Wendy's International & The Fast Food Industry.
Founded in 1969 in Dublin, Ohio, by Dave Thomas, Wendy's International has grown to be one of the leading companies in the restaurant industry. As of the year 2003, Wendy's has over 8,000 restaurants worldwide, including more than 3,500 Tim Hortons and 800 Baja Fresh restaurants, which are two companies that Wendy's owns (Milton, 2003, p. 1). Currently Wendy's is the third largest fast food chain in the world behind only McDonalds and Burger King ("Industry Surveys," 2003, p. 8). This is an interesting company to look at because of the respectable growth Wendy's has attained while other leading restaurants have faltered. Wendy's has been able capture market share from historically invincible rivals through better service and a higher quality product. A concern that would keep Wendy's CEO up at night is if Wendy's will be able to continue to be innovative and outperform rivals, or will Wendy's fall victim to the problems that face their competitors from growing to big and losing a sense of consumer demand. The main issue to look at is if Wendy's can take advantage of McDonald's and Burger King's recent troubles in order to become the number one fast food restaurant in the world. .
The External Environment.
The external environment has a profound effect, both positively and negatively, on the restaurant industry. Firms have no control over the external environment, but they do have the ability to alter their strategies in order to take advantage of opportunities and to prepare for threats. In the demographic segment, an opportunity that restaurants could exploit is the fact that the baby boom generation, who were the first generation to grow up with fast food, is getting older and has more money to spend on food. Another demographic opportunity is the ever-increasing Hispanic population, which could influence restaurant menus. A demographic threat is the slowing of United States birth rates, which could affect how restaurants market to children.
