Strategic Review and E-Business Planning for Slices Restaurant

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Slices Restaurant, a UAE-based establishment offering healthy food options. It begins with an executive summary, followed by a company overview, including its core values and operational structure. The report then delves into a PESTEL analysis, evaluating the political, economic, social, technological, ecological, and legal factors impacting Slices. A SWOT analysis assesses the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The current strategies of Slices, including product differentiation, pricing, and social responsibility, are examined, highlighting the need for strategic review and planning, particularly in marketing. The report proposes a new strategic direction, emphasizing e-business marketing strategies, outlining objectives, and identifying target segments. The report also stresses the value created by the e-business strategy, concluding with a focus on privacy, ethical, and legal considerations. The report aims to provide Slices with actionable recommendations for enhancing its market position and achieving its growth objectives.

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E-BUSINESS STRATEGIES
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Executive summary
For the last few decades, most organisations across the globe are striving to counter the
threat of competitive business environment resulting from global changes. The environment is
becoming more competitive and aggressive due to globalisation. To survive in such an
environment, a business must plan and lay down comprehensive profit-oriented strategies that
aim at ensuring survival in the market. A strategic plan should contain proposed strategies, a
target market and the type of competitive benefits that an organisation can derive from such
strategies.
There is an increase in the number of companies offering the same products or services
within a given sector of economy. Thus, competition becomes very stiff calling for a strategic
and effective management to develop various strategies aimed at countering such competitive
threats. Consequently, the organisational management should look for what they can offer
differently in the best way possible to beat its competitors. Before engaging in strategy
implementation certain strategies, the organisation must analyze its current state and compare
itself with the existing competitors and make recommendations based on what they can do best
to stay ahead of the rival businesses. Therefore, most strategies are aligned to the current
business environment which should be analyzed to establish what can be done best to achieve the
target goals and objectives. This report seeks to analyse the current situation of Slices, a
restaurant offering affordable healthy foods in UAE. The report looks into its current strategies
and newly proposed strategies that an organization need to initiate and implement for the purpose
of gaining a competitive advantage. Finally, the report will seek to analyze the financial
capability of the organization and the benefits an organisation can derive from the planning and
implementation of new strategies.

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E-Business strategies
About the Company
Slices is a restaurant offering affordable health food in UAE. It was established by four
Emirati friends who sought to enter the food industry in a unique way by offering fresh, healthy
and quick food to learners and corporate executives at competitive prices. The company deals
with products ranging from sandwiches, soups, smoothies and organic salads.
Slices commenced its operations in January 2012 in Abu Dhabi in UAE. Currently, the
company operates two catering contacts and four retail outlets spread across the country. The
company has a total number of 35 employees who are generally young and energetic. The
organisation is fully funded by Khalifa Fund, a government entity aiming at supporting young
entrepreneurs and offer room for growth.
The core values and principles that guide Slices include: consistency in creating good
customer relationships, environmental conservation, supporting the community, continuous
performance improvement, offering unique healthy and cheap products, encouraging employee
productivity and creating a long-lasting and improved supplier relationships.
Analysis of Slices current situation
PESTEL Analysis
Political factors: Looking at the political factors, UAE is enjoying a good political
environment which allows growth of small companies like Slices. For instance, government
policies like the introduction of Khalifa Fund has given young entrepreneurs owning Slices an
opportunity to grow (Dobrivojevic 2013, pp. 365).

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Economic factors: The country has a well-established and growing economy which offers
the company an opportunity to grow and become one the most performing company in food and
catering industry. Thus, the company can take advantage of the growing economy to diversify
their services and grow tremendously.
Social factors: The Company has a well-established community initiative policy and CSR
strategy that help the company to establish goodwill with the community around it. Such
initiatives include “No Food Goes to Waste” and “The Slices Health Drive”. The company has
also strived to be environmental friendly thus ensuring that it relates well with the community
around it. The company also supports the employment for young, energetic and educated people
from within the localities (Dobrivojevic 2013, pp. 365).
Technological factors: Despite the influence of global technological advancements, the
company has not been able to use any technology-aided systems to run their activities. For a
company striving to succeed in the contemporary business environment, the use of technology in
its operations has become a necessity. Thus, failure to utilize technology in its operations remain
one of the company’s weaknesses.
Ecological factors: The government has set some provisions that seek to compel the
businesses to remain environmentally friendly within the area where it operates. Slices has
strived to observe that by initiating rules that observe low energy consumption and
environmental pollution.
Legal factors: There are legal requirements to guide and lead the organisational
operations. Some of these include equal access to employment opportunities, environmental
conservation and CSR. The organization has remained socially ethical by undertaking some

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community initiatives such as No Food Goes to Waste and The Slices Healthy Drive to support
the community. The company has also maintained little ecological imprints which guarantees
low environmental pollution.
SWOT Analysis
The section seeks to analyse the company’s current state in the business environment. It
includes Slices’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (Williamson, Cooke, Jenkins
and Moreton 2013, pp. 30).
Strengths
The company has a sustainable funding from the government. Slices has experienced and
energetic founders with enough knowledge to help the firm in attaining the desired growth. The
company also enjoys stable political and economic environment that supports growth. Product
differentiation offers the company a competitive advantage in the market (Dälken 2014, pp. 25).
Weaknesses
Failure to integrate technology in its daily operations despite global technological
advancements.
Opportunities
Consumer and community goodwill that offers the company an opportunity to grow. The
company enjoys funding from the government thus giving it financial resources needed for a
sustainable growth. The company has an opportunity to attract more customers due to its unique
healthy and affordable products.

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Threats
Competition from other companies that might come in the industry and take away the
Slices’ idea due to lack of intellectual rights. Lack of specific goals might edge them out of the
market. Lack of any marketing strategy is also a threat to the company since marketing is
important in driving sales.
The Company’s Current Strategies
Slices has established a number of strategies that have helped the company to grow
rapidly and extend their branches to other areas. Such strategies include:
Product differentiation
Slices has seen the need to offer customers with unique, affordable and healthy products
that no other companies in the industry has been able to offer. The company has noticed that
people have been attracted to fast food that lead to obesity, overweight and other health related
issues. Therefore, the company is struggling to address that issue through creation of an
alternative product that will replace fast foods and offer health benefits (West, Ford and Ibrahim
2015, pp. 106).
Pricing strategy
As a new company in the industry, Slices is trying to penetrate the market by utilising the
pricing strategy to attract customers to buy their products (Sokhatska and Lahotska 2013, pp.
118). Customers are always attracted to cheap products that satisfy their needs and offer value

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for their money. The company is offering affordable products with a competitive price to lure
consumers to buy their products (Tanwar 2013, pp. 14).
Social Responsibility Strategy
A company has initiated a CSR strategy to help in creating goodwill with the society and
also fulfill the legal requirements. The company has remained ethical to the community through
various initiatives as well as environmental conservation (Porter and Heppelmann 2014, pp. 74).
Thus, the company has high chances of attracting consumers from the surrounding community
and also avoid legal conflicts arising from disobeying government legislations.
The Need for Strategic Review and Planning
In the contemporary business environment, the issue is not how you produce quality
product at an affordable price. Hence, cost is not the main issue in the strategic management
(Proctor, 2014, pp. 120). The main issue that dictates the company’s survival in the market is the
marketing capabilities (Sheth and Sisodia 2015, pp. 52). Thus, from the current analysis of
Slices, the company lacks a marketing strategy to market and promote their products.
It essential to understand that with the rapid technological advancements witnessed in the
global market, many companies are appreciating the need to use technology-aided methods and
techniques in their daily operations (Baker and Saren 2016, pp. 31). The core impact of internet
is to support the key marketing activities of a company. Therefore, Slices has failed to make use
of electronic technology to help in marketing its products. Marketing is fundamental element that
supports the organisational growth (Baker 2014, pp. 134). Therefore, the main aim of the report
is to emphasize on the need for Slices to adopt technology aided means to boost its marketing
activities for products.

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The New Strategic direction and planning
Marketing Strategies
From the analysis of Slices’ business environment and current strategies, it is important
to note that technology is a big threats to the company’s growth. The recommendation here is to
compel the company to adopt technology in trying to market its products (Aaker and Biel 2013,
pp. 24). Therefore, the process of planning the strategies and their implementation will follow
the Roadmap for e-Business strategy implementation as discussed below.
The Company’s Vision
Before engaging in any strategic planning process, the company must refer to its mission
statement. By doing so, the firm will be able to understand whether the planning and
implementation of a certain strategy is in line with its mission and purpose (Foxall 2014, pp. 85).
“To be the leading company offering healthy food with a corporate social responsibility
viewpoint” The sole mission of the company is “to offer fresh, healthy and quick food to
students and contemporary executives at competitive prices” Following the reports by BMC
Public Health journal, UAE has been ranked the fifth country with the fattest people in the
world. A high percentage of population aged 6-18 years are either overweight or obese. Some
other 10 percent of the children below 5 years are suffering from anemia. Therefore, the mission
and vision of the company is based on fighting health related issues through popularizing the
notion of healthy eating. However, for Slices to succeed in that, it must engage in endless
marketing activities to create awareness among its target audience about their product that will
address all the health issues. The marketing strategy here will be highly inclined to online
marketing or e-business (Heding, Knudtzen and Bjerre 2015, pp. 206).

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E-Business marketing Strategy
Objectives
During strategic planning process, a company must establish appropriate objectives and
goals that should be achieved from the implementation of the new strategy (Payne and Frow
2013, pp. 78). By setting the objectives right, the company’s management will be able to
establish the direction to be followed in implementing its strategy and the activities to be
undertaken. Such objectives include:
Creating awareness among the target segment about the need for observing healthy eating
to avoid many diseases related to unhealthy eating. Acquiring the relevant systems and sites that
will serve the purpose of online marketing. To understand how to use technology aided systems
and sites in creating and disseminating messages about their product. To help in marketing their
products to a wider range of target audience through virtual consumer engagements and online
selling. To create a good relationship between the company and the target audience through
online interaction and communication. To sustain the nature of the competitive environment
brought by globalisation and technological advancements (Heding, Knudtzen and Bjerre 2015,
pp. 208).
Value Created by the e-business strategy
Any strategy must add value to the organization in form of tangible and intangible
benefits (Porter and Magretta 2014, pp. 150). Such values include: Increased brand awareness,
increased sales, creation of the consumer relationships through interaction

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Target Segments
Strategic planning involves the establishment of who you want to target (Hill, Jones and
Schilling 2014, pp. 123). The targeted segment here is: Young students and contemporary
executives with value proposition of “get fresh, healthy and quick food at an affordable and
competitive price”
Privacy, ethical and legal issues linked with strategy implementation
In the effort to plan on the strategy, we need to consider: The ability to ensure that
consumers’ information remain confidential. To be able to observe the cyberbullying laws which
does not allow access of the systems information by third parties. Security purposes of the
systems to avoid hacking (Farjam and Hongyi 2015, pp. 21).
External partners
In this case, network service providers and system developers are needed to install
systems and ensure that they keep maintaining them during testing to ensure that it fulfills the
objectives of the proposed strategic plan.
The organizational model
The organizational model used to implement the plan is the functional model that will
allow the establishment of a digital marketing unit to handle online businesses (Williamson,
Cooke, Jenkins and Moreton 2013, pp. 35).
Revenue and cost model used
The model used here is resource-based view. It helps to gauge the organization’s
financial capability and the resources that a company has against the activity to be carried, that

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is, it gauges the cost of implementing the strategies and processes against what the organization
can afford to do.
Strategy Alignment
According to the company’s mission of providing affordable and healthy foods, the e-
strategy is aimed at supporting the differentiation in reaching our clients and offering them
unique services like online buying, queries, clarifications as well as reaching a wide range of
clients across the whole country through technology-aided means (Porter and Magretta 2014, pp.
148).
Strategy implementation Plan
The plan is based on how the implementation of the strategy will be carried out within a
period of one year. It includes objectives, activities carried out for every objective, benefits,
people involved and the time it will take to complete a task as analysed in the table below.
E-Business strategic plan implementation by Slices Company Ltd from June 2018-June 2019
Objective Activity Stakeholders
involved
Budget Benefits Time

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Acquisition of
online
marketing tools
To help
driving online
markets
through social
media and
company’s
website
System
developers
IT experts
AED 40,
000
Run a success
online
business to
help the
company
increase sales
June-Aug
2018
Learning on
how to use
marketing tools
Training od
employees in
the marketing
department
IT experts AED
10000
Increased
sales
Aug-Oct
2018
Creating
awareness on
the importance
of healthy
eating
Helping
marketers
understand
how develop
and
disseminate
healthy eating
messages
Digital
marketing
consultants
AED
15000
Attract more
consumers
Oct-Dec
2018
Understanding
the need to
reach a wide
range of
customers
Teach the
employees on
how to engage
and attract
customers
Digital
marketing
consultants
AED
13000
Increased
sales
Dec 2018-
Feb 2019

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using the online
marketing tools
online
Creation of
consumer
relationship
through online
interaction and
communication
Teach the
employees on
how to use
online tools to
interact with
clients
Digital
marketing
consultants
AED
14000
Attract more
consumers
Feb-April
2019
Countering the
competition
from the rival
companies in
the industry
Training in
online product
promotional
skills
Digital
marketing
consultants
AED
9000
Gaining
competitive
advantage
April-June
2019
Recommendations
The company should:
Consider the budget by determining whether they have enough money to run the whole
process of strategic planning and implementation of the newly proposed strategies. Establish a
marketing department and have employees there trained on the relevant skills needed for a
successful strategy implementation. The company should establish monitoring procedure with
evaluation tools to ensure that the goals and objectives are being achieved as outlined in the plan.
Slices should establish a human resource department to ensure that employees are managed and

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evaluated in order to achieve the set goals and objectives of the plan. The systems privacy should
be taken care of to ensure that consumer’s private data does not get into the wrong hands.
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