Harvard solution

The unique marketing strategies of Chick-fil-a are the featuring of a cow and
designing creative slogans along with building a raving fan base. The company had
identified a group of customers and its nicknamed raving fans. The characteristic of
those fan bases include visiting of the franchise on more than four occasions in a
month. While evaluating the particular core competency of the company, it has
been placed in the third row which allows temporary competitive advantage and
above average returns. The core competency of creative marketing strategy is
however a rare strategy applied by the company which has increased its popularity
and increased its growth by 13% annually. Although, the core competency can be
imitated by other companies and the particular capability is also substitutable. By
implementing this strategy, the company is earning above average revenues than
its industry.

Alternatives

Alternative 1: Decentralized structure and Democratic Leadership Style

Advantages

A decentralized structure would enable the empowerment of decision making to

the lower land middle level management which would help in quick solving of
customers problems. When applying the particular strategy, any personal views
that shall be shared by the CEO would have little or no effect on the goodwill of the
company because the culture of the organization would already be enabled at
solving customers problems. If any of the problems related to employee
harassment, protests and other issues occur; the employees of the organization
would deal with those issues because they would be empowered. The democratic
leadership style compliments the decentralized decision making where a leader
does not do anything without the will and mutual consensus of its teams. Currently,
an authoritarian leadership style is practiced which allows the CEO to perform any
task at will.

Disadvantages
While the future growth and expansion of the company in different countries, the
process of decentralization would not be a suitable option because it would not
give the top management higher amount of authority and control to launch its
product. The control over the operating process would be low for the owners
despite the fact that they have been successfully operating the business since the
start of Chick-fil-a. Also, a strong resistance would be felt by the employees of the
organization because little change in revenues has occurred due to the centralized
structure. The organization may become fragmented as the company which worked
as a single unit with a sense of team spirit can never be same in the decentralized
structure.

Alternative 2: Follow Current Strategy

Advantages

Sticking with the same strategy of criticizing on the sensitive issues would also
increase the popularity of the company and decreasethe negative publicity.
However,the growth of the company has increased since its inception, it could be
assumed that the company would gain the similar growth in the future because of
the authoritarian leadership style within the company. Any change in the structure
may decrease the revenues of the company because strong employee ties and
work environment has been developed since the beginning of the company. A
sudden change would disrupt the productivity of employees. Following the same
strategy would also provide the benefit of getting hold of the domestic market

Disadvantages

The current strategy would also impose high level of disadvantage as it would risk
the reputation and the goodwill of the company. Due to the increased protesting
against the comments by Cathy and aiding for anti-gay marriage movements, this
would discourage the entrance of the company in different countries whenever it
would plan to perform international expansion. It is also reported that a decline has
also started to occur in the revenues of Chick-fil-a which may further dent the plans
for the company to move in the international market. If the same case happens for
a longer period of time, then the US government may intervene and could insert
sanctions against the company and may limit its domestic presence as well(Kass &
Stafford, 2013).

Recommendations

As Chick-fil-a has a core advantage only in the US market where the rights of same-
sex marriage and homosexuality laws protect its citizens and the homosexual
people, therefore the company must change its current strategy and apply a
decentralized organizational structure in order to eliminate the similar scenarios to
occur. Currently, the management of Chick-fil-a uses an authoritarian leadership
style and centralized decision making approach which is the reason why the
company has been criticizing its customers without knowing the outcome that it
would cause to the overall reputation of the company

This is just a sample partial case solution. Please place the order on the website to order
your own originally done case solution.