Tasty Foods Case Study

CASE STUDY

Tasty Foods began operations in 1985 as a small ice cream parlor in India. Gradually it expanded its menu to include sandwiches and burgers. Encouraged by its early success, Tasty Foods Limited was incorporated in 1988 with a network that had grown to nine outlets across several cities in the country. In 1991, when Tasty Foods had 13 outlets, McDonald’s entered India and in a year’s time they opened 28 outlets across the country. Industry experts thought that Tasty Foods would have difficulty competing with one of the largest fast food chains in the world. However, Tasty Foods saw this as an opportunity to learn from McDonald’s operations. It benchmarked its performance against that of McDonald’s and began adopting similar operational systems and standards to control its quality, cost and service at the store level. This helped Tasty Foods to improve its performance.

In the process of benchmarking, Tasty Foods also identified a weakness in McDonald’s global strategy. It came to the conclusion that McDonald’s menu was far too standardized for the local consumers and that there was scope in increasing market share and improving performance by customizing the menu to local tastes. The burgers were made spicier with a unique blend of spices and flavors appealing to the taste of Indian consumers. It also introduced familiar Indian snack foods, such as, paratha, kulcha, kachori, pattice etc. apart from typical Indian desserts, like kulfi and other milk-based sweets. As a result of pursuing this strategy, Tasty Foods overtook McDonald’s in its leadership position and by 2008 it had 116 outlets in India and a market share of around 54% compared to McDonald’s 74 stores and 36% market share.

By then, Tasty Foods had developed enough confidence to expand internationally. It entered Singapore and the Middle East and pursued its successful strategy of tailoring and localizing the local menu to better match local tastes, thereby differentiating itself from McDonald’s. Both in Singapore and the Middle East, the large expatriate population provided a ready-made market for the company. This strategy worked so well for Tasty Foods that, in later years, it entered other emerging markets such as Indonesia, Malaysia etc. and over a period of time became one of the largest and most successful fast food chains in the region.

Question

Q1. Analyze/discuss the international strategy of Tasty Foods that contributed to its success in foreign countries .

Objective: To analyze the strategies which Tasty Foods used internationally to get the success in foreign countries market.

Introduction: In the above case study, there are two companies which are Tasty foods and McDonald’s. This study tells about how an Indian Company ruled for four years in India in food industry which was Tasty foods, later they incorporated in 1991. Same time McDonald’s also introduced their outlets in India which gave a tough competition to Tasty food because they were having a strong market strategy to attract the customers. But at the similar era Tasty food also gave competition to McDonalds by getting standards certificates, changing their menus and operation strategy which also helped them to grow in other emerging countries.

Answer:

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION -

In the above case the problem was for tasty foods to expand their business to other emerging countries after getting huge success in India , at the same time to create the international strategies to attract the customers in middle east and Singapore by providing them the best services.