Chipotle's Strengths

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ShopHouse is a very valuable firm in regards to its resources, capabilities, and core competencies. Chipotle, as ShopHouse’s parent company, has a deep commitment to serving “Food with Integrity,” high quality food that comes from from more human farming environments (Thompson et al. c-118). Another huge resource that ShopHouse has to support its growth efforts and help it succeed is the knowledge of the companies in the same industry that have already been successful, namely McDonald’s and Chipotle (Thompson et al. c-115). As a fast-casual type of restaurant, ShopHose can expect some stiff competition due to the rapidly growing nature of the industry, however, as a fast-casual restaurant that serves Asian cuisine, ShopHouse has found a niche…show more content…
One of its strengths, Food with Integrity, sometimes must be compromised when organic or sustainably grown food products reach prices too high, the restaurant has to revert to using conventionally grown meats (Thompson et al. c-118). Another strength of ShopHouse, that it is a first mover into a niche market (Southeast Asian fast-casual cuisine) can also be a weakness of the company, in that that particular type of food is relatively new to many demographics and it has the potential to go untried in many communities, especially those that lack diversity. A final weakness of ShopHouse is the ever-increasing amount of competition it is facing as more restaurants are seeking to meet the needs of customers in search of healthier choices (i.e. Taco Bell’s Cantina menu) (Thompson et al.…show more content…
The aforementioned Food with Integrity policy to which Chipotle and ShopHouse try to stick is likely to bring in customers, but unfortunately it is probably not a sustainable competitive advantage at this time due to variation in price and supply, especially in different regions of the country and at different times of the year (Thompson et al. c-118). Chipotle takes an interesting approach to marketing, focusing a lot on word-of-mouth marketing, especially through its Farm Team, where members of an invitation-only club for loyal and passionate customers learn about Chipotle and its food, and are rewarded for sharing that knowledge. This innovative approach to marketing is likely sustainable, as word-of-mouth marketing has proven to be successful (Thompson et al. c-121). Thirdly, Chipotle gains competitive advantage from its staffing model, as it rewards hard work, dedication, and talent by promoting employees from within and providing good pay and benefits to employees to decrease turnover and increase the number of potential employees from which the company can choose to employ (Thompson et al. c-120). A final competitive advantage that Chipotle and ShopHouse have is the team of real estate managers who seek out and select the best, most effective sites for new restaurants. Where some restaurants will fail due to poor location choices, employing experts to

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