Verda Sabir

Sir Ahmed Hassan

Fundamentals of Management
23rd September, 2018

KFC as an Organization

When Colonel Harland Sanders founded KFC in 1930, it is unlikely he would have predicted that
KFC which is now a subsidiary for Yum! Brands, would have franchises in more than 20,000
locations in more than 123 countries across the globe, as of December 2015. But how did this
$12.6 billion company manage to be the second largest restaurant chain in the world, that serves
up to 12 million customers on a daily basis?

Well, like any other organization it also relies on the four basic processes that uphold a business:

1. Planning
2. Organizing
3. Leading
4. Controlling

Planning:

As a fast food chain, KFC hopes to achieve a lot of goals, some of them include:

▫ To seize the major fast food market. They want to establish themselves as the #1 fast-
food chain all over the world, beating competition like Mcdonalds.
▫ They want their products and services to be available to anyone and everyone,
everywhere.
 ▫ But also intend to keep the quality of their food top notch and as their slogan says ‘Finger
Lickin’ Good’.
▫ Obviously, one major goal for them as any other business would be to increase their
sales, revenues and ultimately profit.

Organizing:

To achieve the aforementioned goals, KFC focuses on doing the following:

▫ KFC wants their customers to be served effectively and efficiently which is why it trains
its staff before hiring them and also focuses on updating this training from time to time.
Their future plans include to train their staff through Virtual Reality to be better able at
handling situations.
▫ They focus most of their resources in the restaurant activities and operations.
▫ Since most of their purchases are take-out, in 2016 they introduced home delivery system
that would help them increase their reach to the customers.
▫ To increase their customer demographic, they focus on expanding their franchises all
over the world, currently having more than 21,000 restaurants in more than 125 countries.
▫ Another way they reach to a wider audience is by taking into account the type of
customers they serve and then updating their menu accordingly. For example KFC now
also serves vegetarian items for vegetarians, includes kids items specifically for kids, fish
items for those people who love fish and so on. And keeps in mind that different regions
have different likes, therefore in Islamic countries the chicken is halaal and Asian
countries prefer more spicier food so their famous Chicken Zinger Burger was
introduced.

Leading:

For any organization to prosper, it must focus on the people who work for it. Therefore:
 ▫ KFC keeps its restaurant staff motivated by providing a chance to each employee to win a
bonus if an employee upholds the two major things that KFC focuses on i. Customer
Satisfaction ii. Operational Fundamentals. Employees can earn up to 200 pounds worth of
vouchers in the UK.
▫ While the managers and the senior staff are eligible for cash bonuses, they are judged on
almost the same grounds like how well have they contributed towards Metrics, customer
satisfaction and sales.

Monitoring:

▫ KFC relies on demographic segmentation to increase its acceptance in the market and
does so by localising its menu according to the geographical region it is serving at. This
ensures diversity in the selection of items and also increases customer satisfaction.
▫ Quality Control is one of the top priorities for KFC as a fast-food chain and uses
HACCP, a management system that includes identifying, evaluating and controlling
physical and biological and chemical hazards to ensure food safety. (1) Recently KFC
announced that it would be dedicated to providing chicken strictly without antibiotics as
this was healthier for consumers.
▫ By rewarding their staff, KFC hopes to motivate them to work towards achieving the
organizational goals however it also hopes to obtain feedback from them so they can
collectively work on areas of improvement.

Hence, these are the ways KFC functions as an organization