Chick-Fil-A Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

VRIO Analysis

The unique marketing strategies of Chick-fil-a are the featuring of a cow and designing creative slogans along with building a raving fan base. The company had identified a group of customers and its nicknamed raving fans. The characteristic of those fan bases include visiting of the franchise on more than four occasions in a month. While evaluating the particular core competency of the company, it has been placed in the third row which allows temporary competitive advantage and above average returns. The core competency of creative marketing strategy is however a rare strategy applied by the company which has increased its popularity and increased its growth by 13% annually. Although, the core competency can be imitated by other companies and the particular capability is also substitutable. By implementing this strategy, the company is earning above average revenues than its industry.

Alternatives

Alternative 1: Decentralized structure and Democratic Leadership Style

Advantages

A decentralized structure would enable the empowerment of decision making to the lower land middle level management which would help in quick solving of customers’ problems. When applying the particular strategy, any personal views that shall be shared by the CEO would have little or no effect on the goodwill of the company because the culture of the organization would already be enabled at solving customers’ problems. If any of the problems related to employee harassment, protests and other issues occur; the employees of the organization would deal with those issues because they would be empowered. The democratic leadership style compliments the decentralized decision making where a leader does not do anything without the will and mutual consensus of its teams. Currently, an authoritarian leadership style is practiced which allows the CEO to perform any task at will.

Disadvantages

While the future growth and expansion of the company in different countries, the process of decentralization would not be a suitable option because it would not give the top management higher amount of authority and control to launch its product. The control over the operating process would be low for the owners despite the fact that they have been successfully operating the business since the start of Chick-fil-a. Also, a strong resistance would be felt by the employees of the organization because little change in revenues has occurred due to the centralized structure. The organization may become fragmented as the company which worked as a single unit with a sense of team spirit can never be same in the decentralized structure.

Alternative 2: Follow Current Strategy

Advantages

Sticking with the same strategy of criticizing on the sensitive issues would also increase the popularity of the company and decreasethe negative publicity. However,the growth of the company has increased since its inception, it could be assumed that the company would gain the similar growth in the future because of the authoritarian leadership style within the company. Any change in the structure may decrease the revenues of the company because strong employee ties and work environment has been developed since the beginning of the company. A sudden change would disrupt the productivity of employees. Following the same strategy would also provide the benefit of getting hold of the domestic market

Disadvantages

The current strategy would also impose high level of disadvantage as it would risk the reputation and the goodwill of the company. Due to the increased protesting against the comments by Cathy and aiding for anti-gay marriage movements, this would discourage the entrance of the company in different countries whenever it would plan to perform international expansion. It is also reported that a decline has also started to occur in the revenues of Chick-fil-a which may further dent the plans for the company to move in the international market. If the same case happens for a longer period of time, then the US government may intervene and could insert sanctions against the company and may limit its domestic presence as well(Kass & Stafford, 2013).

Recommendations

As Chick-fil-a has a core advantage only in the US market where the rights of same-sex marriage and homosexuality laws protect its citizens and the homosexual people, therefore the company must change its current strategy and apply a decentralized organizational structure in order to eliminate the similar scenarios to occur. Currently, the management of Chick-fil-a uses an authoritarian leadership style and centralized decision making approach which is the reason why the company has been criticizing its customers without knowing the outcome that it would cause to the overall reputation of the company.................................

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