Operational Difference †Major company stake is owned by franchises Essay

As I went through the historical span of Burger King History, the franchises of Burger King played a major part in expansion of the parent company from the early 1960’s till date. The relation of franchises and management has always been influential and significant in success and failures of Burger King History. Primarily, the company operated with major investment from franchises and minimal from the company, so the decisions and relationship with franchises was crucial. Flame broiler a unique device that improved with decades in Burger King history The company was set-up on the basis of the oven called ‘Insta-broiler’ for cooking burgers. The purpose had been inspired from McDonald’s speedy service. It was further mechanised into a gas grill without changing patties and self functional by means of a conveyor belt. Further, the device was also customised and technologically advanced to produce Chicken sandwich, Chicken Whopper, Veggie burger, etc. Drive –thru service The company though was working hard on franchises and unique device to meet operational needs; it was mainly oriented to meet demand of production at ‘Drive-thru’ restaurants. This was because the company had major part of its sales revenue i.e. 70 % from ‘Drive-thru’ operations. Later this competence was adapted by McDonald and other competitors as well. However the effectiveness and efficiency of Burger King’s ‘Drive-thru’ was easily highlighted. Competitive methods of Burger King The purpose of its competitive strategy is to build a sustainable competitive advantage over the organization’s rivals. It defines the fundamental decisions that guide the organization’s marketing, financial management and operating strategies. As there were many significant changes in the history of Burger King, eventually there were different competitive methods used in different span in history. Some of the significant competitive methods are listed as follows: 1} Initial decade in Burger king’s history, ‘Insta-broiler’ a device competitive in making burgers and technological advancements in the same gave it a competitive advantage. 2} High amount of franchises worldwide executed major ownership stake and customised operations in the outlets. This was tightened and a new company structure was formed, followed by a new competitive aptitude. [Year 1963 -1967] 3} Push sale approach led increase in competitive breakfast market and thus improve in position in market. Burger King moved to second position in US fast food market after McDonald. [Year 1982-1985] 4} Launched a Burger King Kids Club program that help the company to increase sales and successful entry into a new market segment. [Year 1990-1995] 5} Introduction of a TURNAROUND PLAN named ‘Go Forward Plan’, which was significant to attain objectives like increasing profit, create a customer image, teamwork, etc.[Year 2000]. One more advantage Burger King introduced was ‘Revamped Chicken Whopper’, helpful to compete with other competitors. Burger King < McDonald’s (BK is simply not as big as McD) Some of the basic company facts and objectives of both the companies, help us understand how Burger King is not as big as McDonald’s in global terms. Facts Burger King McDonald Founder 1941 by Richard and Maurice McDonald 1953 by Keith J.Cramer Present chain 12,150 outlets in 50 states and US territories and 74 countries More than 31,000 outlets in 119 countries Revenue $2.5 Billion Number of employees 360,000 employees 1,500,000 employees (1.5 million) Customers 11.8 million customers daily worldwide 58 million customers across the globe Products offered Flame-broiled burgers including the Whopper, Burger King also offers chicken sandwiches, fish sandwiches, French fries, onion rings, salads, chicken fries and Croissanwiches for breakfast. McDonald’s predominantly sells hamburgers, various types of chicken sandwiches and products, French fries, soft drinks, breakfast items, and desserts. In most markets, McDonald’s offers salads and vegetarian items, wraps Calorie content A Burger King Double Whopper has around 920 calories A McDonalds Big Mac consists of 540 calories Objectives Burger King McDonalds Market share 21.9 % in US fast food industry 44% in US fast food industry Value for money More bigger product for reasonable price Product size is smaller with inexpensive price Franchising More than 90 % of the outlets are franchised A little less than 30 % Suppliers The suppliers vary with various franchise in different locations worldwide. McDonald chooses best suppliers and type and quality of meat varies with country culture. Advertising The BK adverts were quite confusing and sending wrong messages in potential market which affected cultural values and also brand image at times. McDonalds often had appropriate ways of advertising and were supportive to increase sales and popularity of the brand. Issues relating to Burger King The case study is very critical in understanding the issues related with Burger King’s history. Some of the prominent issues from past to present can be listed as follows: Franchise management – The company found it difficult to manage more than 90% franchise in the business of Burger King products and services. Crucial reason was also the percentage of stake ownership , which was initially 38% and was improved to 42% by Donald Smith, former McDonald executive. Changes in leadership – The history of Burger King marked approximately 20 changes in management. The changes in short term span affected oragnisation focus over goals and objectives, affected brand image adversely and lacked consistency in operation. Unhealthy food – The Company came prominently in highlight during the era from 2003 as potential customers had responded to be health conscious. The period marked spread of mad-cow disease and obesity levels among children was a rising concern. Market recession – The US economy faced economic recession from 2006 and needs brand to take effective measures to sustain and avoid losing loyal customers to competitors. Recommendations for future development in UK The Burger King opened its first branch/outlet in UK in 1977 on Coventry Street in London. Since then till date Burger King has 654 restaurants in UK ( out of which 73 are owned) whereas it has 139 ‘drive-through’ restaurants. Considering the present fast food environment in UK, following recommendations come in lime-light: HEALTHY FOOD – Burger King UK has currently many problems within the environment in company and surrounding, however one of the prime concern is healthy food. The company needs to produce fast food with less saturated fats and salt content. The problem of obesity in UK is high as well and addressing to this concern is the need of demand to survive over the competitors. PRIME LOCATIONS and EVENTS – Burger King needs to increase its influence and market share in UK, by serving at prime hot spots as well as at travel destinations. The presence of Burger King on high streets and at various national rail stations and airport is reasonable, however it needs to be accessible at hot tourist spots and business oriented commercial areas. SPEED – Burger King needs to increase its speed of delivering products and services to customers, as it has been competing with McDonalds over more than 50 years and still lacks speed during peak periods. Speed in operations helps to generate revenue in coping zone. Schools of strategy – Burger King’s evolution (analyse critically) Strategy formation is judgmental designing, intuitive visioning, and emergent learning; it is about transformation as well as perpetuation; it has to include analyzing before and programming after as well as negotiating during †¦Ã¢â‚¬  – Henry Mintzberg However there is a difference in perspective leading to strategy arguments. Mintzberg identified this and tried to debate and answer different perspectives through his 10 Schools of Strategy/Thinking. The burger King History prominently highlights two of them, explained as follows: 1] The Power School – Strategy Systems as Processes of Negotiation According to the power school, strategy systems are described to be mainly shaped by power and politics, whether as a process inside the enterprise itself or as the behaviour of the enterprise as a whole within its external environment. Strategies that may result from such processes tend to be emergent in nature, and take the forms of positions and actions more than perspectives. On the one hand parts of the power school (‘micro power’) see strategy making as the interplay, through persuasion, bargaining, and sometimes through direct confrontation, among narrow scope interests and shifting coalitions, with none dominant for any significant period. On the  other hand other parts of power school (‘macro power’) see the enterprise as promoting its own welfare by controlling or cooperating with other enterprise (such as Franchises), through the use of strategic manipulation as well as collective strategies in various kinds of networks and alliances. EXAMPLE – Burger King at different period in history, tried to take control over franchises by executing greater control over their operations and direct confrontation with various industry giants/ suppliers. These various processes implemented to achieve power through strategy highlights ‘THE POWER SCHOOL’. 2] The Configuration School – Strategy Systems as Process of Transformation The school follows a formation approach wherein the organisation is transforming into one type of decision making structure into another. The school interrupts the period of stability by some process of transformation. It has configuration of strategy formation from other nine schools which are – Design school – Strategy formation as an architecture process Planning school – Strategy formation as a formal process Positioning school – Strategy formation as an analytical process Entrepreneurial school – Strategy formation as a visionary process Cognitive school – Strategy formation as a mental process Learning (or Emergent) school – Strategy formation as an emergent process Power school – Strategy formation as a process of negotiation Cultural school – Strategy formation as a collective process Environmental school – Strategy formation as a reactive process The school recognises a appropriate combination of any one or more of them taking into context a particular type. EXAMPLE – Burger King history marks use of Positioning school in year 1980 -1983 to create a brand image and achieve second position in US fast food market. Click here to Continue Reading this Article Rate This Article Tags: burger king, free essay Category: Business, Free Essays Similar Articles Kicl students’ perceptions on the consumption of McDonalds, KFC and Burger Kings Analysis of Marks & Spencer’s International Strategy Role of Advertisement and Sales Promotion in ELP: Subscribe If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it. Including student tips and advice. Subscribe via RSS Feed Connect on Facebook Follow Us on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Connect on YouTube Click here to ask a question about this article.  « Management Function: Critical Analysis of the role of a modern industrial manager Shareholder-Wealth Maximization model (SWM): a Financial Report on Luton Brickworks Plc.  » Similar Articles Kicl students’ perceptions on the consumption of McDonalds, KFC and Burger Kings Analysis of Marks & Spencer’s International Strategy Role of Advertisement and Sales Promotion in ELP: Analysis of Marks and Spencer’s Past Failures and Present Developments Strategic Analysis of Marks and Spencers Plc (M&S) Looking for Something Similar? Get Student Advice We send regular advice and updates for students. We promise not to spam. Subscribe via RSS Feed Connect on Facebook Follow Us on Twitter Connect on LinkedIn Connect on YouTube

Describe Functionalist and Marxist Perspective on Education.

Describe functionalist and Marxist perspective on education. Functionalist Education can be described as the method whereby society continually passes on the knowledge it has gain from pass generations to the next or future generation. It is centered around and entails the teaching of the three R’s, which includes: arithmetic’s, reading and writing but also encompass social, spiritual, moral and physical component. It is viewed as a secondary agent of socialization as it socializes individuals into the norms and acceptable behaviors of society. Functionalist view education as having many roles but are interested mainly in how education meets society needs. They believe that one of its major roles being to equip individuals with intellectual knowledge. Functionalist also believes that besides it most obvious role of passing on society’s knowledge, education also has other latent roles that affects the individual on a holistical level and is reflective of society values, beliefs and norms. According to Durkheim individuals learn to socialize with one another within the schools through the integration of people from all diversity of society and this he believes is one of the latent roles of education, which he also call â€Å"moral education†. Besides this, functionalist believes that education have other latent or subtle roles that are used to instill in individuals values that stem from political and economic system and as a result help them build their self-confidence and prepares them for meeting society demands. For example, independence is taught through individualism. Functionalist also, believe that sorting (separating students on the basis of merit) another function of the school is essential in determine from early on who is capable of doing what and what job they will be better suited to in the future. The next function to take place after this is networking, they believe this function facilitates matchmaking and is unavoidable within the schools setting as individual of background, interest and education comes together to learn. Marxist Marxist sees education as a continuation of functionalist ideologies. They believe that education is used by functionalist to maintain the line of segregation that exists between the classes. Hence the reason why the Marxist view education as being used to create an â€Å"obedient working class† continuing the status quo. Acting as a persistent cause of inequality continuing to maintain the power structures and giving them the tool to create a â€Å"docile† work force. However, it is the view of the Marxist that the education system could be used as a system that helps in sorting the individuals of society into what is their calling position in life, it is the way it is done that their exist a problem. The problems they believe exist in the strategy that is used to by the functionalist to achieve this. This strategy they see as based on the ideals of functionalism which is according to class, race and gender. This is achieved in the form of the hidden agenda that exist within the curriculum that is used to educate. This hidden curriculum Marxist believes is present in every classroom and is taught through the use of the curriculum, hence the reason it is call the hidden curriculum. To the Marxist school of taught the hidden curriculum is present in numerous forms, this is evident in the funding that is available to school in affluent areas. These school according to Marxism are funded by â€Å"property taxes† because of there affluent location. Because of this they can afford to pay higher salaries to their teacher and this give them better teachers, available books and even technology. This in turn cause the students that attend these school to have better opportunities than child children who are schooled in rural areas that do not get the amount of funding that the other school get. Some of theses children are not even given the opportunity to go to college or even complete school. This inequality is also present in the exams that are given to children of the two classes. This is seen in the traditional IQ test that is given to student for acceptance into school. This test is Suppose to test the mental knowledge of the child but the formation of the test is not based on the intelligence of the child but on cultural knowledge. This creates a bias because children from a poor social background will not be able to answer question base on the culture of the affluence classes. This is called Cultural bias and is caused by inequality of the classes. They disagree with the idea that education can be used as a tool for any individual to move up within the social classes that exist in society. They believe that these principles are far from the truth. As religion is used to opiate the people against the real issues that affect them and to help in keeping them from solving their problems so to is education used to discourage the people from helping themselves and to remain within their social classes. Marxist see education as an influential tool in maintaining the lines that separate the have from the have not. Another argument of the functionalist school of taught is the use of meritocracy to help individual achieve status in life. However that Marxist sees this as a false perception, and believes that through meritocracy functionalist portrays the ideals of inequality of opportunity. Marxist believed that it is just another tool that is used to create an unequal society. The hidden curriculum is also present in the socialization process that takes place in school. It is of the view of many sociologists regardless of association or theory that the school is a major institution in the socialization process. It is for this reason that the Marxist believes that functionalist used this as the bases for the continuation of their theories. They see the hidden curriculum in this case as use to instill the norm and values of the functionalist. This is used to tell student what is deem as wrong or right, not allowing room for questioning. The question that Marxist asks is who is to tell what is right or wrong? Whether culturally, academically or otherwise. The hidden curriculum does not stop at school level but it is seen as being continued through out an individual lifetime whether it is in the home, work place or society as a whole.

The Greediest of Rajahs

Title: The Greediest of Rajahs And the Whitest of the Clouds Table Of contents: Book title Characters Settings Summary Moral lesson Author Illustrator No. of words Questions Characters: Greediest Rajahs People of the kingdom Soldiers Wisest of the wise men Little boy Setting: A palace or kingdom Summary: Once there lived the greediest of rajahs. He wanted the fastest cow, the roundest pigs, the juiciest melons, the sweetest sugar, the finest silk, and the purest of silver and gold. He took everything, his people were the poorest and saddest. No one disobeyed him because he had the fiercest soldiers that had the sharpest spears. One day, while the rajah was sitting beside his biggest window in largest palace, he saw the whitest of the clouds above him in the blue sky. He called to his guards and shouted at them to tell the wisest men on how he could get the whitest of clouds. He said if they don’t make away on how he could get by daybreak, he will send them hanging on a pole bitten by the reddest ants. He thought that it was more pure than the carabao’s milk and pluffier than the softest pillow. The following day, the wisest of the wise men reported on how he could get the whitest cloud. He replied that the only one who could go to the home of allah which is the sky is one who is pure and great and there is no one else greater than him. He asked the rajah to build the biggest kite so he could go up into the sky and grab the whitest cloud and his people will bring back to land. The people were amazed except the rajah. He shouted to them that it should be three times bigger, jewels four times shiny and ten times many. It must have more cushions and woven with golden thread that glitters at night. At last, the most largest kite was done He went outside and the strongest wind blew. He came nearer and nearer until suddenly he stopped. The jewels made it heavy. He cuts it with a knife and it was raining with jewels. The people rushed out to get some. Even the men who are holding the kite let go of the rope to get some share. They didn’t notice that the rajah was flying away. A boy shouted that the rajah was gone. They shouted with their loudest shots. Well, if you look clearly at thee sky, you’ll see a formation of stars like kite. It is the rajah still looking for the whitest cloud. Moral lesson: 1. Never be too greedy 2. Never push anyoe too hard when you want the to do something to you(don’t be harsh). 3. If you want something, you should do something good like when you want to have a high grade you should study well. Do not cheat. 4. Try working hard to earn what you want. The author: Honoel Ibardolaza The Illustrator: Brian Vallesteros No. Of Words: 457 words Questions: Inferencial: 1. Who are the characters in the story? 2. Where did the story happen? 3. When was the story held? 4. What did the rajah did in the story? 5. How does he do it? Critical: If you were the rajah, would you push your people to do your hard work? Why?

Howard Schultz's Leadership Style and Traits Research Paper

Howard Schultz's Leadership Style and Traits - Research Paper Example Nor does he stand ramrod tall and deliver a lecture or key message points†¦. He lets it all hang out--and is, by turns, sensitive, passionate, and responsive. What the managers see is what they get. Its Schultz--the corporate caregiver and truth teller. And its a distinctive leadership style based on an idealism that seems at odds with a sharp-edged global economy that has bloodied both business credibility and employee morale.† (US News.com) This, in nutshell, reveals the personality of the man, and his positive approach to the issues. Some of his observations/comments in the meeting prove the point. â€Å"The art of leadership is making sure we dont allow the scale and size of the company to change the methodology of how we conduct ourselves. We have to be careful not to let our values be compromised by an ambition to grow." "You dont start out by saying, Im going to create the worlds largest coffee company. You start with a sensibility that says, Im going to create a different kind of company, and you have to follow the path of doing the right thing by making decisions that are true to your mission and cause. You refer to your heart, conscience, and memory." "Being a great leader means finding the balance between celebrating success and not embracing the status quo. Being a great leader also means identifying a path we need to go down and creating enough confidence in our people so they follow it and dont veer off course because its an easier route to go."(USNews.com†¦.) In his book â€Å"A Passion to Lead: Seven Leadership Secrets in Business, Sports and Life, Jim Calhoun writes, â€Å"A Passion to Lead is for all those who are serious about making their dreams a reality. It’s a motivational tool for achieving success both at work and in life, and it can help turn any adversity into an advantage.†(Back Flap†¦) and he further writes, â€Å"Lead anyway-is that character and toughness can be cultivated, if you stick with people who care about