Strategic Marketing Report: Chick-fil-A's UK Market Expansion Plan

This marketing management report provides a comprehensive analysis of Chick-fil-A's potential entry into the UK market. It begins with a macro analysis using PESTLE to assess political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors, followed by a micro analysis employing Porter's Five Forces to evaluate competitive intensity. A SWOT analysis identifies the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report defines SMART objectives for market awareness and share increase, and includes a competitive analysis. The report also explains segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) strategy and perceptual map in order to demonstrate its potential market position. Finally, it outlines a marketing strategy with a focus on the 7Ps and BCG Matrix for effective market penetration. This report includes audit of internal and external marketing environment. This awareness enables company to avoid and overcome negative impacts these factors can make on company's performance.

Marketing Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MACRO ANALYSIS......................................................................................................................3
PESTLE.......................................................................................................................................3
MICRO ANALYSIS........................................................................................................................5
Porter's Five Forces......................................................................................................................5
SWOT Analysis...........................................................................................................................7
OBJECTIVES..................................................................................................................................7
SMART Objectives......................................................................................................................7
Competitive analysis....................................................................................................................8
Competitive advantage.................................................................................................................8
STP...................................................................................................................................................8
7Ps..................................................................................................................................................10
Marketing Mix strategies...........................................................................................................10
BCG Matrix...............................................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Marketing environment consist of all those internal and external factors that influence
marketing operations of a company. In these factors some factors are controllable mostly those
who come under internal environment and other are partially controllable like factors of micro
external environment and those factors which come under macro external environment are totally
uncontrollable. This report includes audit of internal and external marketing environment. This
awareness enables company to avoid and overcome negative impacts these factors can make on
company's performance. This report also includes development and justification of SMART
objectives of a company and competitive analysis of Chick-fil-A, this is a American fast food
company. This company intends to bring its franchise in UK market as a part of its market
expansion. This report also explain segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) strategy and
perceptual map in order to demonstrate its potential market position. Marketing strategy for
company is also included in this report.
MACRO ANALYSIS
PESTLE
Marketing audit refers to systematic, critical and unbiased evaluation and interpretation
of internal and external marketing operations and environment. This audit is performed to predict
areas of opportunity and threats and where company is strong and weak.
Chick-fil-A can perform this audit is using tool which is PESTLE analysis and by evaluating
other important marketing factors. PESTLE is used to audit macro environment of marketing.
Process for this analysis includes stages such as
Understanding the PESTLE
Political- This factor is concerned with political ideologies of a country. Their values and
beliefs that affect the business functions come under political factor. This is a very important
factor as company can not avoid their impact. This factor also includes government and its
system in a country (Perera, 2017). Their stability and norms, this is important as different
government have different norms and business functions get affected from those norms.
Economical- This factor refers to economic condition of a country. Various aspects are
covered in this factor that are GDP, per capita income, buying habits of country's population.
Other than these on a macro level policies such as fiscal and monetary policies, taxation policies,
interest rates, currency exchange rates also come under economic environment of marketing.

Social- This factor of marketing is concerned with individual choice and preference of
population of a country. In context of marketing extent to which population of a country prefers
to buy product which is being made and sold by the company.
Technological- This factor is concerned with technology and its development in a
country. Technology has made a very great impact on marketing functions of a country and
companies are now able to plan marketing and supply of their product all over the globe.
Efficiency of this technology depends on the extent to which it is advanced in a country.
Advanced and latest technology tends to give more effective results than old version of
technology.
Legal- Legal factor refers to rules and regulations of the country where company is
operating. This have a great impact on marketing environment of company. Legal rules and
regulations are mandatory to follow and company can not ignore this and these rules can impact
functioning of company to vary extent.
Environmental- This refers to natural environment and its condition and is concerned
with its protection and sustainability (Irawanto, 2017). Rules in this are also there related to
pollution control. Presently all the global and regional organisations are working toward making
all the business organisations' environment friendly and pollution free.
When these factors are clear next step comes as gathering information about all these factors.
Information regarding this can be availed from various sources such as news, journal and internet
and search engine. Then this information are divided and listed with their respective categories
and lastly analysed to find out areas of opportunity and threats in market environment of Chick-
fil-A.
To audit internal marketing environment of Chick-fil-A factors that are required to be
evaluated and analysed are as follows,
Task environment Audit- This includes analysing factors which are associated with the firm
that is customers, market, suppliers, facilitators, competitors and firms engaged in marketing
functions.
Strategy Audit- This refers to strategies that are developed for marketing such as mission and
vision of company and their link with strategy of marketing.

Marketing team audit- performance of employees who are directly linked with marketing or
those who work in marketing department, measuring and evaluating their performance at every
level of hierarchy.
System Audit- To evaluate system in the marketing such as information system, planning
system, system of executing planning, review of operations etc.
Productivity Audit- To evaluate performance of marketing operation in terms of cost incurred
and profit earned.
These evaluations and audit of various functions of internal environment of marketing are
very important to understand and strength and weakness of the internal environment.
MICRO ANALYSIS
Porter's Five Forces
Businesses definitely need to perform competitive analysis to know about the strength
and weakness of competitor and how they can affect their performance. Porter's five forces one
of the best tool to analyse competitive forces of a business have been used in this report.
The five forces in this model are,
 Barriers to new entry
 Threats of substitute
 Bargaining power of suppliers
 Bargaining power of buyer
 Industry Rivalry
These can be explained as,
Barriers to new entry, this is concerned with problems and issues that resist a business to
enter in an industry. These problems are-
Capital required, legal regulations, resources required, availability of resources, economies of
scale, brand reputation etc.
in UK due to legal regulations barriers of entry are high and for Chick-fil-A which is trying to
open its franchise in UK high barriers to entry is a negative factor.
Threat of substitute, this means availability of a product with similar attributes and
usability in the market. This affects by factors such as-
Number of suppliers, cost that is required to change and performance of substitute product.

Number of substitute in UK fast food industry are very high. Customers can very easily get
substitute of a product. This is a negative factor and challenge for Chick-fil-A.
Bargaining power of Suppliers, what level of power can suppliers exercise when selling
resources to company is known as bargaining power of suppliers. This is affected by,
Numbers of suppliers, Suppliers' size, Cost of switching to another supplier, Availability of
substitute, material scarcity.
In context with Chick-fil-A it is a benefit as number of suppliers are high in UK and this lowers
their bargaining power when it aims to operate in UK market.
Bargaining power of Buyers, power exercised by the buyers to reduce the price of
product. This is affected by factors like,
Cost of switching to another product, availability of substitute, number of buyers, price
sensitivity.
Chick-fil-A has to make a very effective strategy for this as high number of competitors and fast
food companies already existing in UK make it really difficult for new companies to gain
adequate profit as customers switching from one company to other is very common. This make
them having strong bargaining power.
Rivalry among existing competitors, the level of rivalry that exist in existing competitors.
This is affected by following factor,
Competitors' number, cost of leaving industry, growth rate, customer loyalty, marketing
expenses of each competitor, differentiation in product.
Rivalry among existing companies is high in UK as competition in them is perfect competition
all the companies like McDonalds, KFC, Subway do very effective marketing and number of
companies is also high this create a situation of strong rivalry among existing companies and this
also is a challenge for Chick-fil-A while operating in UK.
To apply this model Chick-fil-A will need to, Gather information on all these forces,
company will need to gather information and for that it can do primary and secondary research.
Data can be collected from internet and search engine, business news and journal and company
can also perform research to gather information. Chick-fil-A will need to gather all these data in
context with UK fast food industry and globally operating fast food industry.
Company once gather information then it requires analysing the information,

Information once collected needs to be analysed and company can analyse this information by
various means like opportunities available and threats that exist. This information is further used
for creating strategies for business and exist in a competitive environment. Other methods from
which company can analyse its market includes SWOT as important (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek,
2016). This is as follows-
SWOT Analysis
Strengths Weaknesses
 Quality workforce.  Fresher in UK market.
Opportunities Threats
 Wide range of customer base in UK.  Existing competitors. (Tang and et.al.,
2018)
OBJECTIVES
SMART Objectives
To increase chances of realising and effectively realising objectives designed by Chick-
fil-A needs to be SMART, which refers to Specific, Measurable, Attainable, relavan and timely.
To spread its function and market in UK Chick-fil-A will also need to design objectives that are
SMART. Here two objectives are being taken as company wants to expand its operation.
These are,
 To create awareness in UK market and its potential customers about existence of brand.
 To increase market share of the company.
These objectives are SMART and its justification is as follows,
Specific- both these objectives are specific as these clearly states what company want to
achieve. First objective clearly states that company want to aware potential customers of UK so
that company can attract those customers towards itself. To do this best practice is to advertise
about the company and its brand there are various methods company can use and make people
aware that company is soon going to establish itself in UK. On the other hand second objective
clearly states that company seeks to increase its market share. This is both clear and complete.
To fulfil this objective company is willing to expand its operation in UK.
Measurable- It means and refers that objectives that are developed should be measurable
in qualitative terms in terms of profit and revenue. First statement is measurable in terms of
customers that contribute in profit of company and who visits and purchase product of the

company. On the other hand second objectives is measurable in terms of places where company
operate itself like 5000 stores in 45 states.
Attainable- Objectives may seem to be difficult at first but they need to possible to
attain. Objectives which are impossible to attain and are unrealistic are not considered as smart.
Chick-fil-A' s objectives are attainable and requires a clear and effective strategy. Objectives also
need to be challenging and these objectives are challenging and difficult to fulfil which requires
adequate efforts in psychologically and physically.
Relevant- Objectives need to be relevant to the main goal of the company. In case of
Chick-fil-A its main goal is to expand in UK market. First objective which is about creating
awareness in potential customers is totally relevant as without customers' having an idea of
company's existence in their country they will not be able to buy products of the company. It will
make it difficult to remain and exist in UK market. On the other hand second objective which
states to increase market share this objective is also completely relevant as without increasing its
market share company cannot expand its operation in UK market.
Timely- It means that company should set objectives which are time bound and in this
case company has decided that they will open its franchise in UK market by the end of current
financial year which in total provides a time limit of 1 year. Both the objectives are bounded to
this time limit and company needs to make efforts that it can create awareness in potential
customers and then expand its operation in UK market.
Competitive Analysis
Competitive analysis is about to observe the existing competition in the market. In competitive
analysis company research about different strategies such as products, sales and marketing of all
the existing competitor in the market. Chick- fil- A can look at all the productive aspects about
all its competitor in UK market and make an effective and suitable marketing strategies for itself.
Main competitors of Chick-fil-A's are KFC and Sam' their strength and weaknesses are as
follows.
KFC
Strength Weaknesses
 KFC provides a non meat menu for its
customers in growing market.
 Well known company and brand.
 Non-organised franchise system of
KFC.
 Unhealthy menu of KFC which is not
for modern health conscious people.

McDonalds
Strength Weakness
 Improved quality control and health
initiatives.
 Tasty food, its french fries are
considered best.
 Lack of employee satisfaction.
 Lost charm of its breakfast menu.
Competitive advantage
In competitive advantage based on the current market condition company expects to take
maximum advantage in the capacity. Competitive advantage is mostly motivated by the
competitive analysis and based on the factors comes out of competitive analysis Chick-fil-A can
make a plain to take competitive advantage for itself in UK market. Company can give various
benefits to its customer in the UK market like low cost food products, better quality, more
varieties in products and company can even introduce some new food products to create its own
customer base and to take a better competitive advantage for itself in UK market.
STP
These strategies are applied by the company in order to assume its potential market. This
approach is audience based approach that seeks to decide potential market on the basis of Market
Segmentation, selecting the target market and positioning product. Chick-fil-A can also apply the
same model to decide company's market in UK. First step and factor in this model is concerned
with segmentation of market.
Market segmentation is deciding customer groups on various basis which are
Demographic, it includes segmentation on the basis of age, gender, education, profession and
geography.
Psychographic, this includes segmentation on the basis of personality, hobbies and lifestyle of
the audience.
Lifestyle, what activities people get involved in when they are not working like their hobbies,
entertainment preferences and vacation.
Behaviour, this is an important factor that contribute to economic decisions of an individual.
Targeting is selecting the target market. Target Market are divided on these factors,

Size, one of the most important criteria for target market. This is based on the size of market
segment. Size of market presently have also increased as there is no requirement of geographical
concentration. In case of Chick-fil-A this does not suit as this is an fast food company and
requires opening its physical stores and franchise and that is why Chick-fil-A have to concentrate
on geographic aspect of market.
Difference, measurable and identifiable difference must exist in segments.
Money, important concern for every business, incremental profits should be definitely more than
the cost of additional marketing cost.
Accessibility, customers should have accessibility to the place where business is operating. For
Chick-fil-A it is very important that it is accessible to customers. Without accessibility customers
will not be able to buy its product and its aim of increasing profitability will remain unachieved.
Positioning the product, on the basis of segmentation and targeting company needs to
position its product, positioning simply refers to space where product of a company resides in
view of customers relative to those of competitors.
Product positioning have three variables that are,
Functional positioning, it refers to value preposition in context with meeting customers' needs
and desires.
Symbolic positioning, this is concerned with luxurious and prestigious brand that are supposed to
fulfil self-esteem of customers.
Experiential positioning, brand that addresses emotional connection with customers.
In relation with Chick-fil-A there product positioning is functional as they are concerned with
fulfilling needs and desires of the customers that are related to fast food.
Chick-fil-A after segmenting, targeting and positioning its product can plan for deploying
resources that are required to spread itself in UK market.
To know about potential market position company can also prepare a perceptual map.
Perceptual map is a chart that is used for market research to understand hoe target market
customers see and feel about a particular brand and product. These are also said as product
positioning map. This chart allows organisation to understand about the competitive position of
their brand. To use this chart this is formed in a survey form and that survey is distributed to
customers and potential customers. This perceptual map is made in a graph form where two
attributes of the brand are allotted to each axis and then different brand are required to position at

these axis. Chick-fil-A can also prepare a perceptual map that can have attributes like tasty on X
axis and Not tasty on Y axis other attribute can be Hygienic on X axis and Not Hygienic on y
axis. Chick-fil-A can do this type of survey with customers of US and then with potential
customers of UK.
7Ps
Marketing Mix strategies
Marketing strategy on the basis of 7 Ps is being discussed below. 7 P's which refers to
Product, Price, Promotion, Place, Packaging, Positioning and People.
Product- first P of marketing is concerned with product. This refers too what kind of
whose needs and wants are being satisfied by the product which is being offered by the
company. Chick-fil-A which is a fast food company fulfils needs of everyone in general instead
of any specific group of people. But fast food products are in general liked by young and
working people as it saves time and considered as tasty. That is why company needs to prepare a
marketing strategy so young and working people can be attracted towards Chick-fil-A's products.
Price- Price of fast food products need to be moderate that everyone can afford to buy
them. These products are not specifically for any class of people and that requires it to be sold at
a affordable price. Chick-fil-A have to decide a price that everyone can afford the product and is
also competitive in UK market. If price of its food is high customers can switch to another
product.
Promotion- Promotion refers to the way company communicate to customers and
potential customers about their product. Presently promotion of product is done through digital
mediums and Chick-fil-A can also promote itself from digital mediums. Other than this company
can also choose to promote itself using traditional techniques like print advertisement and
billboards.
Place- It refers to place where products of the company are available. Chick-fil-A is a
fast food company and can avail its products to a place around where its operating. Generally
those people who lives around the place will come to eat at its place and if company choose
mediums like home delivery and online sale then also it can go to a limited distance as the
products are not such that they can be delivered on a long distance. Chick-fil-A should ensure
that people and locality around is aware of its existence.

Packaging- It means that kind of packaging and cover that company does for its product.
This is also important for Chick-fil-A to make the product look attractive that instigate customers
buy the product.
Positioning- Positioning of product is concerned with what value people have in their
mind for a product regarding its competitors. This is a difficult part of marketing and to bring
and keep a product on a high position company requires to use various techniques like price
premium and quality of the product.
People- It is about the people inside and out of the company. These are the one most
important aspect of every business activity. These are the people who produce the product and
those are also people who consume the product. Every decision should be concerned with people
and company should consider human value and beliefs.
Chick-fil-A needs to consider these marketing mix to create a effective marketing
strategy that can attract and retain people loyal for Chick-fil-A.
Ansoff Matrix
Ansoff Matrix can also be called as Product or Market expansion grid. It is use to make strategies
for the growth and development of the company (Dawes, 2018). Chick-fil-A can use Market
Penetration strategy of Ansoff Matrix that is the best suitae for the company because it is
planning to enter into a new market (Loredana, 2016). To understand this matrix better one
illustration is being included in this report which is as follows.