By the time Subway became extremely popular with American customers, the company’s management had already reflected on the idea of international expansion to attract an even bigger target audience. However, once they started the process of expansion, they were primarily focused on introducing Subway restaurants to English-speaking states such as the UK and Canada. Moreover, the company’s management only considered opening the restaurants where they were welcomed at the time. Hence, the first issue they faced during the expansion was the low density of stores across the states, which was inefficient for Subway logistics. To address the problem, the decision was made to negotiate with local management on the matter of opening more restaurants in the area, as the local customers were already familiar with the network’s concept.
After expanding to other English-speaking countries, the company’s management decided to open restaurants in other areas. However, the major issue in terms of the expansion was the notion of cultural diversity, which concerned language and food habits. To deal with the problem, Subway directors decided to expand the core menu of the restaurant with culturally-specific food while retaining the basic product – sandwiches (“Subway international expansion,” n.d.). For the sake of efficiency, the company decided to create a position of regional directors across the globe for them to collect all the necessary data, such as customer surveys and basic information about the area. By hiring regional directors, Subway also managed to resolve the issue of legal differences and supply lines. Finally, after the expansion, the management faced the problem of communication between the restaurants all over the world. To solve this, they introduced a system of training programs for local managers.
Reference
Subway international expansion [Video file]. (n.d.). Web.