Swiss Chalet

Introduction

Swiss Chalet Rotisserie & Grill is a Canadian restaurant offering casual dining (Royle and Towers, 2004). The restaurant was founded in 1954 by Maurice Mauran from Montreal and another businessman. The first open it’s the first branch in Bloor Street West, near the northeast corner of Bloor and Bedford Road, and it has grown to come to the Canadian family dining icon. The paper has a restaurant chain that was to become an icon of Canadian family-style dining.  The paper was prepared to analyze the strategies behind the success of the company.

Background Information

Swiss Chalet Rotisserie & Grill has been in operation since 1954, and it has its headquarters located in Toronto, Canada. Swiss Chalet Rotisserie & Grill has over 200 branches spread across Canada and continues to grow every day sold for about US$6. The hotel is known for its Rotisserie Chicken, a quarter chicken dinner for a special one day. The restaurant has grown to be the third-largest largest restaurant operator in Canada. It owns four other brands, including Kelsey’s, East Side Mario’s, Montana’s, and Milestones. In 2019, the company made US$216 million in earnings before interest and tax (Swiss Chalet, 2020).

Analysis

The first reason that has contributed to the success of the company is its delicious freshly cut quarter chicken. According to Dailyhive.com (2020), the restaurants close to the border between Canada and the US are known for attracting thousands of tourists who cross the border to eat the food offered by the restaurant. Additionally, the restaurant is known for its relatively cheaper prices when compared to similar restaurants that offer similar quality products.

Secondly, the company has grown over the years due to strategic decisions made by the management. The hotel that is owned by Cara has been making a reliable strategic location that has its growth over the years and increasing its market share to occupy the third position in the most extensive restaurant list in Canada. The parent company has been acquiring other restaurants in some of the strategic decision to consolidate its position.

In the year 2016, the Cara announced a deal to take over the St. Hubert Inc. to add to an already extensive list of Swiss Chalet restaurant as it consolidated its position in the market. Bringing St. Hubert Inc under new management meant that the company had access to experts in food manufacturing and market place in Quebec. St. Hubert Inc is known for commercializing restaurants, and this what the new management would get access to. Also, the new management established that St. Hubert Inc was not using some of its facilities such as distribution to full capacity. Therefore, the new management would take advantage of utilizing this capacity fully.

The acquisition of St. Hubert Inc in Quebec would ensure that the management of the company can provide market entry of Swiss Chalet in a region where it had little presence. Some of the restaurants would be used to sell some of the delicacies sold by Swiss Chalet as a market entry strategy. There has been a growth of new fast-food restaurants that present competition challenges to some old and established casual dining restaurants. The increased competition saw some of these restaurants lose their market share. To avoid this intense competition and continue with its growth, the owners of Swiss Chalet merged with Fairfax to increase its grip on the market. The owners of Swiss Chalet used the strategy of consolidating and conquering to increase their market presence and market share (Mann, 2020).

Finally, the most important reason that has given the Swiss Chalet a competitive edge advertisement. In 20155, the company launched a platform to air its advertisement on Tv to increase interactions with the customers.  The platform was launched to advertise to existing customers and potential customers reminding them of what they love about Swiss Chalet. The company had planned a series of between six to eight agencies that would be used to advertise some of the products, including new products that the company had launched (Kolm, 2020).

The company used people who have grown with the brand to showcase and defend the brand, unlike the typical advertisement that focused on the product. The advertisement has given the company an iconic status that most companies cannot achieve quickly. According to Abdi and Irandoust (2013), there are various importance of using the slogan in an advertisement. The use of a slogan like the one used by the company in advertisement makes the audience remember the brand easily. In 2018, Swiss Chalet decided to make it easy for customers to make a demand for different products. The company launched an improved mobile as another way of improving customer experience (Swiss Chalet, 2020).

In addition, the restaurant has been very effective. According to Dallaire (2017), Swiss Chalet developed a concept of a menu that focusses on millennials, this is a strategy to attract millennials into the restaurant. The restaurant designed the concept and tested it at Barrie branch before rolling it out to other branches.

Figure 1.1 Cara’s Quartely Growth from 2012 to 2015

Source: Seeking Alpha (2016)

Evaluation

The hotel industry is one that faces increased competition. There is the importance of increasing customer experience in order to increase market share (Verhoef et al. 2009). Therefore, other businesses engaging in restaurant business must learn to increase customer experience. The second lesson that businesses can learn from Swiss Chalet is being innovative. The world is continually changing, and any business that does not change will be driven out of the market (Chou et al. 2012). Swiss has been quick to innovate ways that will increase customer experience like the new mobile app that was launched by the company to make it easy for them to order food (Swiss Chalet, 2020).

Conclusion

The paper has analyzed Swiss Chalet, a restaurant offering casual dining in Canada. The company that was formed in 1954 has grown to be a reputable restaurant offering delicious and quality food. The company has achieved this through three approaches; they include; offering quality foods, merging and acquisitions, and advertisement and innovation. There essential lessons that other businesses in the same line of the industry can engage in.

References

Abdi, S. and Irandoust, A., 2013. The importance of advertising slogans and their proper designing in brand equity. International journal of Organizational leadership, 2(2), pp.62-69.

Chou, C.J., Chen, K.S. and Wang, Y.Y., 2012. Green practices in the restaurant industry from an innovation adoption perspective: Evidence from Taiwan. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(3), pp.703-711.

Dailyhive.com. 2020. Americans Are Crossing The Border To Get Their Swiss Chalet Fix | Dished. [online]. Retrieved from https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/cross-border-swiss-chalet-2018

Kolm, J.,. 2020. What’S So Special About Swiss Chalet?. Retrieved from  https://strategyonline.ca/2015/01/07/whats-so-special-about-swiss-chalet/

Mann, A., 2020. Canadian Restaurants Are Merging Like Crazy. Here’s A Breakdown Of Who Owns What. [online] Canadian Business – Your Source For Business News. Retrieved from https://www.canadianbusiness.com/companies-and-industries/trailing-indicator-2000-restaurants-7-owners/

Royle, T., and Towers, B., (2004). Labour Relations in the Global Fast-Food Industry. Taylor & Francis. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-134-59762-8.

Swiss Chalet., 2020. Swiss Chalet – Canada’s Favourite Rotisserie & Grill Updates Its Digital Customer Experience. [online] Newswire.ca. retrieved from  https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/swiss-chalet—canadas-favourite-rotisserie–grill-updates-its-digital-customer-experience-675560523.html

Verhoef, P.C., Lemon, K.N., Parasuraman, A., Roggeveen, A., Tsiros, M. and Schlesinger, L.A., 2009. Customer experience creation: Determinants, dynamics and management strategies. Journal of retailing, 85(1), pp.31-41.