Salsa Dog's SWOT Analysis

Internal Strengths

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Workforce with relevant experience: Salsa Dog has a big number of experienced employees that have the right skills of dealing with customers and who are able to satisfy customers' needs. The large number of experienced employees gives the management the opportunity to offer better services for its customers.

The management is dynamic. This enables the management to tackle challenges effectively thereby improving on the operations of the restaurant and to remain operational in the industry all throughout the year despite the fluctuations prices of products used in the restaurant.

The business has an established brand name. The brand name of the restaurant enables it to enjoy customer loyalty and which leads to high profits and revenue. This greatly helps in the retaining the perpetual and new customers of the business.

There is the strong regional presence that the restaurant enjoys which enables it to fulfill its strategic objectives easily. The strong regional presence is because the brand has established equity in its products and services and this serves as an advantage if the restaurant plans to expand in the region.

Internal Weaknesses

The dynamic nature of the operations in the restaurant has led to inconsistency in the customer service. Although the restaurant aims at fulfilling the divergent needs of different customers by being dynamic, other customers are interested in the consistent quality of products and services at the restaurant.

There is the lack of first mover advantage in the advertisement strategies. In this manner, prospective clients do not easily know about the products and services that the restaurant offers which negatively affect it when it plans to acquire new customers.

The restaurant struggles with failed marketing initiatives in its attempt to respond to the stiff competition in the hotel and hospitality industry.

External Opportunities

There is an increasing growth of demands of the products and services of the hotel and hospitality industry. Due to the increasing industrialization in the region, there is increase in the number of clients of the industry and Salsa Dog is bound to benefit from the same.

The increasing number of learning institutions in the region also serves as an opportunity. This is because the increasing number of colleges and universities increases the demand for the products and services of Salsa Dog and this serves as a promising future for the restaurant.

The advancement of cooking and food preservation technology and its delivery capabilities. This makes it easier for restaurant to serve the customers with high quality foods and quickly to avoid any delays on the clients, this improves customer loyalty.

There is limited competition in the technology that the restaurant uses. This limits competition relating to the quality of products and services that the restaurant offers.

External Threats

There is high current competition and expected more competition in future. This is because there is possibility of new restaurants entering the industry in future which increases competition and reduces profits and revenue for the restaurant.

Lack of space for expansion. Due to industrialization, the space is becoming limited in the hotspots and this makes it challenging for the business to open up other branches and negatively affects the possibility of opening acquiring new customers. The firm is therefore forced to run few restaurants when there are prospects in other areas that could fetch much higher profits and revenue for the firm.

Question 1

In order for the Salsa Dog to gain more exposure in the industry, there are various issues that it needs to consider to make its operations successful and have the ease of penetrating the market segment. One of the factors that the management needs to consider is to increase the variety of the products and services that the restaurant offers as this will increase the customer base and ensure that the customers needs are satisfied. By ensuring that the needs of the customers are satisfied, there will be the ease of selling the brand name leading to the ease of exposing the business to the customers. Secondly, there is need for the business to improve on the quality of the products and this is due to the great interest that customers put on what they eat. The quality of the foods from the eatery needs to be above par and outmatch other players in the industry; this will make the business more sellable and help in increasing exposure of the business in the market.

Third, the business needs to make products more competitive and affordable to the common citizens, it is in this light that the business needs to ensure that the poor population can afford the goods and services that the business offer and increase the dominance of the business in the industry. Calculated lowering of the prices of goods and services would help in accommodating the low-income populations that would then leads to the increased exposure of the business in the industry. Finally, Salsa Dog needs to take part in the corporate social responsibility and help in reducing the high unemployment rate in the community. By employing the locals, Salsa Dog would help in reducing unemployment rate and this would then help in increasing its exposure in the community.

Question 2

In order to attract university students, Salsa Dog needs to take various initiatives that would help in the satisfying the needs and preferences of the university students. One of the changes that the management needs to work on is to increase the menu to accommodate the foodstuff that the university students usually like to purchase. It is in this light that the business would be able to attract the students and increase its customer base. Secondly, the staff at the business needs to have the right skills and etiquette that would enable them to interact with the university students more easily and in a cordial manner. By ensuring that employees have the right skills, they would be able to retain the customers and this will ensure a continuous flow university students buying from the business.

Ambience of the business is another matter that the business needs to work on and this would help in attracting the university students. The interior and the environment of the business should be kept clean and remain so. Identifying with the university students by appealing to their interest through the ambience would greatly help in ensuring that the facility provide the right comfort to the same and fulfills their needs. Additionally, in the process of fulfilling its corporate social responsibility, the management needs to ensure that it gives opportunity to the willing students to work at the eatery. This would give the students an opportunity to earn an extra income and enable them to increase their purchasing power; this would result to increase in the customer base and profits and revenue in the business. Additionally, the management of the business needs to take part in the various activities in the university among them sponsoring or founding the various tournaments such as baseball games, organizational picnics and outdoor events to appeal to the interest of the students.

Question 3

In order for Salsa Dog to compete with the fast food restaurants, there is need for improvement of business practices and one of the requirements is to ensure that the products and services at the eatery are not only good but different from other players in the field. Salsa Dog needs to have a one or several unique features that stand out from the rest and give the business a competitive advantage. Some of the unique features that Salsa Dog can consider are maintaining the cooking of fresh foodstuff daily and which no other restaurant can maintain or situating the restaurant at allocation with the most appealing scenery in town. Secondly, Salsa Dog needs to have a good business management that increase the chances of the business providing good products and services without any interruption, this would also help in increasing profits from the business. In this light, the management needs to have proper management of finances, good record keeping and conform to the laws and regulations.

Experience is another factor to be considered when competing with other restaurants in the industry and this is because a restaurant that is run by experienced staff affects every part of the business and most specifically the staffing processes, the finances, marketing promotions, food and the overall dining experience for the customers. Salsa Dog therefore must ensure that it hires experienced personnel and that it retains experienced staff to help in improving the overall customer experience. Finally, Salsa Dog needs to maintain cooking of good food and by this, the customers need to receive good quality in every food to make sure that there are repeat customers. In order to maintain the provision of high quality foods, the restaurant needs to have the availability of high quality ingredients and experienced cooks that meet the needs of the customers.

Question 4

In order to reduce the overhead costs, Salsa Dog needs to carry out various steps and one of them is to monitor costs at the business. Cost of the products used in restaurants changes gradually and this is affects the profit margins of restaurants, additionally, thefts and wastages negatively affect the operations in restaurants. By monitoring costs in the restaurant, Salsa Dog would have the ability to keep track of the expenses and ensure that it profit margins remain generally constant. In this light, Salsa Dog needs to make use of software and POS systems that help in spotting problems and make changes where necessary. Secondly, Salsa Dog needs to maintain frugal habits and ensure that it does not give the customers more than they ask for. This calls for the management to ensure that there is self-packaging of bulk condiments and provide extras only upon customer requests.

Additionally, the management of the restaurant needs to retrain periodically and this is because long-term employees usually become careless otherwise forget their training at times. This requires that the management performs the monitoring of the performance of employees by carrying out remedial training, scheduling reviews and teach the employees the new ways of cutting costs. Finally, the management needs to avoid overstaffing and reduce the labor costs in order to optimize on the profits. Overstaffing can be avoided by cross-training employees that are considered to be the most efficient thereby improving productivity of the employees to enable the managers to schedule fewer workers while maintaining the high quality standards of operations.