Introduction
The Broadway Café is a family inherited business which is conveniently located in downtown Sydney. The café offers many different kinds of specialised coffees, teas, a full service bakery, and homemade sandwiches, soups, and salads. It was first opened by grandfather in 1952 and it was a local hotspot for many years, until the last five years, the business has been steadily declining.
The café still operates the same as it did in 1952, which on one hand; it has a loyal customer base and an established menu, however, on the other hand, the business is outdated. There are neither computers nor technology in the store. All performance takes place manually, from taking orders, tracking inventory, along with customer lists, employee payroll, and marketing coupons, even the family recipes for baked goods and soups are stored in grandfather’s memory. There is no advertising or marketing plan except word-to-mouth, and more, it does not have a website.
Recently one of the employees has heard a rumor that Starbucks might be opening a new store in this area. In order to bring the café into the 21 century, the business needs to gain a competitive advantage though technology. Changes shall be made in order to keep the business running and increase profits.
Competitive Advantage
In order to survive and thrive, an organisation must create a competitive advantage. A competitive advantage is a product or service that an organisation’s customers place a greater value on than similar offerings from a competitor (Baltzan & Phillips, 2010). Unfortunately, due to competitors often seek ways to duplicate the competitive advantage, they are typically temporary.
In order to improve business and develop competitive advantages, first, we must pay close attention to the competition through environmental scanning. Environmental scanning is the acquisition and analysis of events and trends in the environment external to an organisation (Baltzan & Phillips,...