SWOT ANALYSIS
Strength
The most outstanding strength of the Yeh frozen yoghurt franchise is the diversification of its premises. The management has created several branches which enables it to get a lot of customers. The company has established branches in several major cities such as Halifax in Canada, Nova Socita, and cities in Quebec and Toronto provinces. The information about all these branches and their operation hours are displayed in their website.
They have partnered with major organizations like Starbucks to form franchises. With this, they are able to sell to the clients who is already established. They have established franchises in many parts of major cities in America and are taking advantage of the loyal clients of these companies.
There is also the strength of the innovative entrepreneurs of the company. The company was formed by two entrepreneurs who have the passion and innovation to drive the company to greater heights. They have strategic partners in way of franchises. This is a great opportunity for the company to take advantage.
The company has a strong brand name because of the way its products have been advertised by way of mouth. This is a strength for the company as their products have been marketed to many people in major cities. Their yogurt products are believed to be the healthiest in the world.
One of the strengths is their e-marketing strategy. The company has a very integrated and appealing website that contains information about their different branches and the services they provide. E-marketing is a very crucial tool for marketing in the modern world. Any business firm which avails its services via the internet will always remain at the top of the league. Moreover, their website is regularly updated to ensure that the information therein is up to date (YogurtHelp, 2013).
Strength is their email marketing. The company has an integrated email marketing system which enables them to update their customers about their product. The most prevalent is the welcome emails. These are responses which a business organization forwards everytime a new subscriber for the mail. The mail is meant to create a first sight impression on the company’s email marketing system. The email is the best tool to build trust and credibility, and promotes the company’s brand. The study conducted by Silverpop in 2012 revealed that there has been less initiative by most companies in the region to send welcome emails to their customers. This is an opportunity that they should utilize to enhance their stand out and their deliverability.Email marketing enables the marketer to categorize the list of customers based on behavior, preference and demographics. This information about the customer can be retrieved from the information that a customer gives during the subscription.
Strength is the variety of product that they offer. Apart from the frozen yoghurt, the franchise offers other delicacies to their customers such as waffles, coffee, tea, marshmallows and crepes. Moreover, their service is more personalized as they enable the customers to choose the ingredients to be added to the food they will eat (BeTheBoss, 2013). They have nearly everything that fits a given situation like products that are used in cold weather, hot weather, for the old, for the young, pocket-friendly, and healthy snacks.
Weaknesses
Another risk is that they have displayed the trick that they use to attract customers. The idea of displaying all the information on how they operate in their website is detrimental to their business. This is like exposing their business policy. The competing firms will get this information and implement them to benefit themselves.
Opportunities
One opportunity of the company is the varied product they produce. There are many products that are produced by the company. The products that are produced by the company include chocolate mint, espresso, chocolate, cake butter, cream and cookies. There are different flavors of yogurt that is produced by the company which include vanilla, and strawberry. These make the clients have a wide variety of choosing their yogurt.
Basically, the opportunities that a business organization a largely depend on product development and innovation. Yeh yoghurt has a very committed product development team which is able to foresee the market trends and take advantage by becoming the first one. For instance, the idea of establishing several branches helps them to readily avail their product to the customers.
The other opportunity is the idea of diversifying their product. This is an opportunity that other franchise offering yoghurthas not realized. Yeh is able to attract more customers since they can get a variety of products or food in under the same roof. For instance, if a firm deals with yoghurt and provide other food that goes with yoghurt and the other offers yoghurt only, it is not necessarily the company which deals with multiple food will definitely take the advantage.
Another opportunity that the company has is the ability to change their products to fit different season. Most companies which offer this product stick to their initial product without considering the change in season. This implies that they will sell less during the off season (Yeh Yogurt, 2013).
Threats
One of the threats that the company faces in the business is that of seasonality. With frozen yogurt. Their consumption is seasonal. During winter, the sale of frozen yogurt tendsto drop significantly. This is a threat to the company and its profits. Another threat to the company is the low-carbohydrate or low-fat trend that is seen in many segments of the market. while there are some market segments which are looking for premium products, many market segments are keen on their diets. Many people are monitoring their carbohydrate and fat use. If Yeh Yogurt does not insist on advertising the low-fat yogurt they sell to the market, then there are high chances of alienating the market (Briones, Langalis, Matos, Medeiros, & Wilson, 2012).
Their regular change in the product can become a threat to the company has it may eventually lose the initial identity. The quality of their product will be compromised and the make the company to be seen as offering substandard product since they is no specialization.
References
Franchising USA (2013). Yeh! Yogurt: The premium self-serve experience. Retrieved on 4 Nov 2013 from http://www.franchisingusamagazine.com/latest/yeh-yogurt-the-premium-self-serve-experience/
BeTheBoss (2013). Jon and Marvin Gurman – Yeh! Yogurt. Retrieved on 4 Nov 2013 from http://www.betheboss.ca/franchise_interviews_march_2013/Jon-Marvin-Gurman161.cfm
Yeh Yogurt (2013). Concept.Retrieved on Nov 1 2013 from http://www.yehyogurt.com/concespt.php
YogurtHelp (2013).Frozen yogurt industry analysis 2013: Cost and trends, Retrieved on 1 Nov 2013 from http://www.franchisehelp.com/industry-reports/frozen-yogurt-industry-report