跨文化交际

新疆大学外国语学院2013-2014学年第一学期期末论文

跨文化交际

论文题目：An analysis of the popularity of KFC culture 专业班级：英语10-3班

学生姓名：李蒙蒙

学号：20100701002

An analysis of the popularity of KFC

culture

1.Background of KFC History

KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is the world's largest chain of fried chicken fast food restaurants, headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky in the United States. An "American icon", is the second largest restaurant chain after McDonald's, with over 17,000 outlets in 105 countries and territories (December 2011). It was founded by Colonel Harland Sanders, who began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky during the Great Depression Since its founding by Colonel Harland Sanders in 1952, KFC has been serving customers delicious, already prepared complete family meals at affordable prices. KFC is also the pioneer of the restaurant franchisee concept.KFC's two major single markets are in its home country and China, which together contain around half of its outlets. The chain primarily sells fried chicken pieces and variations such as chicken burgers (chicken sandwiches [US]) and wraps, as well as side dishes such as french fries and coleslaw, desserts and soft drinks, often supplied by PepsiCo. Its most famous product is pressure fried chicken pieces, seasoned with Sanders' "Original Recipe" of 11 herbs and spices. The exact nature of these ingredients are unknown, and represent a notable trade secret. KFC is famous for the slogan "finger lickin' good", which has since been replaced by "So good".

It is believed that a vital ingredient to KFC?s early success was its leadership team at the time. The pioneering team known as the …Taiwan Gang? collectively had decades of fast-food industry experience prior to landing in China. Many of the team were from Taiwan or other South East Asian countries and understood Chinese culture. This meant that they knew how to manage relationships with government and

joint venture partners, and also which strategies would be successful in the Chinese market.

2. Growth of outlets

since entering the Chinese market in 1987,KFC was accepted by Chinese consumers as “the most popular brand” and ranked as the No.1 among top ten international brands in China.Up to now, there are over 3,200 outlets in more than 700 cities across China and the number keeps growing rapidly, which makes China the largest overseas market of KFC. It cannot be denied that KFC has achieved great success in China and the prosperity cannot be separated from its effective international business development roadmap for the Chinese market.

Although financial data of KFC (Hong Kong) is not published and disclosed, the growth number of outlets of KFC could be identified. Compared to sixteen outlets in Hong Kong in 1997, there were thirty-eight outlets in 2001. The growth rate was more than double. However, in 2003, KFC established 7 more outlets. The declining growth rate of outlets may indicate the lower profit margin is due to the reason of decreasing sales and uncertain market forecast.

3. Human resources management

One of the factors of the success of KFC comes from the outstanding managing group. Most of the managers they hired are from Taiwan which they called “Taiwan Gang” in 1990s. They have at least ten years? experience in fast food ind ustry, and some of about them have 15 to 20 years. Some of them even have working experience in McDonald?s. There are two reasons why Taiwanese dominated the leadership in KFC. First, the population of 23 million which is three to five times than Hong Kong and Singapore is one of the advantages. The fast food industry had been operating in Taiwan since the beginning of 1990s. Therefore, there are more restaurant management talents in Taiwan. Second, the education in Taiwan is highly related to Chinese culture, history, literature…etc. Thus, these Taiwanese have better understanding about Chinese culture even though they were studied in the West. Therefore, they have better understanding

for the Chinese market. Also,Taiwanese can speak and write Mandarin better than managers from Hong Kong or Singapore.

Although human resources management is carried out on a decentralized basis for recruitment and hiring operational staff, KFC does provide training for the management team. The training program would provide practical practices and useful information to staff. It could ensure quality staff to provide quality services. To minimize costs, trainings for branch managers now train crewmembers with corporate guide books instead of headquarter in Hong Kong. In its mission, KFC believes in people, trust in positive intentions, encourage ideas from everyone and actively develop a workforce that is diverse in style and background. It celebrates the achievements of others, coach and support employees.

Unlike other companies, there is less of a bureaucracy problem in KFC. They convey the idea of “working in a big family” which means your colleges or even boss are like family and friends. Every employee will get a card with all the blessing from their colleges on his birthday. KFC wants their employees to know that they never forget their birthdays and increase the cohesion of their workers.

4.Business Strategies

Business strategies refer to the plan of action that strategic managers adopt to use company?s resources and distinctive competencies to gain competitive advantage over its rivals in a market or industry (Hill & Jones, 1998). KFC achieves its competitive advantage by creating its products and services to be unique as perceived by customers.

KFC has found the recipe for success in China. China has become the highest-growth market of KFC. There?s no doubt that KFC has well understood the Chinese consumer. KFC?s success can be attributed to context, people, strategy and application. Its core strengths are its marketing action and its high level of understanding in consumers? habits and needs. KFC has achieved such dominance even over McDonald?s in China.

KFC differentiates its products with competitors as a chicken expert in the fast food industry. The menu is based entirely on chicken as its core products, offering pieces, chicken packs, side items, like cornbread, coleslaw, mashed potato, corn on the cob, mushroom rice. All chicken is cooked to the original Colonel Harland Sanders recipe with eleven different herbs and spices. KFC also attains its competitive advantage by product innovation. For its chicken items, KFC keeps introducing new products.

5.Marketing Strategy

With an average growth of 8% in GPD per year and a population of 1.3 billion people, China remains to be a real great growth opportunity for both international and domestic brands. Consumers? habits are changing; Chinese urban consumers have a busier life, they belong to a fast emerging middle class, their average income is growing fast.Indeed, in the last years, the changing in Chinese lifestyles and eating habits have created a real boom in fast food chains industry. The consumers considered here, are essentially those who live in large urban areas. Western-style foods have been more and more accepted as a way of eating in China. Therefore, China is now considered as the 5th largest fast food consuming country in the world. KFC has played an important role in the acceptance of fast food restaurants in China. Particularly, the market which is at stake here is the Chicken fast food restaurant?s one. The Chinese market is a great opportunity for chicken fried food. Food habits across China vary a lot, generally speaking, chicken is the most preferred meat after pork.The fast food industry in China faces more and more players such as: KFC, Mc Donald?s, Burguer King, Pizza Hut.

6.KFC location strategy in China

6.1 price

The KFC?s pricing strategy was globally a skimming strategy. They, first, focused on middle class to upper class people with high price. They, gradually, cut down on prices so as to also target the middle to lower class people and to answer to the competitive pressure. It?s a good way of

entering both sides of the market. KFC proposes better marketing operations such as vouchers to cut down on prices, which is very important for most of Chinese people. It reinforces customer loyalty. Nonetheless, KFC is considered as a trustful fast food chains, therefore, the firm has to pay attention to such promotion since Chinese consumers demand

a lot of KFC about trust, respect for consumer and promotion.

6.2Promotion

KFC?s localization strategy is not only focused on product but also on promotion. In fact, KFC adapts its promotion and advertising to Chinese values and Chinese symbols. KFC benefits from a good brand image thanks to its brand symbols. Actually, Colonel Sanders is the image of elderly, wisdom and good fortune. Through centuries, Chinese people respect and honour old people as a symbol of wisdom, affection, trust and benevolence. Therefore, KFC uses in its promotions this image of benevolent grand-father to target family instead of individuals. The Colonel plays an important role in enhancing and building a strong positive image to KFC among all age brackets. Moreover, in its promotions, KFC uses important values for Chinese people: tradition, family, sharing... Most of the time, each region proposes local thematic promotions, local sponsorship involvement and local charity actions. For its promotion, KFC uses many different Medias to promote both brand image and values and products such as television, radio, the internet, street marketing, sponsorship.

6.3Place

As we have seen before, KFC matches franchising and fully owned restaurants. Most restaurants are located downtown. The average restaurant in China is quite different from US? ones due to a bigger transaction volume per restaurant. Indeed, they benefit from a larger dining area, they have greater frying equipment in kitchens and they have larger volume equipment required behind the counter.

6.4People

The management is a front-line centred and customer

focused. Maintaining a high quality service standard is really important within KFC?s strategy. This system is called CHAMPS: Cleanliness, Hospitality, Accuracy, Maintenance, Product quality and Speed. Those 6 values are shared by all the supply chain?s employees. Achieving such an excellence in quality service requires a well-trained and motivated workforce guided by a well-tested system.

7.Conclusion

In the fast food industry, KFC takes up the chicken sector in the market. With the current economic recession and demographic change in increasing women workforce, KFC has the opportunity in the fast food industry. However, change in dining habit of healthy food and technology advancement in the industry, it may give the threat to KFC. In addition, the overall attractiveness of the fast food industry is relatively low as keen competition in number of rivalries and substitutes and threat of entry for further expansion in the market. KFC therefore uses differentiation strategy in business level to build up its competitiveness. In functional level, it keeps trying to improve the operation and meet the expectation of customers in order to put smiles on their faces. Generally speaking, KFC builds up a distinctive image of chicken expert. Its C.H.A.M.P.S. system also gives it a main competitiveness to control food standard and service quality. It, however, may work on develop a more diversify menu and keep its product value as well as its internal communication through different departments so as to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operation in KFC.

Reference

1. Crewe and Alsager Faculty, STRATEGIC MARKETI NG: PLANNING AND CONTROL, 2003

2. The Hoovers, KFC Business Intelligence, Hoover Res earch Journals, 2008 [Online accessed 1st May 2008]

3. Rahzzla Zolaiqar, KFC Project, 5th of November, 200 7

4. Lamb, Hair, McDaniel, Marketing, 7th Edition, 2004

5. Yum! Brands, Inc. Annual Report, 2008

6. https://www.360docs.net/doc/7c2574709.html,/