Outback Steakhouse, Case Study Example

The Outback steak house was founded by Chris Sullivan, Bob Basham, and Tim Gannon. It is one of the fastest growing restaurants. However though growth is good, market saturation will occur within the next five years. It is one of the biggest challenges facing Outback Steak House. It is believed 500-600 restaurants can be opened over the next five years. In 1994 Hugh Connerty appointed President to lead the company’s overseas expansion.

Five key relevant facts about Outback Steak House are: The restaurant has an Australian theme, Innovation comes from within the company, an unusual management and ownership structure, the restaurant only serves dinner, the business model is two tiers in the U.S its company owned it’s franchised overseas.

Three ‘key’ issues that i think are highly relevant to the case are its overseas expansion program, the maintenance of its core values as it enters key markets, intercultural and regulatory barriers to entry.

The firm’s core competence is the preparation of limited number of menu Items that appeal to broad tastes, generous portions at moderate prices, attracts diversity through its casual atmosphere, has a high staff retention, above average servers to table ratios, limited dinner times.

The firm’s strategy is to expand globally to increase revenue and mitigate domestic market saturation. To assume that all other restaurant business models are inefficient thus they are developing their own e.g. only serving dinner. To be the gap between high-priced steak houses and budget steak houses.

My recommendation is it should also have a strategy that incorporates fully different cultures tastes. For instance in the far east and the world in general there is a billion Hindus who don’t eat beef and a total of 2.5 billion people who don’t eat pork and a billion vegetarians