Subway Analysis

Johnson &Wales University

Providence, Rhode Island

Feinstein Graduate School

Subway Fast Food Restaurant Chain Internal Resource Analysis

Tsai, Hua-Cheng

Course: Spring2014_Buiness Policy

April 30, 2014

How well is the company's present strategy working?

Global and aggressive expansion

At the end of 2010, Subway sandwich chain had 33,749 restaurants in 95 countries, which has surpassed McDonald's 32,737 and officially become the world's largest quick-service restaurant chain by number of locations. In terms of units in stateside, Subway has already passed McDonald’s since 2004. Subway has clearly numbers in mind toward globally expansion: open 1,000 to 2,000 locations globally each year, have 50,000 Subway stores worldwide by 2017, and look to have 100,000 stores by 2030. In past few years Subway started focusing on Europe market including U.K (1,648), Germany (591), and France (499). Subway’s revenue in Europe increased 18 percent to $1.57 billion in 2012 while Burger King’s revenue fell 10 percent in 2012 and McDonald’s fell 1.9 percent in Europe (Savage, 2013).

By far, there are 26,633 stores in the U.S. and 14,955 worldwide in 103 countries; it totally generated $18.1 billion in the end of 2013, compared to $7.8 billion ten years ago (Subway official, 2014). Not only boost of totally revenue, rapidly expansion can increase Subway’s brand recognition and awareness. In 1981 when there were just 166 stores and you mentioned “Subway,” someone would respond, “You mean the underground in New York?”; however, when you now say, “Subway,” someone would say, “I just ate there.” Subway’s now a part of the world’s consciousness (Smith, 2011).

Non-traditional locations strategy

With flexible floor plans, almost any site could become a Subway restaurant: a riverboat in Germany, a zoo in Taiwan, A high school in Detroit, and A church in New York. Subway has achieved parts of its rapid growth by doing so and a lot of growth has been in...