Michelle's Patisserie: Business Expansion into Canada and USA Report

This report examines Michelle's Patisserie's international expansion strategy, focusing on its potential entry into the Canadian and United States markets. It provides an overview of the company, its current operations, and organizational culture. The report analyzes the company's expansion plans, considering the challenges and opportunities in the new markets. It also compares the franchise model with joint ventures, recommending the latter for reduced risk and increased brand awareness. The report emphasizes the importance of understanding local demographics, trends, and cultural factors to align with the organizational culture. The conclusion suggests that the company should employ joint venturing strategies to succeed in the new markets, emphasizing the need for cultural understanding and effective strategies for success.

MICHELLE’S
PATISSERIE
Business Expansion Internationally

Company Overview
•Michelle’s Patisserie is a food outlet which
offers cakes, pastries and different flavors of
coffees and delight the customers.
•The company was founded in 1988, in Australia.
•The company now has around 360 stores across
the country which are operated by over 4000
employees (Michels.com.au 2020).
•It sells over 36 million cups of coffee and 9.5
million slices of cakes to the customers.

Plan of Expansion
•The company is Australia based, even though it
has expanded in countries like Indonesia, China
and New Zealand.
•The company, now is intending to enter newer
markets in countries like Canada and United
States of America.
•The western countries have great opportunities
which the company wishes to address in order to
grow in the market and increase revenue
generation (Lynch and Jin 2016).

Organizational Culture
•The company is native to Australian culture, thus, it
is familiar with multiculturalism.
•The employees do not have barriers to communicate
with one another even though they come from
various cultural backgrounds (Gitman et al. 2018).
•Yet there is lack of motivation as the employees are
not supervised by the leaders and managers
effectively to guide them towards a direction.
•This has resulted in quality issues faced by the
company.

Strategies Followed
•The company operates though Franchises.
•The Retail Food Group manages operation of the company.
•The company offers personalization and customization
which is very crucial for bakery outlets (Michels.com.au
2020).
•Michelle Patisserie offers their products which are live
baked, which has attracted buyers (Michels.com.au 2020).
•The company makes use of internet to maintain
relationships with their customers and clients and create
interest among them (Lynch and Jin 2016).

Franchise
•Due to Franchising, the company does not
have entire control over training and quality
issues which are faced at many outlets and
affected reputation of the company.
•The management of the shop and services
are not same at all the outlets which creates
a difference in standard and quality, which
is very crucial for expanding internationally.

Joint Venture
•The company should engage in joint venture, in
order to expand, as this would involve less risks
while entering new market.
•The company can make use of the knowledge and
resources of an already established company in
the market, in order to grow and develop
strategies which are best suited to gain
acceptance and flourish.
•Joint venture with a reputed brand will help
create brand awareness in the new market.

Recommendation
•Michelle Patisserie should try to understand the demography,
trend and social factors which influence the expectations of
the people. This needs to be aligned with the organizational
culture, for optimum outcomes (Lynch and Jin 2016).
•The company should develop a work force which is competent
to understand expectations of the customers and meet them.
This will enable the company with local ideas, which will help
the company thrive and succeed in the competitive
environment.
•Rather than following Franchise, the company should follow
Joint venture which will be more beneficial to create brand
awareness with less risks involved.

Conclusion
•Expanding in countries like USA and Canada might
be challenging in the first place as the business
environment and culture are very different.
• The company should employ joint venturing
strategies to be able to succeed without involving
too much of risks.
•Michelle Patisserie should aim to understand the
culture and develop effective strategies and
organizational culture, in order to be successful.

References
•Gitman, L.J., McDaniel, C., Shah, A., Reece, M., Koffel,
L., Talsma, B. and Hyatt, J.C., 2018. Franchising: A
Popular Trend. Introduction to Business.
•Lynch, R. and Jin, Z., 2016. Exploring the institutional
perspective on international business expansion:
Towards a more detailed conceptual framework.
Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 1(2), pp.117-124.
•Michels.com.au, 2020. Michel's. [online] Michel's.
Available at: <https://www.michels.com.au/>
[Accessed 6 April 2020].