Strategic Growth Plan for Tops Pizza

This study aims to design a growth strategy for Tops Pizza, a pizza making company based in the United Kingdom. The report discusses a comprehensive growth strategy in three stages and concludes that the plan can be a profitable move for the company.

Running head: STRATEGIC GROWTH PLAN
Strategic Growth Plan for an existing Small/ Medium sized business
[Tops Pizza]
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Executive summary
This study is aimed at designing a growth strategy for the business. The business chosen for this
purpose is a pizza making company “Tops Pizza” based in the United Kingdom. Tops Pizza is
different to other pizza making companies in identifying and implementing innovative ideas.
They have been doing well with creative ideas; however, by following a designed growth plan
they can do even better than they are currently doing. Therefore, a comprehensive growth
strategy for the company is being discussed in three stages. These are growth in the first 12
months, in between 1 to 3 years and after 3 years. At the end of this report it is being concluded
that the growth plan can be a profitable move. It is because of the current strategic direction of
Tops Pizza, which helps them taking advantage from opportunities in the market.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Section 1: A summary of the strategic position of the organisation................................................4
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix....................................................................................4
SWOT analysis............................................................................................................................6
Future business plans...................................................................................................................6
Section 2: A critical analysis of the industry/ sector/ market & competitive positioning...............6
Overview and trends in the Industry................................................................................................6
PEST analysis..............................................................................................................................7
Porter’s Five Forces.....................................................................................................................8
Competitive Positioning..............................................................................................................9
Section 3: A comprehensive growth strategy for the business......................................................11
For the next 12 months..............................................................................................................16
For years 1 to 3..........................................................................................................................18
For years 3 to 5..........................................................................................................................19
Section 4: The different issues involved in managing the growth; sources of funds, structural
changes, new staff/ skills, new IT systems/ technology................................................................20
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................22
References......................................................................................................................................24
Appendices....................................................................................................................................28

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Appendix 1: Reflection..............................................................................................................28
Appendix 2: SWOT analysis.....................................................................................................28
Appendix 3: PEST analysis.......................................................................................................29
Appendix 4: Competitor analysis table......................................................................................30

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Introduction
This report is aimed at designing a strategic growth plan for a chosen company “Tops
Pizza”. It is the United Kingdom based takeaway pizza chain. The first store was opened for
serving the consumers in 1989. Tops Pizza that has 41 stores around the south west is
increasingly becoming one of the fastest growing chain of pizza stores in the United Kingdom.
Factors that helped to expand to so many locations is their expertise in delivering delicious pizza
and offering great service. Tops Pizza occupy a small yet very significant position in the United
Kingdom food industry. The significance is due to its capability to serve and satisfy customers
with delicious pizza. They are actually serving the needs of consumers especially millennials
who prefer having pizza in offices, at homes and other places. Strategic growth plan is an
essential business strategy adopted to increase market shares either by operating in the same
market or by entering to a new (Ward 2016). The purpose is to create a strategic growth plan for
Tops Pizza to provide some ways to do even better than the current.
Section 1: A summary of the strategic position of the organisation
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix
Tops Pizza’s main activities are included as under;
 Operating stores in different parts of the United Kingdom
 Domestic supply chain

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According to the BCG matrix, Tops Pizza is at the ‘Question Marks’ position. This
means that Tops Pizza is gaining significant market share in one of the fastest-growing
industries. The profit margin could be lower; however, investment will always be needed to
further the product and service level of the different pizza store brands. With 41 stores in the
United Kingdom, it is in better position to leverage its business. It becomes easier to leverage the
business with a robust growth plan. Notably, an effective use of resources have helped the
company to survive over years and constantly add new stores to its business (Topspizza.co.uk
2019).
The pizza delivery and takeaway industry has grown at 5% every year from 2014 to 2019
(Ibisworld.co.uk 2019). The revenue stood at £3bn for a fiscal year 2018-19 (Ibisworld.co.uk
2019). 47,276 people are currently employed in this industry (Ibisworld.co.uk 2019). The
number of businesses in this sector is close to 3,050 (Ibisworld.co.uk 2019). The list of top
performing companies include Domino’s Pizza Group Ltd, Pizza Hut (UK) Limited and Papa
John’s Pizza (Ibisworld.co.uk 2019). These pieces of information suggest that the UK pizza
industry is largely dominated by majorly reputed companies in the sector. Due to the market
being dominated by major players Tops Pizza should focus on innovative ideas to further their
business.
The UK Fast-Food Restaurants Industry is booming. The revenue generated by the
industry is £19.1bn till the end of 2018 (Ibisworld.uk 2019). The number of people employed in
this industry is equal to 390,024 (Ibisworld.uk 2019). The number of companies in this industry
is close to 42,154 (Ibisworld.uk 2019). The average annual growth has remained 1.9% from 2014
to 2018 (Ibisworld.uk 2019).

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Tops Pizza should consider opening new stores and adding few attractions to it. This
means they should work upon providing seating space to customers, which most of the
companies like McDonald also does not do in many of its stores. This all can be done by
following an extensive growth plan. This paper serves exactly the same purpose.
SWOT analysis
(See Appendices section)
The analysis suggests that Tops Pizza has potentials to do much better than the current.
The ability to offer pizza quicker and at low-cost is a unique selling point for Tops Pizza.
However, few areas need to be filled up with effective strategies. These are supply chain
management, offering more number of eateries over a span of five years, heath conscious
eatables, and avoiding competition from direct and indirect competitors rather creating a separate
identity by following with trending facts.
Future business plans
The assumed business plans for Tops Pizza is as under;
 Opening new stores with few stores possibly offering seating space by means of
franchising the business
 Solidifying the presence over a span of five years
 Increasing the number of stores if things turn well for the company
Section 2: A critical analysis of the industry/ sector/ market & competitive positioning
Overview and trends in the Industry

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Takeaway pizza and delivery industry is booming in the UK. Consumers are increasingly
having pizza in their day-to-day living. Consumers in UK spend around £19.1bn on the pizza
industry (Ibisworld.uk 2019). Takeout Pizza is the highest contributor to this figure.
Pizza chains contribute maximum to the entire sales of UK Pizza. Pizza chains contribute
to more than half of the entire UK Pizza restaurant sales. The rest of the sales are accounted by
independent restaurants. The United Kingdom is home to some of the world’s leading pizza
making companies. This includes but not limited to Pizza Hut, Papa John's and Domino's Pizza.
Pizza Hut is operated by Yum Brands. The company also operates some of the popularly known
fast-food chains like Taco Bell and KFC.
The likes of Pizza Ranch and Papa Murphy's are preferred more over the giant Pizza
chains like Pizza Hut, Dominos’ Pizza and Papa Johns’. This is because Pizza Ranch and Papa
Murphy's are cheaper than these giants. There is tough competition between pizza making
companies in the United Kingdom.
From the piece of information furnished as in the above three paragraphs it can be said
that the pizza making business is booming in the United Kingdom. People just love to have
pizza. It also serves their short-term purpose, which is to get something to have breakfast or
lunch while being in offices or other suitable places. Additionally, it consumes less time to have
a pizza, which is time-saving and fits with the busy office schedules. To attain and retain the
competitive advantage it is important to identify, analyse and implement latest and emerging
technologies. Such technologies will speed the pizza making process and thereby the order
delivery time would also decrease. Hence, customer satisfaction rate would also increase.
PEST analysis

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(See Appendices section)
Based on the PEST analysis of pizza takeaway industry in the United Kingdom, it can be
said that there are good prospects for Tops Pizza. The use of emerging technologies can help to
improve the pizza making process, improve the customer satisfaction rate and of course the sales.
However, there are a few challenges such as tax policy, employment laws, growing awareness on
environmental pollution, increase in inflation rate and changing eating habits.
Porter’s Five Forces
The five forces are as mentioned below (Pilcher 2017):
Bargaining Power of Suppliers (high): It is high as it does not have its own supplier system. It
is also due to an incremented dependency on suppliers.
Bargaining Power of Customers (high): Foods are available at affordable prices. Additionally,
there are wide number of options to buy from.
Competitive Rivalry within an industry (high): Competition is very high with Domino’s and
Pizza Hut leading the market. List of competitors include but not limited to Papa John’s and
Little Caesars.
Threat of New Entrants (high): Opening pizza stores is not very expensive.
Threat of Substitute Product (high): There are so many substitute products of pizza like
chicken, hamburger and so forth.
The piece of information furnished as above show that the food industry has still not
reached its maturity stage. Indeed, it has the growth prospects. However, Tops Pizza can struggle
to earn additional market shares considering that it does not have an impressive supply chain

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operations as compared to the industry’s leaders. It is, therefore, more recommended to follow a
robust growth plan that covers an improvement in the supply chain operations and also enhances
the in-store experience for customers.
Competitive Positioning
Tops Pizza has not changed much from the day it came to the existence in regards to
strategic direction. Historically they have maintained a very simple business process. The base of
which was several factors. It follows a cost-leadership approach to remain affordable to
customers. Simple menu is one of those. Tops Pizza was never focused on offering a wide range
of foods to customers. Rather, they remained focused on offering tasty pizza. Apart from
offering quality pizza to customers, delivery process had also remained one of the essentials to
the business of the company. They remained constantly focused on improving the delivery
system (Davis et al. 2018).
The current strategic direction remains more or less the same apart from development in
the delivery and pizza making process. They will together take care of the food preparation
process. Hence, the time span required to cook foods will decrease and the quality will improve
(Davis et al. 2018). In addition, the company is planning to expand its expertise in IT solutions
while keeping the pizza making as its core operations.
Competitor Analysis
(Refer to Appendix 4 for Competitive Analysis Table)
Goals: -

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Tops Pizza: Tops Pizza is focused on increasing its market shares. It is quite justifiable too
considering that it is yet to challenge the competition being posed form Pizza Hut and Domino’s
Pizza. The market shares are nowhere in comparison to Pizza Hut, Domino’s Pizza, Papa john’s
and others. Tops Pizza is concerned with price competitiveness. This is perhaps the one way
using which a robust performance can be produced. Customers should have reasons to purchase
pizza from pizza making brands (Fassam and Dani 2017). This is exactly one of the strategies to
attract consumers. Tops Pizza is able to maintain a healthy customer base with the quality of
pizza offered to customers. Tops Pizza is also focused on providing ultimate delivery vehicle.
Tops Pizza is also intended to attain and maintain an increased customer satisfaction rate. This is
also the reason why Tops Pizza has been so innovative with its pizza making techniques and
technological expertise. The use of locally sourced high-quality materials and application of
strategies for an effective supplier-relationship management are just indicating its innovative
expertise (Fassam and Dani 2017).
Papa John’s: On the other hand, Papa John’s more or less has similar strategies as that of the
Tops Pizza but differs in few regards. Papa John’s is also focused on increasing its market shares
from since their inception to the food industry. The company is also focused on maintaining its
price competitiveness (Bhat, Reddy and Mandanna 2018). It is more focused on increasing its
brand loyalty whereas Tops Pizza is in increasing customer satisfaction. Although both are
interdependent but still it shows that Tops Pizza knows exactly what areas to hit in order to
increase brand loyalty for the company.
Strategy: -
Tops Pizza: The Company offer quality pizza at the most competitive price. This is a factor of
competency that they possess (Barrows, Vieira Jr and DiPietro 2016).

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Papa John’s: Papa John’s is more focused on using better ingredients to be able to offer better
pizza to consumers. This is indeed a better strategy and even superior to the one of Tops Pizza
that is concentrating on improving the delivery system. However, delivery system is an essential
part of pizza business. The delivery system must be controlled efficiently to be able to reach to
more consumers. People mostly order pizza at their offices, homes and other convenient places
(Barrows, Vieira Jr and DiPietro 2016). An effective delivery system would probably impact the
customer satisfaction rate.
Competitive advantage: -
Tops Pizza: Brand recognition is one of the competitive advantages to the company. They are
furthering it with their constant progress in technological developments. Managing human
capital is the other advantage the Tops Pizza has over many of its competitors (Hollenbeck and
Jamieson 2015).
Papa John’s: The Company follows a segmented pattern of operations. The company is able to
effectively separate its different business units. As a result of which there is less pressure on the
management team. The rate of productivity is also high. Papa John’s efficiently manages quality
control (Hollenbeck and Jamieson 2015). It does so with the help of professionals who are
skilled and well trained on the product of the company. Professionals are well equipped with
strategies to be used to be able to follow the business protocol.
Section 3: A comprehensive growth strategy for the business

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This section covers a comprehensive growth strategy for Tops Pizza. The growth strategy
will be discussed in three different stages over three different time span. The main purpose will
be to attain significant market shares and become one of the leading names in delivery services.
Plan
Tops Pizza can do better with its delivery services that are streamlined helping to deliver
orders in less amount of time. The efficiency to make and delver pizza in less amount of time
will create some good opportunities for the company. The company will continue to follow a
cost-leadership approach while improving its supply chain operations and the infrastructure
(Serra and Kunc 2015).
Strategy
Figure 1: The Ansoff Matrix of Growth
(Source: Loredana 2016)

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Tops Pizza will use “Market Penetration” as a growth strategy to operate more
efficiently in the United Kingdom. This strategy will be supported through following mentioned
steps. Additionally, the pizza maker will shortlist and approach a list of franchises to increase its
presence in the country. Franchising has its pros and cons; however, this has worked for other
pizza makers as well. Tops Pizza while working with Franchise must ensure a few things as
mentioned under;
 In a franchising agreement, there is little room for creativity. Tops Pizza should work
only with those who perform and removing the under performers
 Making short-term contracts with franchises as there is no provision for a renewal of
agreement. After when the contract is over Tops Pizza can approach to new franchises
with new set of agreements (Fan, Kühn and Lafontaine 2017)
The growth plan will have few elements under it as mentioned below (Kernbach, Eppler and
Bresciani 2015);
1. Open up new stores with added attractions like seating space
2. Offer tasty pizza more efficiently
3. Invest in people
4. Development of ways of working
5. Utilisation of technology and data
1. Open up new stores: The growth plan is expected to face challenges in variety of forms like
innovation from competitors and external business environment in the United Kingdom.
Moreover, structural changes will also affect the increasing number of stores. In such situation,
Tops Pizza will be tested for its ability to respond to market changes and the opportunities,

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capability to overcome looming threats and development of new products and services.
Nonetheless, Tops Pizza has the set of strengths helping it to deliver on all these aspects of a
global business.
2. Offer tasty pizza more efficiently: Tops Pizza despite being a small company as compared to
Pizza Hut and Domino’s Pizza has consistently been offering tasty and fresh pizza at the most
affordable price. The pizza maker should use efficient technologies to be able to establish a
significant hold in the market.
3. Invest in people: Tops Pizza will need to invest in people. Some of the new spaces will have
added space for seating. More number of people will be required to be placed in operations at
these new stores. These people will be called for recruitment and selection process. The
recruitment and selection process will attract investments. Apart from recruitment and selection,
there are other programs also, which will consume spending. These are training to be given to the
selected professionals. This is actually an essential part of operations that is being used to treat
many issues such as cultural challenges. Tops Pizza stores in the United Kingdom will have
people from diverse culture. There will be co-ordination issue between people from diverse
culture. An influenced co-ordination does also affect the operations. Therefore, it is important
that Tops Pizza has sufficient fund to utilise it on different activities such as those mentioned in
this paragraph.
4. Development of ways of working: It is important that differences in cultures do not affect the
productivity. Productivity will be measured both in context to the individuals and the company.
Overall, employees are the valuable asset to a company. This asset can be managed and retained
by providing employees a friendly work environment. A friendly work environment encourages
not just to explore the personal skills but also motivate to learn something new.

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5. Utilisation of technology and data: The new stores to be opened will accommodate some
technological developments across the operations. One of the major changes will be
implementing the information system. An information system provides an organized platform to
capture, access to and utilize large-scale data. The information system will positively influence
the efficiency to respond to queries in real-time. This will improve co-ordination between
employees. Customer queries could be answered in real-time. This will positively affect the
customer satisfaction rate.
However, the growth of the business can face certain issues as listed under (Kumar
2016);
Marketing implications: As Tops Pizza will go for franchises, this will impact on marketing
efficiency of the pizza maker. The established market value of the franchises will be a boost for
the pizza maker. However, there will be less scope for the pizza maker to intervene in the
franchises’ operations. Hence, the effectiveness of operations can be affected.
Development of innovative technical processes to increase competitiveness: It is challenging
to develop and implement creative solutions to address a range of problems while working with
franchises. It is because the pizza maker will have no direct impact on the operations of the
franchises. There is little room for creativity.
Cost containment or reduction: Since the agreement with franchises cannot be renewed
annually, the pizza maker will have to wait till the contract is over to make and implement any
strategies to reduce the operational cost.
Overseas market growth: This will depend a lot on how the franchises perform.

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Improving supply chain management efficiencies: The pizza maker will have no involvement
in the supply chain operations as this will be managed by the franchises. The pizza maker have
no room to implement any creative thought to the SCM.
Quality control: This will totally be under the control of the franchises.
Outsourcing of activities to improve cost efficiencies: In a franchising strategy, the pizza
maker will not be outsourcing any of its activities rather getting a foothold in the chosen market
with the help of the selected franchises.
Capital investment requirements: The selected number of franchise will pay the initial
franchise fee to the franchisor. In addition, the franchises will also pay royalties basing their
revenue. This is often a percentage of gross sales revenue; however, can also be calculated from
net sales. There is no standard royalty fee and is usually paid on a monthly basis.
For the next 12 months
In the first 12 months of operations, Tops Pizza will try to create value strategically. This
will be done by effectively communicating and following value propositions.
Value Proposition
(Leroi-Werelds et al. 2017)
Key Partners: In regards to this, Tops Pizza will need to find strategic franchises who are able
to support the business.
Key Activities: In this aspect of the business growth, Tops Pizza will need to control its
production process. The company also needs to create a branding strategy. Marketing and

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promotion of pizza and its contents are essential part of this segment of the business growth.
They can discuss these things with their franchises and request them to consider these things.
Key Resources: Key resources will be divided into three distinguished segments like physical
resources, human resources and intellectual resources. In physical resources, Tops Pizza will
require attractive locations for its new stores. In human resources, franchises will be required to
initiate the business. In context to intellectual resources, Tops Pizza seek permission to access
customer databases, doing partnerships with key partners etc.
Value Propositions: “Tops Pizza will deliver pizza to its customers in just four minutes”
Customer Relationships: Customer relationships does have a major impact on the business
growth. In fact, a high customer satisfaction rate is essential to incrementing sales. Tops Pizza
must incorporate its operations system with a customer relationship management (CRM)
software. This helps accessing to customers’ queries and details. Details will help to analyze the
profile. Hence, the data could be used to customize the pizza quality. Customers’ queries will
enable Tops Pizza respond to it in real-time. This will build up a good image of the company.
The rate of customer satisfaction will also improve. This can also be used to establish effective
communication with franchises.
Channels: Channels is the building block using which Tops Pizza can reach to its customers,
suppliers and strategic partners. Customers can be communicated with the CRM. On the other
hand, enterprise resource planning (ERP) can be used to effectively communicate and track
transactions with suppliers. However, the pizza maker may have no such scopes due to being in
partnering relationship with franchises.

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Customer Segments: Demographically, Tops Pizza will not have any specific target. Indeed, the
company will target the area with greatest number of people. The company will remain focused
on carryout customers and delivery.
Cost Structure: The cost structure will include everything from maintaining customer
relationships, creating and delivering value and generating revenue. The costs calculation will
also include key resources, key partnerships and key activities.
Revenue Streams: Tops Pizza will calculate revenue streams by closely monitoring each of the
customer segments in regards to recurring revenues. In this, ongoing payments will be
considered as value proposition.
For years 1 to 3
Being Excellent Pizza Maker
Supplier-relationship management: The quality of pizza depends on two factors, the materials
being used and the process being applied to make it. In both of the processes, supplier-
relationship management is an essential task to conduct. The insourced materials need to be
effective in both regards to cost and quality. To ensure getting good materials at competitive
prices, it is important to utilise a few strategies. One of those being monitoring suppliers’
performance on a regular basis. This will help to differentiate between strategic suppliers and
those that underperform. It is better to closely work with franchises and encourage them towards
these activities. Some exciting offers should be given to franchises occasionally to encourage
them be loyal to the pizza maker (Oghazi et al. 2016).
Excellent delivery: Tops Pizza has been delivering orders in a less span of time in the United
Kingdom. This is worth a feat (Cederfjäll, Broom and Kirik 2015).

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Customer-oriented service: Tops Pizza will implement and utilise CRM to access to customers’
data in real-time and interact with franchises to establish an effective intercommunication. In
addition, CRM will also allow understanding customers’ demands. Accordingly, Tops Pizza can
adjust with its offers (Navimipour and Soltani 2016).
For years 3 to 5
Attaining Business Sustainability
Reducing carbon footprint impact: In long-term, Tops Pizza will focus on reducing its carbon
footprint impact. The major contributors to its carbon footprint impact will be the lights in stores
and vehicles used to deliver pizza. The company will consider technologically advanced lights
such as LEDs and more carbon efficient vehicles. LEDs comparatively emit less carbon as
compared to lights normally being used in stores. Advanced vehicles emit less carbon as
compared to outdated vehicles (DeBoer, Panwar and Rivera 2017). Hence, this will also
contribute to reducing the carbon footprint impact of Tops Pizza.
Reducing wastage: Tops Pizza will take extra initiative to propagate its concerns for wastage.
The materials used for pizza packaging and the carrier bags are contributors of wastage (DeBoer,
Panwar and Rivera 2017). Tops Pizza will conduct campaigns about how impactful are wastages
and how to get rid of this. The company will actually try to empower its customers to avoid
contributing to wastage.
Empowering the community: Tops Pizza will also work towards empowering the community
with which it operates. This will be done in number of ways. First, they will be given fair amount
of chance to apply for jobs across the number of stores of Tops Pizza. In addition, social
development works like supporting people affected from natural calamities will also take place

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(Mirvis et al. 2016). Most importantly, pizza will be made from fresh and high quality materials.
Since, the concerns for healthy foods are growing Tops Pizza will also consider making healthy
pizza. Healthy pizza will attract a different section of the consumer base who are very health
conscious. Hence, Tops Pizza will have an increased customer base.
Section 4: The different issues involved in managing the growth; sources of funds,
structural changes, new staff/ skills, new IT systems/ technology
In this report, a comprehensive growth strategy for Tops Pizza is being discussed.
However, any growth strategy is bound to face some barriers. These are issues involved in
managing the growth. The comprehensive growth strategy can face some issues. These are:
Sources of funds: Source of funds can be a major issue in the business growth. On a broader
aspect, financing is of two types such as debt or equity. Each of the type of financing can affect
operations during the business growth. Debt financing is also called as negative cash flow. Debt
financing must come at scheduled intervals to avoid any negative consequences of it. Regardless
of whatever be the earnings it should come at set intervals and also into set amounts. There is
fixed obligation to be followed for repayment. Relying just on revenues to create financial
resources will not alone help. Financing is needed to be obtained to avoid weakening the current
financial position. There can be several ways of generating the initial capital. However, Tops
Pizza can face problems from overtrading at the time they are undergoing the expansion (Ali,
Bentley and Cao 2016). Indeed, a probable lack of working capital in between investing in
business growth and the profits is a problem and can potentially trouble Tops Pizza. This is
because investments will be required on a regular basis in different areas. These are recruiting

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new staffs, managing facilities, conducting supplies, procuring raw materials and developing
products with new features.
Structural changes: Structural changes is an economic condition that affects both the businesses
and the market. This can be caused by several factors such as new economic developments,
changes in resource availability for any reason, global shifts in labor and capital and changes
being caused from supply and demands of all resources (Kaiser, El Arbi and Ahlemann 2015).
Tops Pizza can be tested for many of such factors. For example, if due to some reason the
demands for pizza has fallen, this will impact the business and so the growth strategy of Tops
Pizza. Possible reasons could include the adverse health impact of having excessive of pizza. In
such situation, strategic management of business will help to sustain the business growth of Tops
Pizza. With regards to the mentioned issue the best possible way would be to put additional
focus on offering healthy pizza. This will be accompanied with extensive and appealing
marketing communications. This will help to reestablish the brand image and support the
business growth.
New staff/ skills: The business growth will have new stores to be opened up. New stores will
definitely have new people being recruited to support the operations. The company culture will
be affected from every new inclusion in the workforce. As the company grows over a period of
three to five years in future there will be more new faces included in the workforce. Hence, there
will be cultural diversity at workplace. Tops Pizza would definitely never want its organizational
culture to get derailed. Indeed, the company would look to deal with the challenges. However,
this is always challenging to deal with such a diverse workforce. Also, it is never feasible to treat
cultural differences with just few sessions of trainings. People inherit the culture from their
parents, families and the communities. Cultural beliefs and practices is hard to be influenced but

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rather can be controlled with effective techniques being applied to it (Peltoniemi 2015). In this
regard, training can be used to let people understand how to cope with cultural differences at
workplace. Moreover, efforts could be given on to orient the individual practice with that of the
organizational goals instead of their personal preferences to the work.
New IT systems/ technology: Every single business rely on huge volume of information. This
pieces of information can be comprised of interactions with customers, employee details,
business contacts, financial records, regulatory requirements and much more. This is indeed
difficult and close to impossible to store such a large data and retrieve these efficiently on being
required without having an organized system to facilitate such task. The larger the business
grows the harder it becomes to ensure an appropriate sharing of information between the
different business units. Information systems can help overcome such issues (Wheelen et al.
2017). However, implementing information systems is itself challenging for many reasons. First,
identifying the right software is a tough task to conduct. An identification process will include
cross-checking the software for its feasibility with the system. The next challenge after
identifying the right software would be to purchase and implement it. Software management is
the major challenge of implementation of information systems. The software may come across
the kinds of service failures. During such failures different activities to be performed will remain
affected. Hence, the quality of work will also be affected.
Conclusion
Therefore, this can be said Tops Pizza should go for this recommended growth plan. The
current strategic direction of the company is justifying the decision. The company is well
equipped with resources guiding it to innovation excellence. It is also capable to counter with the
business environmental challenges. In short-term, it needs to create values by appropriately

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designing value proposition. In value creation, effective relationship with employees, customers
and suppliers is essential. For customer relationship management, the company needs to be
expertise dealing with CRM. For an effective relationship with suppliers, ERP can be effective.
In long-term, it needs to think of business sustainability by following ways as suggested in this
report. Business sustainability will be attained by deploying strategies to reduce its carbon
footprint impact, empowering the community and so on.

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Appendices
Appendix 1: Reflection
By doing this task, the learner was able to identify and understand a range of
management strategies that are used on a day-to-day basis. Most importantly, this will help the
learner clear his or her academics successfully. A management task requires brainstorming to get
ideas on the given task and to be able to effectively conduct it. On a practical ground, the gained
knowledge from this task will help the learner in becoming an effective part of the business. For
a professional, it is important that it is able to identify the problem situation and the relevant
solution. This task has helped learning this tactic, which could truly be useful on practical
ground. The gained knowledge from the task will assist in handling range of problems,
brainstorming to identify range of solutions and using appropriate management skills to select
the best of all strategies.
Appendix 2: SWOT analysis
Strengths (S)
 Quick service
 Low cost
Weaknesses (W)
 Brand recall
 Absence of extensive channel network
 Ineffective supply chain
 No presence outside the United
Kingdom
 Low staff retention

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 Eateries are in less numbers
Opportunities (O)
 Booming pizza takeaway industry
across the United Kingdom
 Health conscious eatables
Threats (T)
 Healthier alternatives
 Changing eating habits of consumers
 Both direct and indirect competition
Table 1: SWOT analysis
(Source: Topspizza.co.uk 2019)
Appendix 3: PEST analysis
Political (P)
 Business taxation
 Laws on employment
 Strict legal regulations for increasing
pollution
Economic (E)
 Economic recession has minimal
impact as prices are largely affordable
 Increase in inflation rate will impact
the pricing negatively
Social (S)
 Different classes such as lower class,
middle class, middle upper class and
upper class have an impact on the
industry
 Changing eating habits
Technological (T)
 Baking and heating ovens can increase
the service efficiency
 The use of telemarketing and internet
can be used advertise product and
connect with people
 Customer data management can
benefit in offering relevant services
Table 2: PEST analysis

30STRATEGIC GROWTH PLAN
(Source: Ward 2016)
Appendix 4: Competitor analysis table
FACTOR
Compan
y (Tops
Pizza)
Strengt
h
Weaknes
s
Competito
r
(Papa
John’s)
Importance
to Customer
Products 3 NA 4
Good quality
products
Price 4 NA 4
Affordable
rates for
pizza and
other food
items
Quality 4 NA 4 Tasty foods
Selection 3 2 4
Would look
for more
new foods
Service 4 NA 4
Great
customer
experience

31STRATEGIC GROWTH PLAN
FACTOR
Compan
y (Tops
Pizza)
Strengt
h
Weaknes
s
Competito
r
(Papa
John’s)
Importance
to Customer
Reliability 4 NA 4 High
Stability 4 NA 4 High
Expertise 3 2 4
There are
areas for
improvemen
t
Company
Reputation
3 NA 4
Customer
needs trusted
brand
Location 3 NA 4 Accessibility
Sales
Method
3 2 3
Eateries in
stores should
be increased
Advertising 2 3 4 Consumers
should know
what new
and exciting

32STRATEGIC GROWTH PLAN
FACTOR
Compan
y (Tops
Pizza)
Strengt
h
Weaknes
s
Competito
r
(Papa
John’s)
Importance
to Customer
they will be
getting
Image 3 1 4
Affects
customer
loyalty level
Table 3: Competitor analysis table
(Source: As created by the author)
The above table gives a comparative analysis of Tops Pizza and its competitor company Papa
John’s. Scores are being given in a range of (1-5).