Bread_Talk

Bread talk group is a young and promising company which has been rapidly expanding its business locally and internationally. With our open concept kitchen, we present our produce in attractive packaging. The objective of this report is to analyze the external forces and how we can improve. Bread talk Group was founded in year 2000 by a man call George Quek; He came from Australasia, a place which has many great innovation and entrepreneurs over the past one two decades. Bread talk became well known by selling fresh baked breads that are visually attractive and creative, more well-known bread was known as the pork floss bun and they also claimed to be Singapore’s first bread boutique. Today bread talk has spans across 13 countries with their specialty. Most outlets were styled in an open kitchen concept thus allowing people from outside to look into the kitchen where chefs are making the bread and pastry from the beginning, the wall are in white and the white plastic and glass shelves like are used to display the bread creating aroma and colors to attract customers into the shops, special plastic carriers and given according to what kind of bread u buy. As the business grow bread talk venture into restaurant and food atria business, by first taking in Ding Tai Fung for the Xiao long bao follow by launching food republic wisma atria, Singapore then Toast Box. I am privilege to have joined this company in 2002 and have since written a proposal to my CEO GOH TONG PAK during my first month at work. The proposal described the prevailing situation of the company then and the way to move forward in the following 5 years. The general business environment for bread talk has not really been a smooth journey, firstly in the political factors, as the world faces increasing globalization and slacker trade barrier, bread talk faces the challenge to compete against unknown forces in the business and fighting over on who have the better quality ingredients available from worldwide, this present a competitive market for them as well as an chance to bread talk. Bread talk can enter the markets of starting companies through joint ventures or partnerships to look into less developed Asian markets where bread could be an hit, however they needed to understand the taste preference of other countries in order for them make the bread that will attract customers. Moreover as government begin to lower taxes or provide subsidies to help businesses stay afloat in economic crisis and landlord reducing rent to keep their tenants, bread talk could be able to lower their cost. Secondly in economic factors as the commodity and raw material prices in worldwide continues to fluctuate the cost of purchasing for bread talk to increase. This will cause the prices of most things in supermarket to increase, and as it increases consumers would have to pay more and they might not be spending as much as they want previously and that could hit on the margins of bread talk organization. Furthermore the rising cost of fuel due to Middle East problems has caused implication in the whole supply chain of bread talks because due to the high amount of stores in Singapore, the resupplying of stocks would mean that they have to travel a lot and this would also cause the price to increase and the decrease competitiveness. At the same moment, due to weather season, the yield of crops might not be as much as crops are destroyed and when the supplies of ingredient drop the prices of the ingredient increase and would thus affect the selling price of the bread. The credit crunch can impact bread talk negatively because it could decrease the purchasing power of consumers, even though they will buy what is needed, they will not spend freely. Furthermore bread talk fast expansion means that cash is need to be injected frequently but given to economic crisis, investors and banker might not be willing to lend but rather hold their cash. At the same time bread talk faces fierce competition from small local retailers like four leaves, crystal jade bakery, beganwan solo, prima deli and many others who offer bread at a lower attractive price but less variety and delicious, which is use to target cost conscious customers at the same time big bakeries like gardenia may also pose a threat as they offer bun with fillings. As bread talk enter into the lesser tap markets of china and India, social factors may come into play. Chinese and Indian customers have different staples depending on which region they come from and also the styles of how the food are make maybe different from the current inventory offered. Furthermore bread talk has been pursuing an active corporate social responsibility, seeking to give back to society, in the china Sichuan earthquake they raised fund to help them, and this could help to capture the hearts of the local people there which might be useful later to for them to venture into the china market, which has one of the biggest population. Bread talk has the necessary modern processes and machinery to ensure that the cost of labor and production is reduced. At the same time, they can use communication devices and PDAs to ensure faster processing of orders. Furthermore the using of internet has been applied. They can now use Facebook as a source of promoting and advertising and also use to collect information, services that consumer wants and offer delivery now to expand the range of market consumer and all the technical work is handled for the franchisee, but the business opportunity available for so many thing cost very really little. Moving towards the future It would seem that the challenges in the market will become harder as the lesser developed Asian market start to grow it would be wise to enter the market fast and with the help of the government and landlords it is good to start opening few more branches of outlets now, with the cheap rental fee, more profit can be made. Furthermore due to the fluctuating price of ingredients from bad harvesting season bread talk should shift their focus on their food court and Ding Tai Fung so they can recoup their loss in the bread due to the price increase and also find bigger shop so that during resupplying they can store more stocks. At the same time due to having better technology they can save more time in making bread and also have lesser labor and also having internet they could expand their social standing and learn more about the consumer behavior by promising to keep their identity a secret for people who wants to have better services and food from bread talk. The revenue generated from bread talk has been on an upward trend since 2000, the revenue growth over the years is mainly driven by the increase number of F&B outlets locally and oversea. Over the year local bakery operations were able to produce positive net profit for bread talk, however as more strong local competition from bakery business rose bread talk suffer a hit in their financial segment, but the venturing into restaurant and food atria business helped to drive the profit , franchising outlet also help to push up the amount. From the customer perspective they are always willing to try out new products and of course cheaper food, customer loyalty is very important, bread talk should aim to build it. Bread talk should be located at places where there is a heavy human traffic and also where busy people are spotted, buying bread and consuming it require lesser time, which might prompt the customer into buying it. Bread talk often use their innovative ideas to create special kind of bread or tackle the local taste to help them attract customers and also quality remain one of their key hallmarks of break talk, by retraining and re certifying all their bakers, conducting quality checks at outlets and re-calibrating their quality, services and cleanliness for all their outlets. By inject more vibrant food and also ambience into stores it helps to attract more customers, one example is the pork bun which is famous, bread talk uses a clear glass to let customers look into the place where bakers are baking to let them see the cleanliness and professionalism of the workers and also bread are freshly made. From bread talk it is about not giving up, by being able to know customer’s preference of taste bread talk was able to expand their business worldwide and being hardworking is not enough, one must be able to foresee the taste, culture, demand, presentation, sales pitch marketing, design and flavors and taking a step forward by making the first outlet stable before expanding it and take bigger challenge. Bread talk vision is to be able to stay ahead constantly, and making every effort to improve customer experience with bread talk and make comfortable. I believe that there are ways to help bread talk increase in their sales. One way is to use the mark penetration, by having lucky draws and contest for a certain amount spend and draws should be of instant win variety. Furthermore instead of situating in city areas bread talk should try to situate shops around residential areas since brand is already established, it could allow a wider reach of residential areas as it contain a lot more people rather than in the city. Bread talk should also allow the customizing of products to their own liking, like having what kind of toppings they want at a certain price as consumers might get bored having eating the same topping all over again. Another way is that bread talk should have bulk purchases of raw ingredient from across different unit so that they can increase their bargaining power with respect to suppliers and bread talk should focus on restaurant and food atria business, alternatively due to competitors being able to imitate the original bread talk innovations, the business in bakery is less likely to sustain its growth over a long period, bread talk should instead refine their outlet like creating a bakery shop in a high end discerning crow. References: Bread Talk Final report (n.d) from http://www.scribd.com/doc/3699043/BreadTalk-FinalReport#outer_page_1 Bread talk. [2012]. Retrieved August 02, 2012, from www.breadtalk.com (Tang, 2009) http://www.timesdirectories.com/Singlenews.aspx'DirID=101&rec_code=385110 (Breaking Bread At Home And Abroad: It’s Not Just Talk) http://www.enterpriseone.gov.sg/en/Resources/Case%20Stories/Breaking%20Bread%20At%20Home%20And%20Abroad%20-%20Its%20Not%20Just%20Talk.aspx Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases (10th Edition) by Fred David