INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the Christian values of Truett Cathy and how it impacts the organization i.e. Chick-fil-A. This will significantly help in demonstrating the consistency and the proper application of Christian values within a workplace. To achieve the success, it is essential for the organization to have an effective and influencing culture that motivates and encourages the employees to work for the betterment of the organization. Moreover, the study would also focus on identifying the relationship between the Christian values of Truett Cathy and the major operations decisions i.e. Process, Quality, Capacity and Inventory.
CHICK-FIL-A ORGANIZATION
Chick-fil-A is one of the most successful businesses managed by Dan Cathy. Cathy got into the restaurant business in 1946 with first diner in Atlanta. Cathy’s first Chick-fil-A branded restaurant was located in Atlanta’s Greenbriar Shopping Center in 1967. With the passage of time, the restaurant business expanded across 38 states with around 1,600 restaurants. The annual sales of Chick-fil-A are more than $4 billion due to which it is ranked as the 10th most popular food chain in United States of America. In addition, it is the second largest fast food chain in United States after KFC (Bhasin, 2012).
The mission statement of the company clearly states and reflects the conviction of Cathy. The corporate purpose of Chick-fil-A is ‘to be faithful to God for all the blessings entrusted to the company. To satisfy the needs and wants of the customers and to have a positive influence on individuals that comes in contact with Chick-fil-A’ (Bhasin, 2012).
Chick-fil-A has strong brand recognition due to the quality of chicken sold to the customers. Moreover, being a value based company with strong Christian ideals has given the customers with a reason to love the organization.
CHRISTIAN VALUES OF TRUETT CATHY
Chick-fil-A is a family-owned and family-led business that sells chicken and trains its employees to focus highly on the values rooted in The Bible. Chick-fil-A has become one of the most successful businesses in United States that has never compromised on its values. Although the company has been constantly criticized for discrimination against the non-Christians but the company never compromised on what it believes.
With the passage of time, Chick-fil-A has created its own identify – providing the customers with service beyond their expectations while focusing heavily and strong on the Christian principles. The Christian values and principles followed by the organization is constantly creating troubles for the organization but on the other hand, those principles are strongly rooted in the business and are also the center of the company’s success.
Some of the prominent values that are observed by Truett Cathy at Chick-fil-A are as follows;
- Closed-on-Sunday Policy
Chick-fil-A, being a highly religious organization, remains close on Sunday. This highlights the endeavor to incorporate the values into the corporate culture of the company. Even though, Sunday is considered to be the most waited day by restaurants in United States but the commitment and dedication of Truett Cathy towards the Christian values has guided the organization to remain close of Sunday. The decision to remain close on Sunday is considered to be the best decision made by Cathy and the policy was implemented in the year 1946. Sunday is the “Lord’s Day” and the business has decided not to deal with money on such day (Yale, n.d.).
- Highly Religious Organization
For Cathy, there is no difference between the biblical principles and the business principles. To operate the business effectively, Cathy takes guidance from The Bible as it provides the company with the road map. Moreover, the biblical principles have become an integral part of the brand and every decision taken by Chick-fil-A is based on the biblical principles (Bhasin, 2012).
- Family
Chick-fil-A started from a small business to a successful organization that is well known throughout the United States. At Chick-fil-A, the employees and the management talk a lot about further growing the business and the accomplishment of desired goals and objectives. To enhance the possibility of growth, the employees are encourages to provide the management with innovative and creative ideas that would allow the management to do things faster, better and more often. The company focuses highly on creating a community rather than enhancing the profit level (Dan, 2013a).
- Service
Providing the customers with unique and quality service is the heart and soul of the organization. Chick-fil-A has always focused on quality service due to which the company is listed in 15 best companies that provides the customers with service as if the customers are the king. The consistency in delivering the promises to the customers has allowed the organization to be as successful as Apple, Morton’s Steakhouse, Publix, Neiman Marcus and the Ritz Carlton. The company sells experience by providing the customers with quality services. The values of the company are designed in such ways that even the people and services tend to cater the needs and wants of the customers (Dan, 2013b).
- Leadership
Chick-fil-A hand breads almost 600 chicken sandwiches every minute due to which, the company has been able to enhance its growth for the last 44 years. Although, the business has been considered to be transactional business but the operations and the biblical principles taken into consideration by Chick-fil-A clearly indicates that it is a relationship business. The business intentionally invites people from all over the places to have conversation with the company’s management and to provide them with their insights and opinions regarding the business and its flaws. Sharing common purpose in almost 1,700 restaurants throughout the United States has somehow provided the organization with an opportunity to lead the fast food industry in United States (Dan, 2013c).
- Wellness
Cathy considers the wellness of its customers to be his responsibility. To help the customers to get rid of overweight or obese, Chick-fil-A has consistently taken measures to provide its customers with healthy meals. The introduction of nutritious kid’s meal was a step that the company took to help the children resolve obesity issues. Moreover, the company continually updates its food menu to provide the kids with healthier choices i.e. applesauce, 100 percent apple juice, freshly squeezed lemonade and bottle water (Dan, 2013d).
- Loyalty
Loyalty for Truett Cathy matters the most. To promote the organization to gain its desired goals and objectives, the founder is in constant search of married workers. Cathy highly believes that married workers are more productive and industrious whereas single workers are mostly emotional. To learn more about workers, Cathy frequently interviews the family members even the children. According to Cathy, if a person cannot even manage his/her own life, cannot manage the business. Moreover, workers have been fired in the earlier years because of their sins and harmful acts towards the family members (Schmall, 2007).
POSITIVE EFFECT OF VALUES ON CHICK-FIL-A ORGANIZATION
Chick-fil-A has survived in cut-throat restaurant environment in United States for almost 45 years. This is basically the positive effect of values on the employees that tend to enhance their performance and quality service from time to time. Moreover, the biblical principles that are taken under the consideration by the company have gained a lot of popularity in United States. This has attracted more and more customers to support the organization for the values and principles its support. On the other hand, these principles have given the dissatisfied and angry customers a reason to hate the company and its product offerings (Stafford, 2013).
The company has strongly established itself in United States. Despite the controversial comment on “biblical marriage”, the company was able to enhance its sales up by 14 percent as compared to earlier year. Moreover, the company also opened 96 new stores in United States i.e. 4 more than the year before. The continuous success of the company and growth within United States is highly dependent on the biblical values but these values are constantly creating barriers between the organization and its desired success (Bhasin, 2012).
Employees at Chick-fil-A are treated fairly and equally which makes them work even harder and smartly as compared to other restaurants. The rising performance of the employees and their dedication to achieve the organization goals and objectives have resulted in 44 years of rising sales and revenues along with strong relationship with the customers and the community members. Moreover, providing the customers with healthy meals have also provided the organization with continuous opportunity to convey what the business stands for. In addition, providing the customers with service as if they are the king has also resulted in increasing fame and popularity within United States. As a result, more and more customers tend to visit Chick-fil-A to experience the quality of service themselves. The company intentionally invites the people to come and share their views and opinions with the management; this has significantly enhanced the organization’s prestige in the community (Stafford, 2013).
This significantly implies that the company has gained success over the years due to dedication and commitment to the biblical principles. Although, some criticize the company to be highly religious and these principles could lead the business to fall but over the years, these principles have allowed the organization to remain on the same direction as it once desired (Bhasin, 2012).
CHRISTIAN VALUES AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MAJOR OPERATIONS DECISIONS
The biblical principles have always been taken into consideration at Chick-fil-A. Even the major operation decisions are influenced by the Christian Values at the organization. Some of the major decisions that are influenced are as follows (Schroeder, Goldstein, and Rungtusanatham, 2012):
- Process
Chick-fil-A has never backed down from its Christian values. This is what makes the company unique and unrivaled in the eyes of customers. Providing the customers with excellent service along with quality food, the organization focuses highly on process management. Like other major operation decisions, the decisions regarding the process management is taken under the guidance of biblical principles.
- Quality
Providing the customers with best quality and healthy food has always been the foremost objective of the organization. Truett Cathy being the owner of the business always considered regarding the wellness and health of the customers. To protect the customers from harm’s way and wrong doings, the company always remained cautious when serving the customers. Even being a Christian Valued organization; Chick-fil-A, never discriminated its customers on behalf of color, caste or religion. Customers are considered to be a gift of God at Chick-fil-A due to which the company is constantly taking measures in providing them with variety of healthy food and juices from time to time.
The decisions regarding the quality of food along with the interior of the restaurant is a practical example of biblical principles at work. Chick-fil-A values its customers the most, even money is considered to be second most priority when it comes to quality of food provided to the customers at Chick-fil-A.
- Capacity
For the organization to operate smoothly, the organization takes decisions that are aligned with the biblical principles. Providing the customers with convenience is one of the priorities of the organization. To manage the customers at drive-through, the company has been trying to introduce drive-thru layout by taking the customer demands into consideration. To effectively increase the number of guests at the restaurant, the organization is consistently striving to achieve perfection that will eventually tend to serve the customers more efficiently and effectively as compared to earlier years. This has significantly allowed the organization to alleviate bottlenecks in terms of customer convenience as indicated in the Christian values (Oches, 2012).
- Inventory
Managing the inventory to meet the needs and desires of the customers is quite important at Chick-fil-A. To particularly meet the needs of the customers, the company focuses highly on inventory management. Being a highly Christian value based organization; the decisions even in terms of inventory management are highly influenced by the biblical principles. The company has a safety stock of food items for 5 days. This means that after 5 days, the safety stock is replenished so that the customers could be provided with healthy foods. This also helps the company ensure that Chick-fil-A is not putting its own goals and objectives above customer’s health.
Moreover, the safety stock for paper products at Chick-fil-A is 1.5 weeks i.e. (10 days). To eliminate the possibilities of stock out, the company purchases the items from local vendors or from another nearby Chick-fil-A stores. This has continually been the source to eliminate Stock-out. In addition, the orders are placed weekly by the organization that is shipped through trucks all over the Chick-fil-A stores.
CONCLUSION
Chick-fil-A has become one of the most unique and unequalled fast food restaurants in United States due to its constant focus on the Christian Values that were engrained from the very start of the business. The company started from just a single restaurant in United States but with the passage of time and guidance from The Bible, the organization was able to reach its desired goals and objectives from time to time.
The success of the organization relies entirely on the people along with good decisions from time to time. The organization aims to satisfy the customers that come in contact with it as indicated in The Bible and its principles. Truett Cathy focused highly on providing the customers with service along with healthy foods. Due to this fact, the organization has been continually providing the customers with new and healthy foods.
The decisions at Chick-fil-A are highly influenced by the biblical principles that act as a source of guidance for the company and its top management. Moreover, higher retention rate and satisfaction level of the employees reveals that the employees are highly satisfied with their job and the work environment at Chick-fil-A.
References
Bhasin, K. (2012). Meet S. Truett Cathy, the 91 year old billionaire behind Chick-fil-A. Business Insider. Retrieved July 15, 2013, from http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-chick-fil-a-founder-s-truett-cathy-2012-7?op=1
Dan. (2013a). Thought for the week: create community. Retrieved July 15, 2013, from http://www.cathyfamily.com/dan/blog/thought-for-the-week-create-community.aspx
Dan. (2013b). A great brand is promise kept. Retrieved July 15, 2013, from http://www.cathyfamily.com/dan/blog/a-great-brand-is-a-promise-kept.aspx
Dan. (2013c). Thought for the week: be a better. Retrieved July 15, 2013, from http://www.cathyfamily.com/dan/blog/thought-for-the-week-be-a-better-_____.aspx
Dan. (2013d). Nuggets of wisdom. Retrieved July 15, 2013, from http://www.cathyfamily.com/dan/blog/nuggets.aspx
Oches, S. (2012). 2012 QSR drive thru study. Retrieved July 15, 2013, from http://www.qsrmagazine.com/reports/2012-qsr-drive-thru-study?page=2
Schmall, E. (2007). The cult of Chick-fil-A. Forbes. Retrieved July 15, 2013, from http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0723/080.html
Schroeder, R., Goldstein, S., and Rungtusanatham, M. (2012). Operations management in the supply chain: decisions and cases. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Stafford, L. (2013). Chick-fil-A keeps growing despite uproar. Retrieved July 15, 2013, from http://www.ajc.com/news/business/chick-fil-a-keeps-growing-despite-uproar/nT85n/
Yale. (n.d.). Sunday closing in context. Retrieved July 15, 2013, from http://nexus.som.yale.edu/chick-fil-a/?q=node/88
