LB170 Greggs Success Story: Communication Skills Project

This project analyzes the success story of Greggs, a prominent UK bakery chain. The assignment begins with an overview of Greggs' history, starting from its inception as a door-to-door service in 1939 to its current status with over 2,000 shops and 20,000 employees. The project highlights key factors contributing to Greggs' success, such as their strategic response to the 2011 economic crisis, the introduction of the vegan sausage roll, and their ability to compete with larger chains like Starbucks and Pret. The analysis also explores Greggs' areas for growth, including a focus on health and calorie reduction. The assignment further discusses public perception, customer relationship strategies, and instances of struggle and adaptation. The project includes references to various sources and provides a comprehensive understanding of Greggs' journey and business practices, as well as providing insights for business and management students.

Success story of Greggs

History of Greggs’ journey
Greggs known as one of the ‘hot food bakery chain’ in the UK.
Started their journey in the year 1939 (Greggs.co.uk, 2020).
The founder of the bakery is John Gregg.
The journey began with a door to door service of delivering eggs and
yeast.
The service was only provided around Newcastle.
John Gregg established the first bakery in Gosforth High Street.
It was established in the year of 1951 (Greggs.co.uk, 2020).
The bakery is now dwelling with 2000 shops and 20,000 employees.
The headquarter of Greggs is still now in Newcastle.

Secrets of Greggs’ success
The prevalent crisis in Britain during 2011 was defined by Gregg’s strategy.
During this time profits of pre-tax rose to £40.6 m from £25.7.
The sales rate increased up to 15% (Copland 2017).
The CEO Roger Whiteside considered this year as an exceptional one.
They introduced the vegan sausage roll during that time.
The bakery was growing with an unnoticed speed to compete with Starbucks
and Pret (Gardiner 2017).
The Branch at London Bridge was observed with high traffic rate in spite of
insufficient sitting arrangement.
The reason was the low cost products that provided a combination of Vegan
Sausage roll and a Portuguese custard at £5.10.

Area of growth for Greggs
According to Jones, Greggs need to focus on the aspect of Health.
The company was we aware about the importance of calorie reduction.
The bakery anticipated legislation around the notion of calorie reduction
(Haleem and Jehangir 2017).
They are making future planning on the same agenda of health.

Perception about Greggs
During the initial stages people were agree to consider Greggs as snobbish.
However the reasonable product range successfully changed the initial
notion (Hammond 2017).
Greggs introduced numerous profitable stunts to bring new consumers and
maintain the existing customers.
Greggs offered fine dining during the celebration of Valentine’s Day.
 Well dressed waiters offered mini doughnuts dipped with chocolate sauce
(Kasriel-Alexander 2016).
These stunts were successfully brought new consumers for the company.
Existing consumers were also exhibit their loyalty for the bakery.

Story of Struggle
Whiteside considered 2013 as the worst year within the entire venture.
Competition with the supermarkets resulted into losing a huge amount of
share in bakery (Kasriel-Alexander 2016)..
The compensation strategy of delivering food-to-go was also a failure.
The new entrants in the market including Costa, Subway, M&S, and Tesco
Express covered the path for success.
In spite of diversified focus they again provided stress on the compensation
of food-to-go (Hammond 2017).
The strategy helped to entirely revamp the company’s growth strategy.
The success drove them towards opening new branches scattered all over
the location.

Customer relationship
Greggs acquired other confectionaries by the year 1972.
John Gregg was always a reluctant entrepreneur.
The person was always concerned about maintaining the values
prompted by the company for the consumers (Greggs.co.uk, 2020).
During the end of 1987, they established Greggs Foundation.
At the end of that year, the foundation feed near about 6.6 m children
from the underprivileged community(Hammond 2017).
Within the next five years, the company opened more than thousand
branches for the persons in need of suitable jobs.
The democratizing appeal for growth won the consumer's heart.

References
Colás, A., 2019. Internationalism under platform Capitalism: Brexit and the organisation of UK
fast food workers. The Political Quarterly, 90(4), pp.620-628.
Copland, M., 2017. Case study: The business of farm animal welfare at Greggs. In The
Business of Farm Animal Welfare (pp. 197-203). Routledge.
Gardiner, M., 2017. Sunderland, industrial giant: recollections of working life. The History Press.
Greggs.co.uk. (2020). Greggs. [online] Available at: https://www.greggs.co.uk [Accessed 10
Feb. 2020].
Haleem, F. and Jehangir, M., 2017. Strategic Management Practices by Morrison PLC, UK.
Analysis, Lessons and Implications. Middle East Journal of Business, 55(4182), pp.1-7.
Hammond, R., 2017. Smart retail: winning ideas and strategies from the most successful
retailers in the world. Pearson UK.
Kasriel-Alexander, D., 2016. Top 10 global consumer trends for 2015 (pp. 18-21). Euromonitor
International.