Introduction
Burger King is an international chain of hamburger fast food restaurant with its headquarters in the United States. The company franchises more than 10,400 restaurants and owns about 1,000 for a chain wide with locations in all 50 states and 56 countries. From the late 1990’s to 2000, Burger King was brought down by declining sales and worsening franchisee relationship. In 2002, Texas Pacific group purchased it, thereby reviving it. And until now, they have used their strategies for new advertising agencies and campaigns, revamped menu and new restaurant concepts called BK whooper burger to keep it moving. B
urger King in the UK market has been experiencing lots of challenges such as competition from other fast foods such as McDonalds and KFC which are largely saturated in the US. Also, inconsistency of food and services from one franchise to another has led to decrease in consumer demand. Burger King food is made from wheat, beef and other products that are very expensive, hence commodity price rise being considered as another major problem. Health and obesity are other problems facing Burger King in the UK where people are turning to the less fat foods like the KFC which eliminates trans-fat.
Body of the paper
Emerging markets, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, attract and threaten investors due to their rapid economic growth, potential competitors and vexing problems like corruption, financial crisis and weak intellectual property rights. India as one of the emerging markets plays an important role in the global economy due to its degree and market tempting opportunities. In comparison to other developed countries, India faces socio-economical problems, such as poor infrastructure and high population, which are often used by investors as opportunities to introduce their ideas to the peaking market (Krishnan and Prabhu 1999).
The target product being the Burger King in the Indian market is likely to face competitive disadvantage with other fast foods restaurants such as the KFC with most of the population being Hindus. To overcome this, the Burger King company may consider the need to introduce non beef products in order to serve the consumers’ needs, and in return, the business will prevail. The main reason for this is that the religion of Hindu people tends to consider cows or cattle in general as sacred animals, and hence consuming meat is to a limited scale. Furthermore, most Indian businesses are run by family members, therefore, labor costs are low meaning fixed prices.
In consideration to this, if Burger King company were to enter the Indian market, then it would have to produce burgers with global quality due to their quality perception but at a local price putting in mind that consumers have inadequate buying influence here. This in turn would lead to losses but to alleviate this, needless features and components in a burger could be removed by the first studying the customers’ local needs and preference. In such emerging markets, local companies have to reduce price by reducing the product quality which in this case, Burger King faces the challenge of upgrading the quality of its products with reduced prices.
Conclusion
Emerging market story is largely one of growth and opportunity, therefore, this excitement can easily end when companies are faced by corruption, termination of contracts, reckless expropriation and other risks in those markets. These risks can be mitigated by companies limiting their ambition, so as not to meet them largely, and improvising on mechanism like audits and internal attention where high standards for their organizations are set to reduce corruption. When the challenges become unbearable, companies may resort to exiting the market (Krishnan and Prabhu 1999).
Major hindrances to entering Indian market are its FDI regulations, high import taxes and difficulties in obtaining licenses to open more franchises which depend on policy makers and government officials. But to avoid this, timing is very important because one can move into the market by posing themselves as partners in progress or by advancing traditional corporate social responsibilities to occupy institutional voids.
Reference List
Krishnan, R & Prabhu, G 1999, “Creating Successful New Products: Challenges for Indian Industry.” Economic & Political Weekly, pp. M114-M120. Web.