One of the finest ‘quick casual’ food chains in America is Panera Bread and these stores are really a one stop solution for hunger and a delicious meal at the end of the day. It has 70 shops in 10 states across US. The products available at Panera Bread are preservative-free and they are really tasty in all the senses. These two factors combined together with great promotional strategies made Panera Bread a renowned company in food market of America today.
The Marketing and management strategy of Panera Bread is based on two fundamental aspects. One is customer satisfaction with various amenities like free wi-fi system and the other is providing the best quality. Alongside, proper and well formulated customer relation is another aspect of its marketing and management strategy. The Founder/CEO of Panera Bread, Ron Shaich, believes that effective communication among all involved in a business is the key to its success, until and unless there is proper communication among all and every department of the ambulatory service, implementation of the above strategies will not be totally possible. Thus, he adds extra emphasis on human resource too as a part of the Panera Bread Marketing and management strategy.
Alongside, advertisement is its prime strategy. Panera Bread’s advertising aims to either increase the sales volume or create a brand name. The various forms of advertising are dramatically different and thus, measuring their effectiveness is not an easy task. While measuring marketing effectiveness we actually have to determine the effect each advertising campaign has on the consumers. However, amenities like free wi-fi are widely advertised by Panera Bread and it clams to offer the largest wi-fi network in the US.
Panera Bread Strategy has a number of components which are:
- Differentiation – This component appeals to a broad section of the market by granting differentiating features that makes one distinguish oneself from the others on the basis of value or price or by establishing oneself as a dominant market player. This is done for making the customers eager to pay up certain premium costs. This component is successful only if the differentiation features of the strategy are difficult and expensive to duplicate.
- Overall Cost or Price Leadership – This component appeals to a broad section of the market and can be achieved by providing the services and products at minimal prices. To implement this strategy effectively we continuously need to make exceptional efforts in reducing costs without leaving out the major features and services of the products.
- Response – This component helps to track the marketing results so that we can determine which is successfully working for the company and which is not. Through this component we can also determine whether operations and services are being provided to the customers on time or not, quality of product is good or bad and the promises made to the customers are being kept or not.
Ongoing Augmentation and Review – Through this component we continuously assess the strong points and flaws of our business and sometimes even the marketing strategies so as to continually improve them.
Shaich indicates that with more and more options becoming available to the customer differentiation becomes a key concept and acts as a driver of sustainability. Differentiation denotes the capacity to separate the product or service offered by the business from that of other players. It is the solution to the problem of creating and upholding a competitive advantage. This is the edge that a business has over its competitors in the same market segment. This comes from the capability of offering exclusive and unique benefits that no other competitor can provide to the customer. Servitization of products is a window of opportunity on which organizations look to capitalize on. By offering services as a product or post-sales services firms aim at adding value to products and gain a competitive edge.
Recently, the company is planning to go global. Shaich indicates that a flourishing business organization and its management must be competent enough to cater to customer needs in addition to financial targets in a fiercely competitive global market. To build up customer confidence and accomplish business goals, the administrative team must not only craft an economically fruitful business strategy, but coerce the outcome by translating the strategy into an unambiguously defined operational priority and ensure that they adequately adhered to and met through enhanced communication and an efficient performance evaluation system. However, turning the performance objectives in a business strategy is into actual reality is a intricate undertaking.
Panera Bread is dedicated to its customers and always trying to improve the services. The company is committed to its customers by serving the best quality of food products for all kinds of culinary delights. They always take the privilege of thanking all their patrons and will try to improve their service to them in future. It can be well stated at the moment the company is moving on a right direction and with an able leader like Ron Shaich they are due to gain more success in future.