Kentucky Fried Chicken – KFC is the most popular and well-known brand across the world today. It is among the biggest fast-service restaurant chains and is very prominent due to its secret formula. Let’s now see more about the company’s financials, strategies, and SWOT analysis of KFC in detail.
About KFC
KFC is the second largest restaurant chain across the globe and has various franchises and different countries producing a whopping amount of revenue. The company has more than 25000 outlets today and has a robust presence in 145 countries.
KFC at a Glance
| Founders | Harland Sanders
Pete Harman |
| Key People | Sabir Sami (CEO)
Dyke Shipp (President) Monica Rothgery (COO) Catherine Tan (CMO) Staci Rawls (CCO) |
| Year of Establishment | 1930 |
| Annual Revenue (as of FY24) | US$2.83 billion |
| Origin | The United States |
| Type of Company | Subsidiary |
| Total no. of employees | approx. 100,000 employees |
| Number of locations | 30,000 |
SWOT Analysis of KFC
Let us now see the swot analysis of KFC that talks about the company’s plus points, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities.
Strengths of KFC
Strengths are those areas that make the firm or organization strong in the market. KFC includes the following strengths –
Sturdy market position
KFC is the second largest global brand in the fast food industry when we talk about revenue. The company is familiar with several trustworthy brands in different countries due to its franchise and global expansion.
Secret formula
KFC chicken recipe is a trade secret that includes 11 herbs and spices on an original basis. This makes it distinctive from its competitors.
Great demand in China
KFC gets most of its revenue from China where it has more than 3000 outlets. The company’s position in China is the main strength of the company as fast food marketing in China is growing.
KFC – Pizza Hut- Taco Bell
KFC has partnerships with the rest of Yum! brands. These brands take advantage as KFC may offer special items from its partners and fulfill the customer needs.
Market leader status
KFC is leading across the globe among all those companies offering chicken as their first product. The company has kept itself on the top amid rest of fast food chains by selling its signature products.
Weaknesses of KFC
The weaknesses of KFC include –
Unreliable suppliers
For a long time, KFC had contracted with the suppliers that provided contaminated poultry to KFC. This resulted in a damaged reputation of the company with highly reduced sales. Also, this proved hazardous to the customer’s health.
Criticism
PETA criticizes KFC over the conditions in which chickens have been grown. The brand received negative publicity for offering customers chicken wings with kidneys. There is a lot of such bad news from KFC that damages the brand’s reputation majorly.
Major employee turnover
The jobs in KFC are low-skilled and the employees get low wages. This brings minimal performance and high employee turnover which heightens the training cost and the revenue gets expensive.
Inappropriate food menu
KFC food products contain high calories, fats, and salt. This increases protests by customers that combat obesity. This decreases the popularity of KFC and a lot of customers are also opting out of this brand due to the unhealthy food menu.
Opportunities for KFC
Here are the opportunities for KFC –
Demand for healthy food
Today a lot of customers are inclined towards consuming healthy food so KFC can introduce more healthy food choices to compensate for its weaknesses.
Home delivery
KFC should leverage this choice to increase its customer base to a greater extent.
Offering new products
Apart from its chicken range products KFC can bring new meals to its menu along with only veg meals. This will target a broad customer group and will result in additional customers.
Threats to KFC
KFC has the following threats –
Market saturation
The fast food market in developing countries is overcrowded by a lot of fast food restaurant chains. This already proves a major threat to KFC as it finds it very difficult to develop in developing economies.
Healthy eating Trend
A lot of people today need to come back from obesity and people are becoming more conscious of consuming healthy food products. This is also a major threat to KFC, which has a lot of unhealthy food products on its menu.
Economic fluctuations
KFC gets a lot of revenue from foreign branches. This revenue can be converted into dollars and affect the profit of the business specifically when the dollar is increasing against the remaining currencies.
Legal issues
The brand has seen a lot of lawsuits and has lost most of them. These lawsuits are quite costly. KFC has been operating in the same way and there are high chances for additional expenses in the coming time.
Top Competitors of KFC
The top 5 competitors of KFC –
McDonald’s: It is one of the biggest fast-food chains across the globe offering different food products like burgers, fries, etc. It competes directly with KFC in offering product varieties and brand image.
Burger King: It is another popular fast food chain across the globe which is known for its grill burgers. It competes directly with KFC in the fast food sector.
Domino’s Pizza: This plan is popularly known for Pizza but completes with KFC in the first-service restaurant sector.
Popeyes: It’s known for fried chicken and is a direct rival to KFC in the fast food industry.
Chick-fil-A: It’s a famous fast-food chain in the United States and competes with KFC in delivering high-quality chicken products.
Conclusion
Down the line, the major strength of KFC is its large market presence which has been growing every year. The company has its unique recipes with a lot of items to offer to the customers. The brand also sees a lot of weaknesses including changing customer options and criticism in the market due to animal cruelty.
Opportunities for the company lie in bringing healthy food options to the customers. KFC has experience in this competition from rivals from around the globe and local positions as well.
