KFC Business Environment Analysis

Running head: KFC BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS 1
KFC Business Environment Analysis
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KFC BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS 2
Introduction and History
Kentucky Fried chicken which is abbreviated as KFC is one of the biggest and successful
franchises in the world. KFC is described as one of the most successful franchise because of its
fats growth and fast penetration into the competitive market or business environment. The
restaurant is commonly known for its special recipe fried chicken and other chicken related
products. The original owner and the beginner of the KFC was Harland Sanders who started the
business by selling fried chicken on the street (Zhu et al., 2017). With the big competition and
very many market forces, KFC was able to grow and even penetrate international market.
Sanders is believed to have started the restaurant in Corbin Kentucky where he had the first
restaurant. Sanders therefore started looking for ways to make the brand famous and to expand
his business (Hill et al., 2014). He started franchising which made him successful in such that by
1964 had around 600 franchises.
The company’s growth was becoming uncontrollable which led to Sanders selling it to
his investors. The agreement stated that they should pay him $2 million with annual salary of
$40000. Later the annual salary was raised to $200000. By the time Sanders sold the whole
restaurant he was earning a profit of about $300000.
KFC today in ranking is the second biggest fast moving food restaurant which comes
after McDonald's. The company is under another company branded as Yum! Brand which also
owns Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Approximately, the restaurant has around 19000 employees in all
the 16000 worldwide branches. (Thompson et al., 2016). This is in 120 countries which include
Asia, Africa, Australia, South, and North America, Jamaica, Mexico, and many others all
totaling to 120.

KFC BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS 3
Ethic System
The purpose of this report was to analyze the business environment and the business
ethics of the Kentucky Fried Chicken company. The first part of the report was the introduction
and a brief history of the company. This was followed by a description and analysis of the ethical
system of KFC which looked at the various things which include the animal abuse, poor
condition for the workers in KFC and product quality analysis. The information was provided by
the stakeholders and stated examples extracted from the history of the company. Included is a
number of verified theories which are related to business ethics.
KFC Ethical System
The todays environment, especially with the restaurants offering fast foods, has become
competitive and a company like KFC has to stand strong with strong strategies in order to
succeed in the market (Wolf et al., 2017). KFC has to come up with new methods and new ideas
on how to maximize their profits, reduce overall costs and most important maximize their sales.
This has to go hand in hand with reducing the existing dilemma about ethics concerning their
consumers and their products (Hoy et al., 2017). The dilemmas consist of abuse of the animals,
poor conditions of workplace and unstandardized quality of their products.
Poor Products Quality
Fast moving foods have been associated with many health problems. These include
addition of calories in the body, increasing the risk of having diabetes and body weight addition.
Fast food is believed to be always unhealthy. It can, therefore, cause some body problems to the
consumers of such food. These problems can be an increase in body weight which in turn can

KFC BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS 4
lead to other problems (EXPERIENCE, 2015). This was evident in 2006 after the company was
sued for using cooking oils which had Trans-fats, which have high chances of causing diabetes
or even heart diseases (Yan et al., 2014). Trans-fats are said to be the most dangerous type of fats
since they are believed to be raising the body’s bad cholesterol and on the other hand lower the
good cholesterol. People are advised not to be consuming more than 2g of Trans-fats per day
because the fats are dangerous. To defend itself, the company said that their products met the
standards of the government (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). To make more proves to the public, the
group which was behind the lawsuit went ahead and came up with more evidence. They came up
with a claim that a three piece extra-cripsy combo food called the dinner-plate and served in
Malaysia was found with 15g of the dangerous Trans-fats. This is very many compared to what a
normal person should consume.
In other cases, a customer was cut in the tongue by a plastic which was in the food, some
worms were discovered in the KFC’s sandwich, in Colorado, children ate at KFC and they
became sick which proves that offering of poor quality foods is dangerous in KFC.
Abusing of the Animals
The poor working conditions of KFC, having a poor breed of birds and inefficiency in the
operations and the processes of the company contributed to poor practices of the KFC suppliers
(Mylonakis & Evripiotis, 2016). There have been several reported incidents where videotapes
have shown one of the workers in KFC slaughterhouse jumping up on the chicken and some of
them kicking the chicken just for what they described as having fun. There were more reported
cases which includes making the chicken suffocate by tying latex gloves over the chicken’s head,
making the bird snow by plucking out its feathers and giving the birds tobacco (Mak et al.,
2012). Other incidents reported that the birds are even drug in order to become big, they become