Smashburger Strategic Planning, Research Paper Example

Smashburger is an American company that has branches in different states. The chain restaurants began in Denver, Colorado where a small restaurant was established in 2007 by Tom Ryan. The company has since then opened up several fast food restaurants with most of them concentrating on burgers and ground beef as the common dishes. Tom Ryan is a successful veteran in the foods industry and well known for his success in McDonald chain restaurant. Initial Smashburger was a single restaurant that operated with minimum resources until 2009 when it received a $15 million for investment from Consumer Capital Partners to assist in expansion. The reward was after the company topped in the fast foods competition when it was able to perfectly explain how their burgers were made. After this opportunity, the company increased its target market and managed to open branches in 100 other location but all of them were in the United States. However, David Prokupek the company chairman stated in an annual review meeting of the year 2012 that the company will aim at expanding its services to Calgary, Alberta and also in other locations outside United States such as British Columbia and Edmonton. Smashburger vision is to expand its target market to all states in the United Sates and also to different areas outside the United States. The company mission is to maximize resources though attaining customer satisfaction. For a long time, since the initial stages of the company, customer satisfaction was the main focus and produced excellent results according to its founder.

To better understand the Smashburger’s strategic plan it is essential to pay attention to its external environmental factors and internal environmental factors. The company’s external factors will be focus on political, social, technological, economic and legal factors relating to the company. Political factors in strategic analysis will require evaluation of the degree at which the government intervenes in the economy. In most cases will include taxes, labour laws, tariffs, trade restrictions and besides political stability. Economic factors will be a focus on the interest rates, inflation and exchange rate. These rates will dictate how the company will effectively export and import goods and price their products. Social factors in this analysis are basically cultural factors that influence market changes such as growth rate and market demographic factors. Technological factors will also call for a detailed analysis of technology related incentives. Finally, external environmental factors will further require legal factors to be analyzed that are likely to influence the company’s decisions.

Smashburger strategic plan will further pay close attention to the internal environmental aspects of the company. At this stage we shall understand general operations of the company, internal decisions and mission. The most common operations that will be monitored include marketing strategies, production and company vision and decision making channels. All these aspects will act as an eye opener on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the company. By clearly understanding these sectors of a company it becomes possible to eliminate risks and exploit opportunities in any given company irrespective of the industry. Internal environmental analysis can be based from reviews conducted by top management and also from other company records such as financial records, marketing portfolios and web maintained profiles such as the company website. Continuous analysis of company environmental factors assists in ensuring the company sets achievable goals in a macro business environment by ensuring they maximize all available resources.

Bottom line, Smashburger Company strategic plan will consist of defining the company strategy or decisions and also defining available resources to pursue those strategies. In order to understand these strategies and the available resources we shall evaluate external and internal environmental factors. Information on external factors relating to the company will be attained from U.S environmental protection Agency records, United States securities and Exchange commission journal and from Oxford companion to American food and drink, . Information on internal factors for the company will be attained from company website and other financial records.

References

Burkhart, P. and Reuss, S. (2003). Successful Strategic Planning: A Guide for Nonprofit Agencies and Organizations. Newbury Park: Sage Publications.

Fahey, M., and Narayman, K. (1986). Macroenvironmental Analysis for Strategic Management&rdquo. West Publishing.

Smith, F. (2007). The Oxford companion to American food and drink. Oxford University Press