The Lack of Transparency at Pret a Manger: Impact on Customer Trust and Strategies for Improvement

RESEARCH PROJECT
(The lack of transparency at
Pret a Manger)

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LITTERATURE REVIEW..............................................................................................................5
What is meant by the importance of transparency within an organization along with
determining its impact on the corporate governance and business performance?......................5
Is a significant transparency level being present within Pret a Manger?....................................6
What possible impact of Pret a Manger's lack of transparency is seen along with its effect on
the customers’ trust?...................................................................................................................7
Which can be the set recommendation on strategies that can be adopted by the Pret a Manger
to have improvement in their transparency level?......................................................................8
DISCUSSION OF THE SECONDARY AND PRIMARY RESEARCH UNDERTAKEN........10
CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE RESULTS OF THE RESEARCH..............................................12
RECOMMENDATION AND ACTION PLAN............................................................................22
Recommendation.......................................................................................................................22
Action plan................................................................................................................................22
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................25
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................26
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................28
Questionnaire............................................................................................................................28

INTRODUCTION
Overview of the topic
Corporate governance is related to a combination of all the set policies, laws and rules
adopted by an organisation for performing various activities and tasks. It is known as the vital
part of an enterprise because it helps in maintaining level of transparency and confidentiality.
This assists in increasing the interest of stakeholders with the objectives and targets of the
company (Spagnuelo, Ferreira and Lenzini, 2019). With the present investigation, the report
shows that an enterprise maintains transparency in the operations and functions of the
organisation so that they can gain large number of customers (Taştan and Davoudi, 2019).
Therefore, the present investigation carries out in-depth information about the significance of
transparency within an organisation (Gold and Heikkurinen, 2018). This report also highlights
the impact of lack of transparency on the trust of customers and the strategies they can adopt for
increasing the transparency level within the activities of the company.
Research Aim, Objectives and Questions
Research Aim
The aim of current study is, “To evaluate about the concept of transparency within a firm
along with determining its impact on customer’s trust.” A research project on Pret a Manger.
Research Objectives
 To analyse about the importance of transparency within an organization along with
determining its impact on the corporate governance and business performance.
 To investigate about the transparency level present within Pret a Manger
 To examine the impact of Pret a Manger's lack of transparency along with its affect on
the customers’ trust.
 To make a recommendation on strategies that can be adopted by the Pret a Manger to
have improvement in their transparency level.
Research Questions
 What is meant by the importance of transparency within an organization along with
determining its impact on the corporate governance and business performance?
 Is a significant transparency level being present within Pret a Manger?
 What possible impact of Pret a Manger's lack of transparency is seen along with its effect
on the customers’ trust?

 Which can be the set recommendation on strategies that can be adopted by the Pret a
Manger to have improvement in their transparency level?
Background of the company
The selected company for the present research is Pret a Manger. It is an international
sandwich shop franchise chain based in the UK. The headquarters of the shop is located in
London, United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1983 by Julian Metcalfe and Sinclair
Beecham. The owner of the company is JAB Holding Company.
Review of the problem faced
The problem of the current investigation is that Pret a Manger has many branches
worldwide and these branches deal with challenges and issues of lack of transparency on its
offering services. Along with this, the other major problem determined is ineffective corporate
governance strategies and this ultimately reduces the trust of stakeholders regarding the
organisation (García-Sánchez and et. al., 2019). Therefore, the current investigation carries out
detailed information about the challenges of maintaining transparency with the customers of the
organisation.

LITTERATURE REVIEW
Literature review contain all the secondary information related to the chosen study. It can
be defined as a section which has past publish data so that research can gain more detailed
understanding about the selected topic. This also help the investigator to know the gap between
past resercxh and present investigation.
What is meant by the importance of transparency within an organization along with determining
its impact on the corporate governance and business performance?
As per the view of Erickso (2021), transparency is vital business concept which basically
means be honesty and have openness approach with their stakeholders. It is one of the important
pillar of having good corporate governance and improving business performance. In the
workplace having a transparent approach is very important because it not only help inn sharing
information within the team or organization but also helps in building a great customer base for
the company’s product. Importance of transparency within the organization are;
Increased customer engagement: One of the importance of having customer
transparency is that it assists in making customer happier. Customer engagement can be
maximized if organization provide honest and true information to their buyers regarding the
goods and service they are manufacturing or producing. If companies on continuously basis
update their consumer about their product, then customer feel more engaged with the
organization. So if business is aiming to build a loyal customer base then it is vital for them to be
more transparent and use reliable way to enhance more customer interaction. Every bit of
information related to the product which customer has the right should be delivered in honest
manner without any false modification. This approach will also help them to build their positive
market image in front of the purchaser.
Minimize barrier to innovation: Another great advantage of customer transparency is
that it will help the companies to reduce the hurdles which occur will developing any innovative
idea. Openness about the thought helps organization to know the perception of buyers towards
the creative thought which they will be using to produce or modify their goods and services.
Barrier act like a noise which reduce company’s performance by the side of buyer. Organization
with transparent approach will gain advantage as buyers will be aware of companies’ new

approach. Customer will be open to accept the change as they already know what organization is
thinking.
Increase customer satisfaction: Next impact of transparent organization toward the
customer is that it will aids them to satisfied their customer in more effective manner than that of
those companies which are not implementing this approach in their business. Customer will be
more satisfied by the companies honest and openness approach and will ready to make a
repetitive purchase without giving any second thought. There quires and problem will be solved
in great manner which helps the companies to attract more buyers because the existing consumer
are satisfied with the organizational performance in effective manner (Schwartz, 2020).
In recent world were competition is so high it is very important to adopt the concept of
transparency because this contributes more towards organization goal and market share. It also
impacts the corporate governance strategy and productivity in greater sense.
Is a significant transparency level being present within Pret a Manger?
As per the view of Zhang (2020), there is a significant level of transparency present in
Pret a manger. The company operates at international level and the customer base of the brand is
quite good. So it is very important for them to manage the transparency because this will impact
their overall performance. The company follow transparent working environment with higher
ethical standard so that corporate governance can be maintained. The importance the Pret a
manger gets will having a good level of transparency are:
Attaining vision in effective manner: The company has the vision to operate globally
and become one of the leading sandwich shop chain. This has been attained by them in effective
manner as buyers are happy with the approach they use. They get all the detailed information
about the food they are dealing with, which help them to gain market share. Many stakeholders
are happy with the openness approach and feel that with this the company is able to achieve their
overall vision.
Make information more actionable: The another significant benefit that is obtained by
the company is while using the concept of transparency is that they make their information into
more actionable form. The customer trusts the data which are provided by them which help them
to attract more buyers and bring loyalty among them. Pret a manger provides a piece of
information that help the buyer to know all the detailed regarding the product or goods. Their