In: Operations Management
5Guys is a well-known American fast casual restaurant chain focused on hamburgers, hot dogs and French fries. It has grown rapidly in the past 20 years and now has more than 1500 store locations. Its menu, especially its bacon and cheese burgers, are well regarded, and have received numerous awards and mentions. In fact, the chain has something of a cult following. Suppose 5Guys is considering offering a plant-based, non-meat burger using a “Beyond Meat” patty in its U.S. stores. The goal of introducing such a meatless burger alternative is to increase 5Guys’ sales revenue.
The textbook describes various growth strategies firms may adopt. A well-known framework for assessing growth opportunities is the “product/market expansion grid.” Your task is to identify which of the four strategy options in the matrix (grid) best matches with 5Guys’ proposed meatless burger. Briefly explain why the strategy you selected is better than the other possible ones. Begin your answer with the name of that strategy.
4 strategy options
Product Development Strategy: Is the best option that suits this situation or strategy taken up by 5Gguys because the grid explains it to be so. A new product introduced to an existing market explains this component of the product/market expansion grid. In this quadrant the new product which is introduced into an existing market must have a purpose either the company does not want to sell what they have been selling or they have identified a business volume which they have been missing or they want to experiment based on the information they have got.
The other 2 quadrants i.e. the Market Penetration & Market Development Strategy talks about the product being new and the markets being existent and new which fails in this case because the product is new to the market but the market is already existent.
Lastly, the Diversification strategy talks about the product & market being relatively new which again fails to quantify the situation in this case.
Thereby we come to the conclusion that Product Development strategy is the best select strategy in here as the market of burgers is already existent but the no-meat burger is relatively new