So, let’s look at a company that needs to change its strategy.

Burger King.  You know the chain that used to be independent and then purchased the revered Canadian (and northern US) chain- Tim Horton’s.  Now, that doesn’t really tell the story properly, because the second Tim Horton’s and Burger King merged, they became part of Restaurant Brands.International.  The other firms in the stable are Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchens and Firehouse Subs.  Their total sales are about $ 5.7 billion, with net profits of $ 1.25 billion.

At the time, Burger King was a close second to McDonald’s.  But, over the years, it has fallen in sales, so much so that Wendy’s  overtook it in 2020 to become the second largest fast food burger chain.

Which is why big changes are being made.  For starters, a new leadership team has been chosen- and for the first time, this is not a “hire from within” group but hired Tom Curtis from Domino’s Pizza (14 years).

And, having never spent much money on the chain, there is a $ 400 million budget right now- that covers advertising, restaurant design, and manifests to construct the flagship burgers (The Whopper). Except this is only focused on 800 of the units.  This is all part of it’s “Reclaim the Flame” repositioning.

It was obvious that their menus didn’t satisfy customers, operations were impeded and there was little consistency in how the burgers were presented to customers.  (Some stores placed the cheese for the Whopper below the meat, others on top.  Moreover, the stores need to find faster ways to produce the burgers- since they are only prepared after a customer orders them.)

Smartly, Burger King also eliminated the Whopper from it’s value menu.  When that promotion was going on, you could get two Whoppers for $ 5- which greatly decreased profitability.  Now, you need to drop about $ 5.50 to purchase one of them.

Burger King also entered those Chicken wars.  Their entry, the “Ch’King” sandwich was worthy of the battle- but it took forever to prepare.  (The employees actually had to hand bread each chicken breast.)  So, it’s been scrapped for a new crispy chicken option that is fully breaded before it even arrives at a restaurant.  They’ve also killed some salads- and have eliminated chocolate milk from their menus.  (I am NOT happy about that; it was my drink to accompany the Impossible Whopper [vegetarian selection)  order I routinely placed.)

The 7100 US locations generate almost $ 10  billion in sales, or about $ 1.4 million per store.  And, Wendy’s with only 5900 units accrued $ 11 billion in revenue ($1.85 million per store).   These were the changes as a result of the pandemic, since in 2020, Burger King was the bigger entity.

We’ll watch the results so we can learn what strategy change concepts could work for our businesses.