Non-

Resource/capability Valuable Rare Inimitable Implication

Substitutable

Clean Food Yes Yes No Yes Temporary Advantage

Clean Food with Good

Yes Yes Yes Yes Competitive advantage
Price

Versatile ( Catering Two

Yes Yes No Yes Temporary advantage
segments)

Employee Involvement Yes Yes Yes Yes Competitive advantage

Portability Yes Yes No Yes Temporary advantage

Understanding of Local
Yes Yes Yes Yes Competitive advantage
Supply chain

Mobile App & Social Media

yes Yes Yes Yes Competitive Advantage
Presence
Customer Service & loyalty Yes No No Yes temporary advantage
lOMoAR cPSD| 4445555

2. What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for Wil’s Grill? Identify
various strategic options for Wil’s Grill by creating a SWOT matrix.
SWOT Analysis Matrix – Wil’s Grills

▪ Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats

▪ Strategic Options

Oppurtunities Threats
Wil's Grills
- Clean Food - New entrants
SWOT Analysis
- Motivated Customers - Presence of large, well
with
- High margin established competitors
Strategic Options - Changes in customer trends & preferences
- Consistent business

Strengths
- Continue clean food with good Quality
- Focussed vision aligned with market trend - Maintain price & Quality irrespective
- Match product to customer preferences
- Use of Technology of competitors.
- Match customer demand
- Publicity through events - Use technology for latest trends
- Venture into new market
- Quality > Presentation & Quantity - Use reviews as marketing strategy
- Extensive promotions & marketing
- Excellent - Update products with changing
- Coupons & Discounts customer trends
t
- Forecast customer prices for high profits

Weakness
- No permanent office
- No standardized prices
- Fix a permanent office
- No permanent employees - Improve business strategies to
- Hire more labour & manpower match competitors
- Limited budget for new kitchen equipment
- Year-round oppurtes to increase sales - Hire focussed marketing managers to attract
- Not well-established in the local catering - Use high margin incomes to boost profits more potential customers
market

Opportunities:

 Various surveys conducted in the US indicated a growing interest in ‘clean food’

influencing customers’ food and beverage purchase decisions. John, as the owner of Wil’s
Grill believed that demographics and psychographics of people in Northern Arizona aligned
well with the national clean food movement.

 According to the survey conducted by the NAU marketing research students, people of Northern
Arizona were more eager to pay a premium price for clean food and prefer local caterers who
sourced local foods. Survey statistics revealed the following:

- 78% of the respondents are willing to pay an additional of $1 to $6/ person for clean food.

- 63% of people indicated that locally sourced food would motivate them to purchase
from that caterer.

 Catered events could have margins of up to 40%. Catering opportunities were available year-
round in the Northern Arizona market.
Threats :

  Increasing food trucks and presence of new entrants that builds competition in fare
  Large competitors (like Big Foot BBQ, Satchmo’s etc) in the catering industry
  Well-established competitors (in business for ~20 years) in the catering business
 Fast changing trends in the market and preference of the customers

STRATEGIC OPTIONS:

Strengths Strength & Opportunities Strength & Threats

▪ Since the trend ▪ Continue to serve ▪ Wil’s Grill should
3. You have identified the resources, capabilities and core competencies of Wil’s Grill
developed in the street food market segment while answering question 1. Now, discuss the
transferability of those resources, capabilities and core competencies to the catering market segment
in terms of the following:
a) Which of those resources, capabilities and core competencies are transferable to the catering
segment?

The following resources, capabilities and core competencies can be transferred to the
catering segment:

Clean Food: Wil’s Grill had a strong focus on clean food at reasonable prices.

Suppliers: Relationships that John had established with the local supply chain gave them an
competitive advantage in the external sector. Hence, the suppliers Wil’s Grill have can be
transferred to use in the Catering segment effectively.

Brand Equity: Catering business needs more familiarity of the brand name which needs to
be worked upon as most of the respondents of the survey had never heard of Wil’s Grill.

Pricing strategy: Since, the catering segment is not as price sensitive as street food
consumers, hence the pricing strategy of street food business can be transferred to catering
industry by slightly increasing the prices to increase profit margins.

b) What gaps exist in terms of resources, capabilities and core competencies if Wil’s Grill
enters the catering segment?

Employee Involvement
In the current scenario, employees in street food business typically worked for normal hours,
while during events occasionally they are even flexible to work for ~18 hours, but while
expanding to catering business which requires routine high working hours, the same employees
might find it difficult to work. This gap exists when Wil’s Grills enters the catering segment.

Customer Preferences
In the street food business, Wil’s Grills understands the customer preferences through the
“clean food” movement. It also knows the serving mass i.e mostly students and public
events. But the same can’t be predicted for a catering business since it is of a large scale and
mostly premium foods are favoured in parties and functions than “clean foods”.

c) How will Wil’s Grill acquire and or/develop the missing resources, capabilities and
core competencies if it decides to enter the catering segment?

Employee Involvement
To develop the missing core competencies with respect to employee involvement,
 1) Hire hotel management students/trainees who have prior knowledge and experience with
catering industry.
2) Hire more labours and manpower, and schedule optimized work hours equally so that the
employees have utmost job satisfaction.

Customer Preferences
To develop the missing core competencies with respect to customer preferences,

1) Understand the customer demand and ask more details pertaining to the event and crowd’s
eating preferences.

2) Suggest new variety foods to attract the guests so that they will refer to future events.

3) There is always be a scope of improvement, to capitalize this, obtain feedback from customers
after the event and try to work on the suggestions provided.

4. Based on the analyses done for the previous questions, advise Wil’s Grill whether it should
expand its operations either by entering the catering market segment or by doing something else.

Computing the future cash flows considering both the businesses, we find that the NPV of Catering Business is higher
than expanding street food, hence wil’s grill must enter the catering market segment

PROFITS- PROFITS- PROFITS-

BUSINESS DECISIONS INVESTMENT 2017 2018 2019 NPV

Expand street food -9000 33655 44550 58300 100106.1

Enter into catering -25000 40425 59675 84425 121583.3

It is mentioned in the case that entering both the segments revenue tends to grow in the future, thus it
appears as projects with growing perpetuity. But, when considering proportional costs (27.5% of
Revenue) in the respective years, Entering into catering segment even with proportional cost it looks
more attractive business to get into. But in reality the higher revenue yields more profit because of fixed
costs.