Burger King in Portugal : to lead or to follow?

In 2001, the Burger King (BK) brand, managed by Ibersol group entered the growing fast food Portuguese market. Marginally higher prices along with the fact of having entered the market 10 years after its most direct competitor (McDonald´s), led BK to a sub leader position. Although being recognized as offering superior quality products when compared to McDonald´s, BK´s growth margins in the Portuguese market have been decreasing since 2007. The company´s uncertainty situation, offers the possibility of discussing positioning alternatives and strategic choices in business strategy and marketing courses. Besides the case study, the dissertation includes a literature review of frameworks and concepts used to evaluate company´s internal and external environment. Finally, teaching notes proposes an approach to the case that might be used to guide class discussion or stimulate its preparation. From the case analysis, the competition analysis and recent Portuguese economic situation, this dissertation proposes a set of concrete actions to reverse the current positioning and brand growth

Artisani ice cream : a taste for growth

The motivation for this dissertation was to write a business strategy case study about a Portuguese-based company that is still in the early stages of its expansion process. The chosen company was Artisani, which entered the artisanal ice cream market in 2009 and is currently investigating several alternatives to understand which strategy it should follow in order to further its growth. The company has to decide how best to expand its business activity without damaging its high quality brand image. After the Case Study, the dissertation presents a Literature Review. This chapter includes suggested concepts, frameworks and tools that are useful in analyzing the Case Study. The Literature Review is followed by the Teaching Note, which includes an extensive analysis of the case and proposes recommendations for the company’s future expansion strategy. This chapter establishes a connection between the Case Study and the theory presented in the Literature Review section. From the case analysis, it can be concluded that the franchising option could be the best alternative for the business’s future expansion since the company would be able to grow at a fast pace, extend its area of influence and reach wider market coverage without incurring in huge investments. Nevertheless, Artisani’s owners have to be extremely careful because in order to have sustainable growth, the firm must continue to transmit a coherent and homogeneous message to all its clients.A motivação para esta dissertação foi escrever um caso de estudo na área de estratégia sobre uma empresa portuguesa que está no início do seu processo de expansão. A empresa escolhida foi a Artisani, que entrou no mercado do gelado artesanal em 2009 e está actualmente a investigar várias alternativas para perceber qual a estratégia que deve seguir para continuar a crescer. A empresa tem que decidir qual a melhor maneira de expandir a sua actividade porém sem danificar a imagem de marca de alta qualidade que a define actualmente. Depois do caso de estudo é apresentada uma revisão de literatura. Este capítulo inclui a sugestão de conceitos e ferramentas úteis para a análise do caso de estudo. A secção seguinte é a nota de ensino, que inclui uma análise exaustiva do caso e propõe recomendações para a estratégia de expansão que a empresa deverá seguir no futuro. Este capítulo estabelece uma ligação entre o caso de estudo e a teoria apresentada na secção da nota de ensino. Através da análise do caso, pode concluir-se que a opção do franchising pode ser a melhor alternativa para a futura expansão do negócio pois a a empresa será capaz de crescer a um ritmo mais rápido, ampliar a sua área de influência e alcançar uma maior cobertura de mercado sem incorrer em grandes investimentos. No entanto os proprietários da Artisani têm que ser extremamente cuidadosos pois, para ter um crescimento sustentável, é essencial que a empresa continue a transmitir uma mensagem coerente e homogénea para todos os seus clientes

Home grown Middle Eastern franchises: Prospects for the future

This research explores the local factors that drive the competitiveness of Middle Eastern food service franchises in international markets. The literature on franchising is largely concerned with the success and competitiveness of Western franchises in global markets, with little information on the Middle East. This is despite its relevance as a major franchise market, with an economy shifting towards oil-alternative businesses. When referenced, the region is depicted solely as a host to foreign franchise operations, overlooking the opportunities of local businesses to adopt franchising as a strategy for international expansion. A qualitative case study methodology is applied to prominent food service franchises from Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. The cases highlight real experiences of success and failure in specific regional and international markets, and suggest that culture contributes to international competitiveness. Implications for future research are discussed

Success Factors of Veteran-Owned Small Businesses

Small business failure rates equate to 30% within 2 years and 50% after 5 years. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies that veteran-owned small businesses used to sustain a business beyond 5 years in central Florida. Using a purposeful sampling technique, 13 central Florida veteran small business owners consented to interviews about their operating processes. Analysis of the veteran-owner managerial practices revealed common nodes and themes regarding small business longevity factors. Based on constant comparison coding, 4 small business themes emerged: business operating practices, market research, business adversities, and external small business assistance avenues. The experiences of veteran small business owners emulated the general systems theory and the triple-loop learning theory in identifying, organizing, and initiating process changes for small business operational permanence. This study has social change implications for aspiring veteran small business owners: Successful veteran entrepreneurship can promote positive social values, stakeholder satisfaction, and employment opportunities by exploring small business operating strategies, conducting market analysis, overcoming adversities, and petitioning external small business veteran programs

A PPP model for China's public hospitals: an empirical study

Medical resources are closely related to people’s health and daily lives. At present, China’s medical resources are confronted with seriously unbalanced distribution, which results in differences in healthcare services among regions, and is prone to causing the common phenomenon of “overcrowding of patients in large hospitals and lack of patients in small hospitals”. Public hospitals are the main providers in China’s medical service system, and play the main role in embodying public welfare, providing basic medical care, and resolving people’s difficulty in seeking medical treatment. China’s public hospitals are faced with difficulties and challenges, including insufficient government financial investment, rising medical expenses, as well as the overcrowding of patients in large hospitals and the lack of patients in small hospitals. These difficulties and challenges also reflect the context of China’s medical reform. PPP refers to public-private partnerships in which the government and social capital (or social institutions) cooperate to build or operate public service facilities and provide public products or services. The practice of PPP has proved that this model is an effective way for China’s medical reform. Based on the difficulties and challenges faced by China’s public hospitals and the application of PPP in the healthcare sector, the research purpose of this study is to explore the PPP model applicable to China’s public hospitals. Literature suggests that strategic alliance theory, cooperative game theory, and stakeholder theory can affect the effectiveness of PPP projects. The present study adopts empirical research methods to answer the research questions raised herein through case study and analysis. The research results indicate that PPP is an effective way to help public hospitals resolve their development difficulties, but not all models of PPP are applicable to China’s public hospitals; the BOT (build-operate-transfer) model can help public hospitals raise the development funds, but it requires guarantee from institutions with certain strength; the “franchising” model is suitable for public hospitals in large cities; government cooperation willingness, coordination from public hospital management, hospital staff participation, investors’ experience and management capabilities, and the contractual capacity of each cooperation party are the key factors for the success of PPP cooperation; there are huge business opportunities for the supply of mid-to-high-end medical services in China; there is also large room for investment in specialized hospitals, health tourism services and integrated healthcare projects; social capital is more likely to identify investment and cooperation opportunities for public hospital projects in such administrative areas as districts (including counties), villages and townships, as well as streets and communities.Os recursos médicos estão estreitamente relacionados com a saúde e a vida diária da população. Atualmente, os recursos médicos da China confrontam-se com uma distribuição severamente desequilibrada, o que causa diferenças nos serviços de saúde entre diferentes regiões e potencia o fenômeno comum de "superlotação de pacientes em grandes hospitais e falta de pacientes nos pequenos". Os hospitais públicos são os principais fornecedores do sistema de serviços médicos da China e desempenham o papel principal na incorporação do bem-estar público, na prestação de cuidados médicos básicos e na resolução das dificuldades das pessoas em procurar tratamento médico. Os hospitais públicos da China enfrentam dificuldades e desafios, incluindo insuficiente investimento financeiro governamental, aumento das despesas médicas, além da superlotação de pacientes em grandes hospitais e a falta de pacientes em pequenos hospitais. Essas dificuldades e desafios também refletem o contexto da reforma médica da China. PPP refere-se uma parcerias público-privadas na qual o governo e o capital social (ou instituições sociais) cooperam para construir ou operar instalações de serviço público e fornecer produtos ou serviços públicos. A prática da PPP tem demonstrado que esse modelo é uma maneira eficaz para a reforma médica da China. Com base nas dificuldades e desafios enfrentados pelos hospitais públicos da China, assim como na aplicação de PPP no setor de saúde, o objetivo da pesquisa deste estudo é explorar o modelo de PPP aplicável aos hospitais públicos da China. A literatura sugere que a teoria da aliança estratégica, a teoria dos jogos cooperativos e a teoria das partes interessadas podem afetar a eficácia dos projetos de PPP. O presente estudo adota métodos de pesquisa empírica para responder as questões de pesquisa aqui levantadas por meio de estudo de casos. Os resultados da pesquisa indicam que a PPP é uma maneira eficaz de ajudar os hospitais públicos a resolver suas dificuldades de desenvolvimento, mas nem todos os modelos de PPP são aplicáveis aos hospitais públicos da China; o modelo BOT (por suas siglas em inglês: construir, operar e transferir) pode ajudar os hospitais públicos a levantar os fundos necessários ao seu desenvolvimento, mas exige garantia das instituições; o modelo de "franquia" é adequado para hospitais públicos nas grandes cidades; vontade de cooperação do governo, coordenação da gerência do hospital público, participação da equipe do hospital, experiência e capacidade de gestão dos investidores e, a capacidade contratual de cada parte da cooperação são os fatores-chave para o êxito da cooperação PPP; existem enormes oportunidades de negócios para o fornecimento de serviços médicos de médio a alto nível na China; há também um amplo espaço para investimentos em hospitais especializados, serviços de turismo de saúde e projetos integrados de assistência à saúde; é mais provável que o capital social identifique oportunidades de investimento e cooperação para projetos de hospitais públicos nessas áreas administrativas, como distritos (incluindo municípios), aldeias e cidades pequenas, além de ruas e comunidades

Critical review of strategic planning research in hospitality and tourism

Strategic planning remains one of the most popular management tools, but theoretical and empirical developments in the academic literature have been a slow burn. This paper addresses this gap and provides an up-to-date review of hospitality and tourism strategic planning research. We review strategic planning research from 1995 to 2013 in seven leading tourism academic journals, and adopt a modern and broad conceptualization of strategic planning. While there is some awareness of effective tourism strategic planning processes, academic research has not kept pace with practice. To stimulate a resurgence of research interest, we provide future research directions. We observe a methodological introspection and present some new research methodologies, which are critically important in researching the turbulent, chaotic and nonlinear tourism environment

Manufacturing strategy in Inter-Firm collaborations: a proposed model

The origin of the project comes from two main aspects. First, considering the concept of Skinner (1968), who stressed the need to attach a crucial importance of manufacturing strategy as a competitive weapon for companies. And second, blending it with the current scenario of relationships between firms all around the world, in response of the aggressive worldwide competition, in which the task of sustaining competitive advantage has become even tougher. The current project attempts to study and analyze the manufacturing strategy field in a context of collaboration between firms, without forgetting the upper levels of strategic planning within a company, and how all this elements interact to each other and affect it. The author will be supported by a theoretical background based on the topic and the classification of different inter-firm collaboration linkages that could take place in this moment. It is been studied the different levels of strategy within a firm, and how each affects the manufacturing level, in a context of cooperation between organizations, based on different approaches to firm’s strategy, which could be valuable to the present work: Relational view, Resource-Based view and Extended Resource- Based view. Related with the case study, the author provides a brief case of U.S. automobile manufacturing firms, being focused in General Motors, which offers with valuable information of the present topic. In order to analyze the manufacturing strategy with more detail, the author considered to highlight the case of the Joint Venture undertook between GM and Toyota, which gives a strong empirical support to the work. In conclusion, this project provides a wide outlook of the scenario of collaboration linkages between firms, being focused on manufacturing decision areas, and taking into account all the elements involved, both theoretical and empirical data. It is basic to state that during the work, operations strategy and manufacturing strategy are treated as synonyms that are referred to the same concept, as it is seen along the bibliography and documents.Ingeniería Industria

Micro wholesaling businesses involved in the sector of confectionary products - strategies of survival and growth

It can be argued that the problematic situation where micro Greek wholesaling businesses find themselves has been a result of the strong presence of supermarkets and superstores in the last years. The researcher attempts to picture the current market reality that constitutes the background of the Thesis by posing the main research question: "How can micro Greek wholesaling businesses involved in the confectionary products' sector identify and implement suitable survival and growth strategies in order to cope with increasing competition in a market characterized by a large expansion of supermarkets and chain stores?". The factors that triggered research are related to the researcher's avocation with the sector of confectionary products; having worked in a micro family wholesaling enterprise in the past (and still involved in it occasionally when demand for confectionary products is increased), the survival and growth prospects of this firm constitutes an issue of high importance for the researcher and his family. The researcher believes that the study of similar wholesaling firms-case studies would highlight potential survival and growth strategies, useful for the family business; in this way, he holds the view that he contributes to the solution of an intense family problem. Apart from the personal interest for the survival and growth of micro wholesaling firms, it can be argued that the confectionary products' sector is a dynamic field that provides the opportunities to a researcher to evolve to a consultant or a specialist practitioner

Entry mode selection for internationalization of giant Chinese state owned companies: The case of entrance in Africa of China communications construction company

Enterprise internationalization is an inevitable choice as open economies develop to a certain level. According to the direct investment development path theory of John Dunning, when the GNP Per Capita exceeds $3000, the net foreign investment will be positive. With rapid development over the past three decades, China’s international economic position and influence have significantly improved and its GNP Per Capita has surpassed$ 4000, it has entered the rapid growth stage for investment development as described in Dunning’s theory. At this stage, the market entry mode selection is the first issue to tackle for enterprise internationalization. This thesis takes China’s giant state owned construction companies as research object and the author analyzes the internal and external environments and the strategic selection for internationalization operation, and describes the conceptions, categories, internal attributes and factors of market entry mode selection for internationalization of construction companies. This thesis focuses on China Communications Construction Company Ltd (hereinafter referred to as CCCC), representative of giant Chinese state owned construction companies, sets up the SWOT analysis and weight system and conducts strategic positioning. Based on the above strategic positioning, the author takes into consideration the national background of these companies and puts forward three assumptions and their theoretical framework. The thesis takes CCCC’s entry into the market of Kenya and Angola as an example, verifies the effectiveness and application of the theoretical framework, and makes up the deficiency of the theory on market entry mode selection for enterprise internationalization, providing reference for enterprises’ market entry practice.Quando as economias abertas atingem um determinado nível de desenvolvimento a internacionalização das empresas torna-se uma escolha inevitável. De acordo com a teoria de investiemnto directo de John Dunning, quando o rendimento per capita excede $3000, o investimento estrangeiro liquido será positivo. Com um crescimento económico rápido nas últimas três décadas, a posição económica internacional da China e influência melhoraram significativamente e o seu rendimento per capita ultrapassou os$4000. Atingiu, deste modo, o estágio defendido por Dunning. Esta tese tem como objecto de pesquisa as empresas “gigantes” estatais Chinesas do ramo das obras públicas e o autor analisa a envolvente interna e externa e a escolha estratégica dos modos de internacionalização das mesmas. Esta tese foca-se na empresa chinesa – China Communications Construction Company Ltd (CCCC), representante das empresas gigantes estatais chinesas de obras públicas, descrevendo o processo de realização da análise SWOT. Tendo por base o posicionamento estratégico da empresa, o autor analisa o contexto em que esta empresa se desenvolveu e avança com três pressupostos no que concerne à sua internacionalização. A tese compara também os processos de entrada da CCCC em Angola e no Quénia