Boston Matrix

The Boston Matrix is a qualitative method of product portfolio analysis, created by the Boston Consulting Group. It has four categories; the star, question mark, cash cow, and dog.
The star: high market growth, high market share
The question mark: high market growth, low market share
Cash cow: low market growth, high market share
Dog: low market growth, low market share.

When applying the Boston Matrix to Subway's products, the following table can be the result.

The sweet onion chicken teriyaki sub seems worth using money on, as it is the founder's favorite. The Italian B.M.T, Tuna, and Subway Club are the three best selling sandwiches of Subway. The salads seems to fit Subway's image of a relatively healthy fast food restaurant. The Flattizas are relatively less successful to the other product lines.


Riley, Jim. "Boston Matrix and Product Portfolios." Tutor2u. N.p., 23 Sept. 2012. Web. 09 Feb. 2014.

Product Life Cycle

The product life cycle(PLC) is a basic sequence that a product goes through, once launched. Its stages are introduction, growth, maturity and decline. 

In order to extend the "life" of the product, companies can use certain strategies. For Subway, there are some PLC extension strategies that could be used for certain products. As their main product line, the sandwiches, are well known and familiar enough to the public, price reduction for a limited time would be beneficial. For the relatively unknown products like the Flatizza™ line, more promotion specific to the products and the variety of the menus would help.  Also, another strategy is redesigning the Flatizza™ line so that customers can customize their Flatizza™. This will well fit Subway's image as subway has a well designed customizing service for their sandwiches. 

Product

Product item : The specific item that has a unique selling point that makes it different from other products.
Product line : The collection of items that are in a particular category or similar to each other, but still different in minor parts like colors.
Product mix : Variety of types of different items.
Product range : Both variety and similarity of items

Subway's product range is not too varied, as it is mostly focusing on sandwiches. However, subway still has some alternative menus, all within a specific product line. The variety within the Breakfast line and Flatizza™ line is less in numbers, compared to the Sandwiches line's.

As Subway's signature menus are the sandwiches, it would be a good marketing objective for them to market on their other menus. Also, they could increase the diversity of each product lines to provide more choices for customers.

Market vs. Product Orientation

Market orientation is when a business focusses on market research, thus trying to understand the public's needs and wants. Then, the company tries to conform to those needs and wants, creating what the public wants. 

On the other hand, product orientation is when a business focusses more on the internal research and development of the company. Doing so, the company creates what will become a need or want to the public. 

Subway, in my perspective, is a more market orientated company. This is because it tries hard to connect with the customers through Social Networking Services such as Facebook or Twitter, and also has various other customer services. Also, a strong supporting point that proves that Subway is more interested in providing what the customers want, is the ordering system. Subway, unlike other restaurants, provides much more choices for customers on the menu. When ordering a sub sandwich, the customer can choose the bread, flavor, amount of cheese, vegetables, and sauce, as well as other side menus that can go with the sandwich. This is a evident effort of Subway to provide its customer their needs. 

PEST Analysis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-24162894
http://www.subway.com/subwayroot/exploreourworld.aspx

PEST Factor: Political threat

Dudley, a borough of England, has set a new rule, "exclusion zones". "Exclusion zones" are areas within 400m of schools, which fast food outlets cannot be built in anymore. The purpose of this new rule is to prevent the overconsumption of fast food by children, hopefully ending up reducing the child obesity rate in Dudley.

This new rule is definitely a threat to Subway. The reduction of new built fast food outlets would mean less opportunities for Subway to open another franchise store. As new franchise stores usually bring more profit to the company, this law is blocking several income opportunities, in Subway's perspective. Also, the United Kingdom is one of the biggest markets for Subway, as it has 1590 of the 40,921 Subway restaurants in the world. Thus, the threat has a larger effect on Subway. As this threat is coming from a new rule created by a governmental institute, it is a political PEST factor.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-20843000
http://www.queerty.com/subway-restaurant-in-france-says-adieu-to-gay-couples-on-valentines-day-20130215/

PEST Factor - Socio-cultural threat

The article discusses the continuous debate on gay marriage, referencing a survey carried our for the Independent. The survey suggests that a lot of people are initiating the government to take a more supportive move towards gay marriage. This also suggests that the general public is positive towards homosexuality. This would effect the business in terms of their stance in social issues; in this case, in homosexuality. As the second article describes, Subway has a past incident of a shop owner in France discriminating and accept homosexual couples as subject to a promotional event of giving a discount to couples. Therefore, Subway seems to the public like having pretty negative position in the gay marriage discussion. This might be a threat for Subway, as some customers that have strong opinions on the subject might refuse to purchase their products.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-19086415

PEST Factor - Socio-cultural threat

This article discusses the impact of the Olympic games on the local businesses in London. Many tourists and usual customers are all focused on the games too much, that they do not go to other places that are not related to the Olympics until the games are over. This would be a threat towards Subway as Subway has many shops in London as well, thus Subway would suffer from loss of profit along with other businesses.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25111208

PEST Factor: Socio-cultural Opportunity
This article talks about how French people's lunches are moving towards fast food. Contrary to years before, when people used their lunch times to go home and have lunch, they now get convenient and fast food instead. This way, they can save more time to work, and also get food in a cheaper price. Armand Chaigne, from Eurogroup Consulting, said that "Today the fast food industry is two and a half times bigger than it was 20 years ago."
This is definitely an opportunity for Subway. The PEST factor being the consumer preferences for fast and convenient food, it well fits Subway sandwiches' attributes. As Subway has 491 franchise stores in France, such increase in consumer interest will eventually lead to increase of profit.

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http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/press/news/_layouts/forms/News_DispForm.aspx?List=8db7286c-fe2d-476c-9133-18ff4cb1b568&ID=930&Web=86661a14-fb61-43e0-9663-0d514841605d

PEST Factor: Political/Socio-cultural threat

The occurrence of a new bird flu, avian influenza A(H7N9) is noted by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The centre advises the EU citizens living in China to avoid live-bird markets. Although Subway is not directly related to the live-bird markets, now that an official governmental organization has acknowledged the threat of the bird flu disease, customers would be driven to avoid chicken meat both cooked and uncooked. As one of Subway's best selling sandwich menus is based off chicken, the sales of the menu will have to become lower. 

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http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2014-03-19/fast-food-getting-faster-with-mobile-apps

PEST Factor: Technological opportunity

Burger King is introducing an application that will allow customers to order menus ahead of time, and pick up the food later. This is a very powerful tool for the company to be using, at it increases customer convenience and reduces the time that it takes to bring a burger when the customer orders in advance. The news provides a survey result that people responded that they would actually start going to Burger King just for the convenience of the application. This might be a threat to Subway for now as some customers might be taken away by Burger King. However, as Burger King's application is not really in a very advanced stage, Subway can try to produce a more efficient and appealing application later on in order to attract more new and old customers. 

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http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2014-03-21/fast-food-workers-are-facing-wage-deflation

PEST Factor: Economical Opportunity

This video discusses the general decrease of the employment fee in the US. This might be considered a threat to the general public and economy of the country, but in the perspective of the company, this is an opportunity to cut on the money being used on employment fees. This would allow the company to invest the money saved in this process into developming more menus or services to increase profit.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Subway's Objectives

Subway's Objectives

1. Importance of objectives

The objective of Subway, to bring customers into the stores and keep them coming back, is quite straight-forward. However, by setting this objective, many aspects of the organizations are affected. In order to bring customers into the stores, the shop should be clean and well advertised. To have them coming back, the store's food and service should be of good quality. 

Since Subway is a franchise company, its franchisees will work hard to improve their service and food so they can achieve the objective. Also, Subway as a whole organization will work hard to improve its menus or advertise their sandwiches in order to achieve the objective. 

Since the objective directly relates to the profit of the organization, it is very important.

2. Role of the Mission Statement (Delight every customer so they want to tell their friends - with great value through fresh, delicious, made-to-order sandwiches, and an exceptional experience.)

Subway's mission statement is very simple and straight-forward as well. However, it contains all the necessary elements that Subway desires to acquire. By looking at the mission statement, one can know what to provide the customers with. "Delighting" every customer would directly come from good service, and when the service is very good, "[customers] will want to tell their friends". The "fresh, delicious, made-to-order" part explains how the sandwiches should be. This provides Subway's franchisees of a rough guideline of making the sandwiches. The part about an "exceptional experience" is interesting, because it does not state what kind of an experience it is talking about. This could be interpreted differently for different people. Some can think the experience is the taste, and some might think it is the service. This is a great strategy, because each franchisees will have a slightly different interpretation of the mission statement, eventually having them provide slightly different services. 

The mission statement also is deeply related to the objective, as achieving the mission statement will mean achieving the objective.  

3. Relationship between aims, strategic objectives and operational objectives

Aims are the finalized and abstract goals of a company. Strategic objectives are shorter term goals that are more specific than aims, but still longer term and abstract than operational objectives. 

In Subway's case, their aim is to be the number 1 Quick Service Restaurant franchise in the world. Their strategic objectives are to build good company reputations and have a wider customer range, while their operational objectives are to make their food healthier, or to construct a wider range of menu.

Operational objectives support strategic objectives, while strategic objectives support aims. These goals should not go against each other, and should benefit each other.

Business Objectives

The difference between aims, strategies, and tactics

Aims are the general goals that a company seeks to achieve in a long span of time, while strategies and tactics are the methods used to achieve that aim. The difference between strategies and tactics is that strategies are more long term and broad. Tactics are more likely to be day-to-day and detailed.

The difference between a mission statement and a vision statement

A mission statement and vision statement are very similar in that they both express the company's purpose and values. However, the main difference is that a vision statement states where the company hopes to be positioned in the future, while a mission statement expresses where is tries to be now. Also, because of this difference, a mission statement usually should be able to be measured quantitatively, while a vision statement is based on a qualitative criterion.