COMPETITIVE
STRATEGY
INFORMATION
SYSTEM
ARSON
P. BALANA
COmpetitive Strategy
Max's of Manila
Max's of Manila, popularly known
as Max's Restaurant, is a Philippine-based restaurant serving
fried chicken and Filipino dishes.
History
In 1945, after World War II, American troops
stationed in Quezon
City became
friends with Maximo Gimenez, a teacher who had graduated fromStanford University. Some soldiers came to
his nearby house for a drink or two, until they insisted that they pay for
their drinks.
Gimenez decided to open a café which served
chicken, steak, and drinks. He was joined by his wife Mercedes, sister-in-law
Felipa Serrano Sanvictores, his niece Ruby who managed the kitchen, and her
husband Claro. Ruby's fried chicken proved popular with G.I.s. and locals also
began patronising the establishment.[
Encouraged by her mother to expand the menu
and serve more Filipino food, Ruby set up the Baclaran branch along Roxas
Boulevard in Parañaque. They decided
to name the restaurant "Max's"
after Maximo.
Max's Restaurant bills itself as "The house
that fried chicken built". In 1998 it started franchising.
Locations
Max's Restaurant currently has over 127
branches in the Philippines. The chain also has branches in the U.S. states
of California, Hawaii, and New Jersey, and its first Canadian
branch in Toronto, Ontario. A store opened in Vancouver, British Columbia in March 2012. More
branches will open soon[when?] in Sydney, Australia, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates,
and Queens,
New York.
In
popular culture
In earlier television and cinema
advertisements, the restaurant usually marketed itself as a place for Filipino
families to get together. It also established its slogan "Saráp to
the bones!" ("Delicious to the bones!").
More recently, a popular series of
television advertisements told the story of a Max's employee who was the
childhood love of a popular TV celebrity, played by Piolo Pascual. The series showed the two
characters as children, then as adults accidentally meeting at Max's. The
denouement of the story is when the celebrity recognizes the employee from
their childhood. This commercial became so popular that it launched the showbiz
career of Isabel
Oli,
the model who played the employee.
Aside from its advertising, the story of
how Max's Restaurant started has entered into popular culture. It was portrayed
in the episode "Sino siMax?" ("Who is Max?") of the
long-running Filipino drama anthology Maalaala Mo Kaya.
Products
The restaurant's signature dish is its
fried chicken. Aside from this, Max's Chicken also offers traditional Filipino dishes:
1.
List down the four
competitive strategies of a BUSINEss.
Ø Achieving your vision usually requires accomplishing results in a
variety of areas. Goals provide the mechanism to specify the set of
results that will define vision achievement. In this way goals
clarify and focus your vision. To accomplish this clarity and focus goals
need to describe the operating, financial, social, and other conditions you
must bring about to achieve your vision. Effective goal setting includes
defining how goal achievement will be measured. This means
identifying the indicator or indicators that will be used and the quantitative
or qualitative value of these indicators that will define goal achievement.
Cost Leadership
Cost leadership is the first competitive
advantage businesses often attempt to gain. Cost leadership as an advantage
occurs when a business is able to offer the same quality product as its competitors,
but at a lower price. Cost leadership can occur when a company finds ways to
produce goods at a lower cost through the perfection of production methods or
by the utilization of resources in a more efficient manner than competitors.
Other factors, such as proprietary technology, can also factor into this type
of advantage. Cost leadership may be classified as an offensive strategy,
whereby businesses attempt to drive competitors out of the market by
consistently using price strategies designed to win over consumers.
Differentiation
Differentiation is a second strategy that
businesses often use to set themselves apart from competitors. In a
differentiation strategy, low cost is only one of many possible factors that
may set aside a business from others. Business that differentiate themselves
typically look for one or more marketable attributes that they have that can
set them apart from their competitors. They then find the segment of the market
that finds those attributes important and market to them. The process can also
work in the other direction with businesses conducting research to determine
which things consumers find most important and then developing a niche market
for those products or characteristics.
Defensive Strategies
Another way for a business to gain a
competitive advantage is to utilize a defensive strategy. The advantage gained
by this type of strategy is that it allows the business to further distance
itself from its competition by, in some sense, maintaining a competitive advantage
it has gained. Therefore, this strategy is closely related to differentiation
and cost leadership because it is a method used by businesses to keep those
advantages in place once they have been attained. Whereas the other two
strategies are more offensive in nature, this strategy becomes an actual
advantage as it becomes increasingly difficult for so-called competitors to
offer any real opposition to the business.
Alliances
Competitive advantages can also be gained by
businesses that seek strategic alliances with other businesses in related
industries or within the same industry. Businesses have to be careful not to
cross the line between alliances and collusion, though. Collusion occurs when
businesses within the same industry work together to artificially control
prices. Strategic alliances, on the other hand, are more along the lines of
joint ventures that businesses use to pool resources and gain themselves
exposure at the expense of other competitors not in the alliance.
2.
Describe how an
information system may help in realizing each of them.
Ø Max's Restaurant's
beginnings started in 1945, after World War II. Maximo Gimenez, a Stanford -
educated teacher, befriended the American occupation troops stationed at Quezon
City. Because of this friendship, the soldiers regularly visited Maximo's
nearby home for a drink or two. Later on, the troops insisted that they pay for
their drinks. This prompted Maximo to open a cafe; where the troops could enjoy
food and drinks.The cafá initially served chicken, steak and drinks. Maximo's
niece - Ruby, who managed the kitchen, created a special recipe for chicken
that became an instant favorite for the GIs. Soon, the Filipino public heard
about the delicious chicken - tender, juicy and crispy - and they came too!
Max's Restaurant was born.Over the years, Max's Restaurant's popularity grew
and became known as "the house that fried chicken built". It has
expanded in Metro Manila, Southern and Northern Luzon, Cebu and California,
USA.Looking towards the next millennium, Max's Restaurant has established
itself as a household name, an institution, and a proud Filipino tradition. The
second and third generations of the family continue to zealously uphold the
standards and traditions set by Maximo and Ruby for all Max's Restaurants..Today
Max's Restaurant has opened a window of business opportunity for dynamic
individuals interested and willing to invest in the long standing tradition of
quality which only a Max's Restaurant can offer. It opened its doors to
franchising for the first time in the second quarter of 1998. This is the
opportunity to join the thriving food service industry in the Philippines.
3.
State what
competitive strategy that company is using and why.
Ø MANILA, Philippines—The Max’s restaurant group is bringing popular
American smoothie and specialty snack chain Jamba Juice to the Philippines,
taking advantage of rising consumer affluence and health consciousness.
Officials of the Max’s group—which also owns the Philippine master
franchise of Krispy Kreme and Max’s Corner Bakery on top of its flagship Max’s
fried chicken brand—announced on Thursday that the first Jamba Juice store in
the country will open on November 11 at Bonifacio Global City.
The California-based beverage chain, which has grown its network
to over 700 stores in the United States since its establishment in 1990, is
setting up shop in Southeast Asia for the first time.
“We believe that the Philippines has a good potential for being
one of the strongest markets for Jamba Juice, given the interest that Filipinos
have shown, especially recently, for active living,” Fuentebella said.
Apart from the first store in BGC, the group is now looking at
Greenhills, Mall of Asia and Alabang Town Center as the next locations for
Jamba Juice.
Apart from bringing a new brand into the country, Max’s president
Robert Trota said plans were in place to expand here and abroad.
Asked whether the group would debut on the stock exchange soon to
gain access to more funds for expansion, Trota said: “Because of the internally
generated funds, we have no immediate plans to go public but it could happen in
the near future.”
The flagship Max’s restaurant brand, a well-known restaurant brand
in the Philippines that began operations in 1945, has 122 stores in the country
and 10 stores overseas (eight in the United States, one in Canada and one in
Dubai).
The plan is to set up shop in Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver.
There are also some potential franchisees in Australia, Trota
said.
The group has yet to map out plans for expansion to Asia but it is
not closing its doors.
Trota said there may be opportunities in Singapore and Hong Kong
but the key would be to find a good local partner, he said.
“We want to concentrate on North America because we haven’t even
saturated it,” Trota said.
Every year, the Max’s group plans to open six to 10 stores locally
and three to five stores overseas.
After successfully gaining foothold in Dubai, Trota said the group
would like to have at least 10 stores in the Middle East.
For now, the overseas expansion plan targets areas with a large
population of overseas Filipinos.
“Right now, we are benefiting from Filipino communities. That’s
our entry to the market,” he said.
Meanwhile, the group’s bakeshop brand, Max’s Corner Bakery, now
has 112 branches in the Philippines while Krispy Kreme, which was brought by
the group to the Philippines in 2006, now has 24 stores. New Krispy Kreme
stores are set to open in Cebu and Davao.
