Panera bread case study

SUMMARY
In 1993 Au Bon pain Co. Inc., a chain of restaurants/bakeries acquired St. Louis Bread Company. This new division was composed of twenty stores that were located in suburban mid-western location and sold San Francisco style sour dough bread. The division was renamed Panera so that the chain could expand into new geographical areas. In 1995 Au bon Inc was losing due to strong competition from Starbucks so in 1999 they sold Au bon Inc and concentrated business on thriving and much profitable Panera division. In 2003 Panera was ranked number sixty three on Forbes list of 200 best small companies they were also ranked best performing stock on stock index ahead of many famous organizations. In 2003 they were baking over 70,000 loaves of bread a day with 669 stores across United States and income over 30 million dollars. Panera Bread Company has aggressive grow strategy, they are expected to grow at 15-29% per year for next five years. They have target market of affluent Suburbanites, particularly the baby boomers who are willing to spend on healthy and quality food with relaxed dining experience. Panera has succeeded in creating value for its customers by providing comfortable, relaxed environment with perceived high quality made to order food. Diners are encouraged to linger and similarly social gatherings and business meeting are welcomed. They have provided a dining experience one step ahead, where people come every day to relax and chill out. Panera is proactive as a learning organization and adaptive to environmental changes plus consumer taste. They developed high quality low carbohydrate breads and menu items in response to decrease in bread consumption due to popularity of Atkins and south beach diet. They are technology adaptive as they installed Wi-Fi in most of their restaurants which increased their sales by 50% in few outlets across Florida. Panera Bread company is a Social responsible organization as they been donating millions of dollars in community and charity work for local area support. Panera maintains high standards policies for franchise owners with considerable financial investment, pre working experience in multi unit restaurants with forward looking business strategy of the owner to open 15 new restaurants in specified geographical area over period of 6 years. Staffing and job requirement differ by location but it always include interpersonal skills, formal education and work experience in food industry. Managers receive competitive salaries plus benefits and have potential quarterly bonus depending on performance. Ground level operational staff is usually paid above minimum wage but receive no tips on customer account, they should have some fast food experience

Panera Bread Company is a high performance organization. Their continued success and momentum depends on meeting needs of stakeholder and creating value for them, being responsive to changing environment, and adapting an increasing diverse workforce.

Question1:- Referring to figure 2.1, the upside down pyramid view of organization and management, which one these levels could be the most likely to undermine the continued success of this organization?

Panera Bread companys strategic goals, long term plans, policy formulation and performance control procedures was defined by top management and plans were put into place by middle line manager. Organizations continued success in short run can be undermined by operating workers who are in direct contact with customers. Operational staff is a major tool to maintain Paneras competitive advantage which is creation of relaxed dining atmosphere with perceived healthy and high quality food. They are key players in satisfying and creating value for the customers. If they fail to provide quality service and communicate unique selling proposition and business message then consumer satisfaction will automatically decrease which will result in loosing competitive edge in the industry.

Question2:- Visit www.panera.com . What conclusions might you draw about diversity at the panera bread corporation from these websites and from the case? What does this company appear to be missing in terms of diversity? What could diversity add to this organization?

Panera does not have a diverse work environment they seem to be missing in ethnicity, spiritual practice, religious views, sexual orientation, and other minorities groups in workforce. This conclusion is drawn because there are no references regarding valuing differences or diversity in case study or at Panera official webpage. Through Diversity Panera foods can increase talent pool, intellectual capital, better understanding of diverse customers, better decision making and improved problem solving,
greater creativity and innovation, which leads to enhanced product development and more successful marketing to different types of customers. Diversity also provides organizations with the ability to compete and move in global markets.

Question3:- Since Panera bread has an aggressive growth strategy, what is the implication for this organization if the corporate management decides to open restaurant-cafes in other countries?

Panera Food needs to re-design its corporate strategies and develop diverse workforce if they decide to open restaurants in other countries. They need to hire knowledge workers from diverse geographical locations, especially from the countries where they are opening new restaurants. This will help them understand and adapt to work dynamics of that environment which includes consumer taste, consumer values, religious beliefs, power culture and management style. Panera Food should also develop global managers with global attitude who is cultural intelligent, Communicate well with people from different cultures, understand government and political system, respect different people and beliefs, speaks more than one language and posses high technical skills. IF Panera food fails to adopt these changes then there is a high probability they will not succeed in their venture.

Learning as a Manager from this case study:Managers can learn a lot from quick success story of panera bread. (a) Panera bread had a vision and strategic plans to accomplish their goals (b) Panera bread has an constructive culture (c) Panera bread created value for their stakeholder (d) Panera had targeted market of baby bombers and suburbanites (e) Value to community (f) Learning to organization , adaptive to change , technology , social responsibility (g) Standards maintain , control procedures