Burger King Essay

This paper presents an American company, which is named Burger King Corporation. It discusses and examines Burger King’s operations, environment, and international businesses.
To begin with, Burger King Corporation is one of the largest owners of a chain of fast food restaurants that is headquartered in Miami, the state of Florida. Supporting this statement, Hall (1991) emphasized that “Burger King, the nation’s second-largest hamburger chain” (para. 1).
The first Burger King fast food franchise was originally called Insta Burger King and was opened by James McLamore and David Edgerton in a suburb of Miami on December 4, 1954. McLamore, visiting the restaurant chain McDonald’s which was owned by Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California, became acquainted with hamburgers’ production, manufacturing methods, equipment and decided to create his own version of the system that is called “fast food”.
By 1960 McLamore and Edgerton decided to expand the fast-food chain Burger King at the national level using the franchise system that is a popular method for the expansion due to its low cost of capital for the parent company. At the same time they registered Burger King Corporation and began to sell the franchise to private owners in the USA. Supporting this statement, Swart and Donno (1981) emphasized that “Because small businessmen could operate such a restaurant even without previous food experience, McLamore began to franchise the units” (p. 35).
In 1970, Burger King began to expend internationally in Latin America, Asia and Europe. This company went public in 2006.
Talking about Burger King’s core competency, it is possible to say that owing to the development of new products and services the company always satisfies its customers’ needs and requirements. In accordance with core competencies, Burger King implemented service and food technologies in order to introduce its core product that is named “the humble hamburger”. During its activity the company has developed a new product named “The Whooper Sandwich”. Moreover, Burger King introduced its service of pork ribs that became very popular with the crowds. In addition, a core competency directly relates to its chosen strategy because Burger King adheres to the following strategies: it develops an infrastructure before implementing it in its fast food chains, introduces a local team, etc.
The term “value chain” is a method for revealing the ways in order to create more value for customers. “…the value chain maintains its central role as a framework for the analysis of firm-level competitive strengths and weaknesses” (Stabell & Fjeldstad, 1998, p. 413). Burger King decided to configure and coordinate its value chain by implementing strategically relevant activities.
Primary activities:
Sales and marketing;
Inbound and outbound logistics;
Different services and operations.
Support activities:
Procurement activities;
Company infrastructure;
Human resources management.
This is a widespread fact that Burger King globally expanded later than its main fast food competitors, such as Macdonald’s, Subway, etc. Thus, this fact created some advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage of this later entry is that relevant suppliers can operate in some small markets and therefore there will be strong business competition. The main advantage of this is that a later participant can be very successful and favorable since earlier participants created some demand for fast food and organized food system infrastructure.
Entering another country, Burger King could focus on emphasizing its own products and services. Despite this fact it is necessary to remember that local restaurants, paying attention to the successes of their foreign fast food rivals, can change their main menus and consequently address to various local tastes.
As we know two-thirds of Burger King’s restaurants and revenues are in its Americas region and only one-third elsewhere. Thus, the company should change this relationship because this change will help Burger King expand its opportunities, attract more customers and thereby increase its revenues from sales. The implementation of strategically relevant activities and tools will help to change this relationship and increase the company’s competitiveness at the global and international market.
This is a proven fact that Burger King prefers to enter countries with large numbers of youth and shopping centers because this is really advantageous for the company since there are a high demand and consuming capacity of beef, an accessible existence of franchisee with different resources, and a safe environment for the so-called pro-business.
Examining Burger King’s headquarters location, it is possible to mention that it is location has strengthened its global competitive position at the international market. Burger King’s is located in Miami that is also known as the capital of Latin America. Since many different tourists especially from the Caribbean and Latin American come to this city, Burger King’s image and reputation will spread to different corners of our earth.
As the CEO of Burger King, I would recommend to use strategies and tools, such as growth strategies (to increase attendance at restaurants, offering new and inexpensive specialties, increasing portions while maintaining the same price, organizing children’s playgrounds at restaurants), franchising strategies, the location of restaurants and construction strategy (restaurants’ locations should be convenient for the customers and profitable for the company), the strategy in the product range (to improve the taste of dishes, especially burgers), and sales and marketing strategies.
Talking about the implications of the challenges for Burger King’s strategy today and in the future, it is possible to emphasize that Burger King has a lot of abilities to expand into new countries and conduct its business there. In spite of its market growth, it still occupies less than 40 percent of total world’s countries. Consequently, it has the challenges to decide where there are the appropriate locations in order to place its future accents.
To sum up the above-stated information, it is possible to emphasize that Burger King is one of the well-known and popular fast food restaurants at the global and international market. Over 12 thousand restaurants operate in more than 75 countries all over the world, which serve about 12 million visitors daily. Of these, about 1300 restaurants belong to the company, but the remaining ones work on the franchise.