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.
