The Bread Box Swott

The Bread Box SWOTT

The owners of The Bread Box have done a SWOTT analysis, this is an analysis where the owners define their strengths, weaknesses, opportunity, threats and trends, both internally and externally. This analysis will help the owners to maximize their strengths and minimize the company's weaknesses ( Pearce & Robinson, 2009). There are numerous areas to study the SWOTT on and seven of these areas will be revealed in this report. A complete list is shown in appendix A below.

There are three external factors that will be of major concern, they are legal and regulatory, economic and competitive analysis. All five areas of SWOTT will be listed and shown how to maintain or be improved in weak areas. In the area of legal and regulatory The Bread Box shows strength in the area of all license have been purchased and the owners understand the food and safety statures of the state of Kansas. The weaknesses are the company will have a young staff that will need time to understand these regulations, which management will educate the staff as quick as possible on the regulation. The company opportunities are staying informed of any regulatory changes and implementing the changes promptly. The major threat to the company is to monitor the employees to see that the regulations are being followed and there is no habits formed that would be detrimental to the business. The first four analysis' will show the trend to working safely and legally.

The economic factor is important because it will show where expenses are and where profit is made. The key factor in economics for a bakery is to produce a quality product at a reasonable price (Martin, K, 2010). This Key factor will be the company's

strength. People will watch their food budget, but taste will allow for some extra spending, a quality product will become a staple with the customers bringing sales from the mass produced products sold by the chain stores. Price wold be a weakness, as the company could not sell breads as cheaply as the chain stores,but quality and customer service can over come this weakness. People are becoming more nutritionally concerned our fresh products with no preservatives will be the company's opportunity in our markets. The company's biggest threat which will always be there is the chain stores with their larger profit margin can always lower their prices for periods of time. The Bread Box best way to avoid this threat is once again by promoting the freshness and quality of service. Wedding cakes will be the company's strongest product in this area. The trend here in the economic factor wold be reduce cost, but produce a quality product to bring customers coming back. Wedding cakes decorated to exact details given by the customers bring satisfaction is the companies greatest opportunity. Failure to continually bring in new customers or lacking in promotion would be our greatest threat in being competitive. The trend here has to be introducing our products to new customers, community involvement would be the company's best asset.

The Bread Box owners completed a SWOTT on internal factors, four of theses factors will be demonstrated in this report. These four factors are strategy and goals, resources, intellectual property and the leadership. The SWOTT on strategy and goals was initiated before the doors of The Bread Box even opened. The strategy strength is The Bread Box is the only company of it's kind in the market place. The chain stores have a bakery department, but The Bread Box is a fresh store and dedicated to making the best

wedding cakes in the communities we serve. The company also has a strong plan in the goal of opening five more stores in the next ten years. The success of the company will determine the weakness, sales will have to be strong enough to finance future expansion. The owners will have to maintain a strong sales level to overcome this weakness. Promoting the business and increasing sales will give the company the opportunity to expand to more rural communities and a pace faster than planned. Threats will always come from the chain grocers and must be overcome with a quality product. The biggest trend to help reach our goals is to maintain the trend of quality product and exceptional customer service.

Resources is vital to the survival of the company. The benefit of preparing to invest strongly in promotion is the companies strongest resource. Bring a new product to communities set in their ways of life is a weakness that promotion will need to overcome. The quality of The Bread Box is the company's best opportunity. The Bread Box will always have the threat of being something new and the company must involve itself within the community to keep the consumers aware of the company. Marketing and promotion will create a trend of new customers that quality and customer service must maintain.

Intellectual property which in the bakery business is rough since a company can not copy write a recipe, but can copy write how the recipe is prepared (techdirt, ND). The Bread Box will only use the best quality ingredients and have developed cost cutting and efficient methods to produce quality products. Employees seem to be changing jobs frequently so protecting the company's techniques will be hard. The best way the

company can overcome this weakness is to have the bakers sign a confidentiality agreement. The Bread Box is the only company using our preparation method this opportunity keeps coasts down and will keep the profit margin healthy. The only threat to our intellectual property is bakers revealing the company methods. Management will have to act as a constant reminder to maintain the trade secrets. The company's intellectual property will be the trend used to maintain the profit margin and generate funding for future stores.

Leadership is extremely important in any business, at The Bread Box the owners all ran successful bakeries in large cities on the east coast. This experience will lead to training mangers to be excellent leaders. The only weakness here is the time it will take for the managers to learn the skills that The Bread Box will require, but constant training will over come this weakness. The training of managers will allow the company to fill leadership positions when expansion happens. The company will have the opportunity to staff new stores with experienced leaders helping the transitions to move smoothly. The biggest threat in leadership is losing qualified managers to other companies and facing the cost of replacing excellent leaders. The company has a plan to avoid this situation by training all employees to be ready to accept leadership roles when needed. The best trend The Bread Box can have is skilled and knowledgeable employees with