Fast food is one of the largest types of food worldwide and the industry is growing at a fast rate. Pizza hut, an American restaurant chain founded in 1958 is one of the major players in this industry. During the past five decades, Pizza Hut has built its name and reputation for excellence that has earned the love and respect from the customers. Pizza Hut mainly competed by offering restaurant style and sit-down pizza meals ("Building Competitive Advantage", 2016).
The company has been continuously expanding since the 1970s, when Frank Carney, the founder decided to change the business strategy that needs a long-term business plan. After much consultation and debate, the new strategy includes adding new restaurants to the chain in growing markets. The year 1970 sees the opening of a number of restaurants in many countries worldwide along with the opening of the 500th restaurant. Pizza Hut became the world’s largest chain of Pizza in the year 1971("Pizza Hut Inc Facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Pizza Hut Inc", 2016).
In 1973, Pizza Hut continued with its expansion by opening restaurants in Great Britain and Japan and the company’s 2000th restaurant got opened in Missouri. In 1977, Pizza Hut merged with PepsiCo and became the division of global soft drink ("Pizza Hut Inc Facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Pizza Hut Inc", 2016). In 1980s, many new competitors like Denver-based Shakey’s, Dallas-based Pizza Inn brought challenges to the top position of Pizza Hut. In order to raise the profile, Pizza hut introduced a new pizza range called Pan Pizza in the year 1980. It became popular among people and the new additions to the menu were facilitated by the marketing resources of PepsiCo ("Pizza Hut Inc Facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Pizza Hut Inc", 2016). After three years, the chain introduced a new range, Personal Pan Pizza that offers the customers with five-minute guarantee to arrive quickly and steaming hot. The main aim of this launch was to make the pizza affordable for people at lunch time. Hand-Tossed Traditional Pizza was another addition to the chain’s menu in 1988.
A strong growth was seen in the late 1980s and the early 1990s with the opening of the 5000th franchise unit in 1986 in Texas with the beginning of the home delivery service as well ("Pizza Hut Inc Facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Pizza Hut Inc", 2016). Due to several changes in the food chain market, Pizza hut, saw its first decline in profits in 1994. There was no growth as the competitors cut prices and the investment in opening new outlets was also draining corporate resources. In order to change the distributing direction, Pizza Hut promoted a new product called Stuffed Crust Pizza. Mass advertising was used to promote this new product and this was a profitable launch by the company as the sales rose to 27% from 25.6%. The next year also remains profitable for the company. In the year 1996, the chain decided to launch a new product each year and came with another new launch of Totally New Pizzas with 67 percent more toppings and thicker sauce than the previous pizzas ("Pizza Hut Inc Facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Pizza Hut Inc", 2016).
Pizza Hut is now experimenting with a number of different pizzas in various parts of the country in order to satisfy more local tastes of people. The main advantage of such type of strategy is to deal with its own competitors by serving its particular base of customers, and to act on the changes that affect the operations.
References
Building Competitive Advantage. (2016). Retrieved 30 March 2016, from
http://www.swlearning.com/pdfs/chapter/0324226217_1.PDF
Pizza Hut Inc Facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Pizza Hut Inc.
(2016). Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 30 March 2016, from http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Pizza_Hut_Inc.aspx
