Bakers Delight: A Case Study of Australian Entrepreneurial Success

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Bakers Delight, an Australian bakery franchise founded by Roger and Lesley Gillespie. It explores the current story of the entrepreneurs, detailing the company's expansion and community involvement. The report delves into the history and socio-cultural background of the founders, highlighting their entrepreneurial traits, including achievement orientation and decision-making abilities. It examines the opportunity recognition and idea development process that led to the franchise model and identifies the competitive advantages of the business. The report also provides recommendations for future business development, such as product diversification and market expansion into Asia. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing the success and impact of Bakers Delight in the entrepreneurial landscape.

Running head: ENTREPRENEURS OF AUSTRALIA
ENTREPRENEURS OF AUSTRALIA
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Current Story of the Entrepreneurs............................................................................................2
History and Socio-cultural Background of the Entrepreneurs...................................................3
Entrepreneurial Traits.................................................................................................................4
Entrepreneurial Traits of the founders of Bakers Delight..........................................................4
Opportunity, Recognition and Idea Development Process........................................................5
Competitive Advantages............................................................................................................5
Recommendations......................................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Entrepreneurs are those people who design, launch and develop a new business
venture assuming all its risk factors and rewards. The entrepreneurs are seen as innovators or
business leaders of enterprises or business process with new ideas to implement (Hussin and
Hamdan 2015). Every entrepreneur has different story to tell that why he or she became
interested to initiate a new business. However, entrepreneurs can be major driving force to
the economy of the country where he or she belongs. The entrepreneurs should be motivated,
creative, visionary and risk tolerant people (Mueller 2014).
The Bakers Delights is a bakery franchise in Australia, founded in 1980. The two
entrepreneurs Roger Gillespie and Lesley Gillespie are the founder of this company. It has
now outlets within Australia and other areas like New Zealand, United States and Canada
(Bakersdelight.com 2017).
The purpose of the report is to analysis the Australian entrepreneurs’ business venture
with an example of Bakers Delight bakery. This report will also focus on the background,
traits, opportunity, recognition, idea development, competitive advantages and
recommendations in the context of Australian entrepreneurs’ business venture Bakers
Delight.
Current Story of the Entrepreneurs
The company was established in 1980 and founded by Roger Gillespie and his wife
Lesley Gillespie with the help of their friend Gary Stephenson. The first shop was opened at
Hawthorn in Melbourne (Bakersdelight.com 2017). Now, it has total seven hundred outlets
across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and United States. The founder couples are happy
now for delivering the fresh baked bread to their thousands of customers. Now the

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entrepreneurs’ venture has values and vision that helps to lead the company into its success.
They want to experience its staffs as well as customers that Bakers Delight is amazing and
great. They have vision to be the world’s best fresh bread retailer and mission to manufacture
the best quality bread, provide the highest service and produce delight for all the stakeholders
(Bakersdelight.com 2017). In 2014, the Australian Newspaper in Top 500 Private Companies
in Australia has recognized the company as the Australia’s best business. The entrepreneurs
are willing to help the Australian community by their service. They have raised huge funds
for supporting the patients affected in breast cancer. They have programs and practices to
protect environment from pollution by reducing the plastic bags usage. Even they donate
breads to the needy and poor people by helping the community groups in Australia
(Bakersdelight.com 2017). They have won several awards and prizes for their high quality
production and community services.
History and Socio-cultural Background of the Entrepreneurs
The company Bakers Delight is now almost thirty years old company with many
franchises across the world. The founders were honored at EY Entrepreneur of the Year in
Melbourne as “Champions of Entrepreneurship”. At the event, Lesley stated to the audience
that they did not start with a plan to reach bakers delight at every Australian shopping centre,
however, the company has in total 700 bakeries and the couple manage and own thirty
bakeries (Bakersdelight.com 2017). Roger Gillespie claimed that they were not the
entrepreneurs, rather they started their business for earning their living and supporting their
family.
Lesley worked in a bakery on a part-time basis with her now business partner and
husband Roger while perusing her graduation from Monash University. Both the founder

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confirmed that no fright for failure and the zeal towards hard working led them to the path of
success (Smartcompany.com 2017).
By 1988, the founders owned total fifteen bakeries. At that time, they realized that
they would need a completely different management system and came out with the idea of
franchises. The franchising concept helped them to grow more and within ten years, they
opened twenty bakeries in Victoria. The numbers of franchises were growing largely in the
following years. Now they are the largest bakery franchise in Australia and their annual
turnover is 564 million dollars (Smartcompany.com 2017). They have also powerful
community base.
Entrepreneurial Traits
According to the McClelland’s Need for Achievement Theory, entrepreneurs have
mainly two types of characteristics features: the entrepreneurs want to do things in a better
and newer ways and they have super decision-making abilities under uncertainty (Ruangkrit
and Thechatakerng 2015). In his book The Achieving Society, McClelland proposed that
motivation drives the entrepreneurs most and they want to do things for achievement.
However, the entrepreneurs should be motivated people in general and hard working in
nature (Brinckmann and Kim 2015).
In addition to that, McClelland has emphasized on the achievement orientation
characteristic of the entrepreneurs. They even could not be influenced by the monetary gain
or profits in their business, which works as a mere parameter of success for them (Gupta
2014). The achievement or fulfillment of goal, which the entrepreneurs have set, can drive
those most (Baron, Franklin and Hmieleski 2016).

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Entrepreneurial Traits of the founders of Bakers Delight
McClelland’s Need for Achievement Theory can describe effectively the
entrepreneurial traits, which is also applicable for the founders of the Bakers Delight, Roger
and Lesley Gillespie. Apart from hard work and goal-oriented mindset, they both are
achievement-oriented person (Parker 2012). In past thirty years, they achieve much success
and recognition in their business. However, they started their business initially for money
making and surviving, but they are not those people who run after only money. The secret of
the success behind Bakers Delight was the strong partnership in Roger and Lesley.
However, they both carry the important characteristics traits of entrepreneur. They
both want to do things in a better and completely newer ways, which is reflected by their
production. They are very concerned about the each bread production and put much effort
and time to produce quality of food. The name of the company Bakers Delight has originated
from the idea that every baker would be delighted by the quality of the product, which they
bake and in return, every customer would be delighted by the services what they have
received.
The decision-making power has been reflected by their decision to open the shop
when Lesley had two daughters and the family was in need for money.
Opportunity, Recognition and Idea Development Process
The idea and opportunities of franchising have given the company more exposure to
the market of Australia and later on the global market. In 1992, the first television
commercial came in front of public, which helped them to attract more consumers
(Bakersdelight.com 2017). In 1995, the company expanded internationally and opened an
outlet of Bakers Delight at Auckland and they have other ventures too, which has helped
them for much growth. The company contributed for society and community

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(Bakersdelight.com 2017). Lesley got many prestigious awards for her generous service for
the community’s welfare. The two children of the couple have decided to associate and
contribute in their family business.
Competitive Advantages
One of the competitive advantages for the Roger and Lesley is that they both know
the art of bakery. They are very much accustomed with the science of bakery. When they
have started their company, they used to bake by their own hand. Roger once said jokingly
that he was the baker and Lesley was the delight (Amcham.com 2017).
Another competitive advantage is lying on the company’s values, visions and mission.
Every employee in that company is dedicated to their work. The company always has
innovative ideas that have led them to the success. For an example, along with whole range of
white breads, the company has invented other recipes like cheese roll incorporating olive,
bacon, mushroom, tomato and other ingredients (Amcham.com 2017).
Recommendations
It is recommended that to the company that they should produce different types of
products. The company should come out with an idea of product differentiation. They should
make their customers as delighted as they can by their creative recipes and innovative ideas.
They produce pizzas, sweets, savories along with bread (Sullivan and Ford 2014). However,
it is recommended to produce cake, pastries and chocolates. It would be a good business
initiatives and expansion.
It is even recommended that the company should expand their business in Asia and
India. Being a emerging market, India can be a good business exposure for them. They did

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not penetrate the Asian market economy. The company should expand its business in Asia
too (Kozubíková et al. 2015).
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the entrepreneurs Roger and Lesley of the Bakers Delights
have achieved success and reorganization through their business. They are well-known
entrepreneurs in the world and their story is world famous. However, they inspire many
people and new entrepreneurs through their success. They have courage and mind set to take
initiatives ignoring the risk factors. However, their business has gifted those awards and
recognition. Their firm has many franchises across the globe. However, their idea of opening
a bakery firm was not that much creative but they always came up with new ideas and
innovation to produce newer recipes or old recipe with new ingredients. It is recommended to
the company to expand their business with other recipes like cake, pastries and chocolates.

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