in the case of Colonel Sanders, it is important to remember the seriousness of the site's product or service. In nearly every animated form of the Colonel, the man is a downright silly cartoon. If KFC was offering home mortgages or cancer treatment advice, then this character's behavior would pose a problem. With something as casual as fast food, though, there is really nothing to lose with a hip, dancing old man. While the animated Colonel doesn't have a moral code, the original Colonel did, and without the assistance of the new mascot, KFC provides historical and community related information. In the end, the mere enthusiasm of the Colonel (who, in most of the current graphics on the site, is in the act of exclaiming something to the visitors) makes him a likable guy.

Goodwill: The Colonel runs into some problems when considering his willingness to understand or respond to the visitors of the site. One of the curious aspects of the KFC site is the constant shift between the image of the new animated Colonel and the faded image of Sanders himself. This juxtaposition doesn't seem to have much logical reason behind it, and there's no telling why the webmasters are only partially using their new mascot. The site itself has virtual tours of "the Sanders Cafe" but the single image of the mascot seen on the main index page of the site remains frozen in expression wherever the visitor goes. In short, he's just a token mascot that never moves.

Whereas the Colonel himself is well supported on the KFC site, the Colonel Sanders mascot's ethos is below average. With only some more responsiveness, and some of the enthusiasm he exhibits in the television ads, he could be a very successful online mascot. If he walked the visitors through the "recipe" and "ordering" sections, he could be finger-lickin' good.

2. Maxi-mini (S/T). This combination shows the organisation’s strengths in consideration of threats, e.g. from competitors. In essence, an organisation should strive to use its strengths to parry or minimise threats.

3. Mini-maxi (W/O). This combination shows the organisation’s weaknesses in tandem with opportunities. It is an exertion to conquer the organisation’s weaknesses by making the most of any new opportunities.

4. Mini-mini (W/T). This combination shows the organisation’s weaknesses by comparison with the current external threats. This is most definitely defensive strategy, to minimise an organisation’s internal weaknesse

kfc vs McDonald

KFC Corporation, based in Louisville, Kentucky, is the world's most popular chicken restaurant chain, specializing in Original Recipe®, Extra Crispy™The fast-food market in Shanghai has become very competitive with the existence of both Western and Chinese cuisine oriented restaurants. KFC and McDonald’s are the top two most popular western fast-food brands among many other restaurants, including some domestic brands of Chinese fast-food which copied the Western service model. Consumers in Shanghai are giving importance to food, service, environment, price, convenience, brand and promotion in evaluating fast-food restaurants. There are some similarities and differences between KFC and McDonald’s in Shanghai, which are highlighted through this case study. New product development, clean environment, innovative entertainment facilities, efficient service, competitive pricing, Twister® and Colonel's Crispy Strips® chicken with homestyle sides. Every day, nearly eight million customers are served around the world. KFC's menu includes Original Recipe® chicken -- made with the same great taste Colonel Harland Sanders created more than a half-century ago. Customers around the globe also enjoy more than 300 other products -- from a Chunky Chicken Pot Pie in the United States to a salmon sandwich in Japan. KFC has more than 11,000 restaurants in more than 80 countries and territories around the world. And in quite a few U.S. cities, KFC is teaming up with sister restaurants, A&W, All-American Food™, Long John Silver's, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, selling products from the popular chains in one convenient location. KFC is part of Yum! Brands, Inc., however in the case of Pakistan KFC is owned by a dubai based company Cuppola which is the world's largest restaurant system with over 32,500 KFC, A&W All-American Foodpromotional activities and demand fluctuations are some of the comparison criteria’s taken into consideration. The consumers range from all age group from children to older people with mainly a high percentage in young adults. Each of the target consumer group has their preferences and behaviors, which need to be analyzed and paid attention to accordingly. In order for future developments, KFC and McDonald’s have to plan to maximize the volume of customers and eventually increase their profits,Taco Bell, Long John Silver's and Pizza Hut restaurants in more than 100 countries and territories.

kfc to you....

KFC has a very long history and has the most recognizable brand in chicken. With over 50% of the market share it becomes very difficult for new companies who may want to enter the market. KFC has name recognition around the world and has been globally positioned for many years. KFC's secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices has made it the leader in chicken for the last fifty years. KFC sells three recipes: Original recipe, Extra Crispy, and Tender Roast. The many sales of KFC during the 1970's and 1980's lead to a very confusing direction and took the focus of the company off of its original strategy. During the 1980's and 1990's KFC struggles were much do to the inability to bring new products to the market quickly and it's innovation of new products. KFC fell behind the market in new products and was copying other fast food chains to stay competitive. KFC changed its strategy in the late 1990's, which included adding items to its menu. KFC then in an effort to address its declining market share began building smaller restaurants in non-traditional outle

Kfc Case Analysis
It is of critical importance that we develop a strong understanding of KFC’s current position and of the market in which it competes. The more comprehensive and well-founded our situational analysis is, the stronger our strategic marketing plan will be.

I. The character and attractiveness of the U.S. food service and fast-food industries in 1994
The fast-food industry is considered a subsection of the food service industry, or rather a submarket within a broader market. This broader industry, the US food service industry, is in what is known as the maturity stage.
Typically, the maturity stage exemplifies the following characteristics:
• Sales continue but at slower pace.
• Competition leads to decreased market share or prices.
• Competing products become very similar and differentiating product becomes both crucial and more difficult

The merger with PepsiCo was met with large cultural issues as the KFC employees were used to the previous strategy of a laid-back, self-governing environment, to an environment who demanded tighter control over operations. Other segments of the industry are turning to new menu offerings. ts, airports, shopping malls, and hospitals. They believed the franchisees knew the business better than they did. The second largest threat would be other chicken chains that are now adding other types of food to their product lines. The loss of market share and slowing growth also was due to the many mergers they went through during a limited time period. KFC established units that sold both Taco Bell and KFC or KFC and Pizza Hut. By the year 2000 more than 50 percent of KFC's restaurants were located outside the United States. As we will address further in this report KFC is continuing to expand in foreign markets, which is one of Yum!s goals for growth. took over KFC there seems to be a better relationship with the management of the two companies and a much more intense focus on the growth and expansion of the market. This brings up the point of what is KFC's defined market. KFC's strategy for growth, KFC began expanding in foreign markets as far back as the 1950's and are currently the 3rd largest fast food chain as of 2000Threats The largest threat KFC is faced with is the restaurant industry as a whole. The consumer continues to have many choices when it comes to fast food restaurants. By the year 2000 only 27 percent of the restaurants were company owned. The cultural differences took the focus away from the chicken business. Some topics in this essay:
As a result, firms need to place their efforts into encouraging competitors’ customers to switch to their product offering, increase usage per customer and even convert non-users into customers. At this stage, the primary goal of a given firm is to maintain market share. The food service industry, as is the fast-food industry, is typified by franchising which became well-established in the early 1950s. The concept held and in 1994 there were over 550, 000 restaurants and food outlets in America. Although the industry in 1994 was slowing, that is not to say that it was not growing. Food service industry sales were forecast to surpass $275 billion and this had grown at an estimated compound annual rate of 3.9% from 1988 till 1994. This billion dollar industry is dominated by the fast-food and full service segments who commanded annual sales of $86 billion and $85.5 billion dollars respectively. The fast-food segment is prima facie, a very attractive one. Not only did the segment grow 5.6%, outpacing almost all other food categories but its future is also promising with a forecast of 6.3% growth in 1994. In addition, the...