Introduction

Business analytics entails extensive use of data, quantitative and statistical analysis, predictive and explanatory models, and fact-based administration to develop actions and decisions (Nguyen et al., 2018). Business analytics has emerged in the recent past as a key strategic consideration in the management of modern business organizations. Specifically, business analytics plays a multi-faceted and essential role within a business organization. It offers backing for strategic planning, generates competitive advantage, and produces tactical value. According to Ford and Ungaro (2020), the foundation of business analytics is abstract analytics which is founded on considering data-driven process which generates business insights. Business analytics encompasses both historical and predictive data and hence its objectives is to transform business data into useful information which is helpful to an organization (Heck et al., 2018). This paper explores this concept with specific focus on Burger King, a successful global business enterprise with specific focus on its operations in the UK. Burger King is among the dominant players in UK’s fast-food industry with high market share and reputation. New market entrants who are interested in joining UK’s fast- food market would focus on Burger King as a major source of competition. However, the main source of competition faced by Burger King in UK’s fast-food industry are Wendy’s Burger, KFC, and McDonald’s. Due to the presence of numerous choices and the current low costs associated with switching between the choices, Burger King’s success is an illustration of a well-managed with respect to supplier diversity and maintaining a diverse portfolio of customers and suppliers.

Value of Business Analytics

Operations management at Burger King entails various strategies aimed at expanding the organization’s status in relation to market leadership in the service restaurant industry. Since Burger King is a major player in the UK’s service industry, it is expected to constantly address various strategic decisions in its operational management (Nguyen et al., 2018). These areas provides the firm with basis considerations during strategic formulation to unify and streamline organizational development. These strategic decisions affect three key areas of business management including customers, suppliers, and forecasting.

Customers

Burger King’s main focus with respect to its customers is to differentiate its products from existing competitors in the UK (Angrave et al., 2016). For instance, the company’s flame- grilled burgers are significantly unique in the UK market. This strategy provides a major support for its generic competitive strategy. Burger King employ’s two generic strategies of broad differentiation and cost leadership to enhance its completive advantage. The firm’s main competitive strategy is founded on cost leadership. According to Heck et al. (2018), this strategy entails approaches which minimize the price of products which results in lowly priced products. Cost leadership at Burger King is realized through extensive use of historical data and research and development to standardize processes and minimize costs through error prevention and economies of scale. The financial objective of this strategy is to minimize operational costs to ensure the firm’s products are lowly priced.

Burger King also utilizes broad differentiation as its strategy for enhancing its competitiveness in the market. This strategy is founded on establishing unique attributes to differentiate an organization from other businesses in the market (Ford and Ungaro, 2020). Burger King’s approach to broad differentiation is founded on grilling of burger patties. In addition, its earlier slogan “Have it Your Way” and recent slogan “Be Your Way” are representations of the firm’s broad differentiation with regard to offerings its customers with broad and flexible options (Black, 2019). Many of Burger King’s restaurants offer Free drinks refills. This is a strategic objective that is founded on a generic competitive strategy of the firm to adopt varied differentiation in retaining its customer base and attracting new customers in markets that are dominated by several competitors.

Burger King’s main growth strategy is founded on market penetration and coining a new path to dealing with growing competition in the current century. Specifically, by turning data collected about customer preferences, transactions, and buying patterns into actionable insights, Burger King is able to drive its businesses using the power of data analytics (Nguyen et al., 2018).

Suppliers

Burger King operates with a global supply chain. Within the UK strategic area, the objective of the organization is to make sure there is a sufficiency of supply at all the time. Therefore, this organization’s supply chain management entails consolidation of all activities of the supply chain activities under the restaurant services. Its materials and supplies are provided via the RSI (Chien & Tsai, 2021). If an individual is asked to identify United States’ leading food export to the United Kingdom, there is a chance that hamburger will be mentioned.

However, similar to any commoditized product, the desire to not only stay ahead but also sustain a competitive advantage using the conventional methods such as price discounts, or novel product offerings has been ineffective in inspiring disruptive innovation (Ford and Ungaro, 2020). From a historical context, Burger King has lagged behind McDonald’s with respect to the number of retail locations, reach and total market share which is currently about 5 percent when compared to McDonald’s 19 percent (Heck et al., 2018). With this challenge in mind, the new leadership at Burger King has in the recent past focused on data analytics to inspire its operations, marketing and sales strategy and the outcomes are promising. It is hard to image that Whooper is founded on big data or the decision by Burger King to formulate partnerships with Impossible Burger to deliver meatless Whooper was influenced insights collected from big data. This are highlights of Burger King’s new strategic operations.

Forecasting

Forecasting is critical since it gives Burger King the capacity to develop essential decisions and formulate a data-driven strategy. Burger King records over 10 million daily sales in its locations in the UK. This provides the company with huge amounts of data that can be tapped and utilized in strategic planning and decision making. From the firm’s supply chain operations to source its requirements, merchandising and maintaining assortment, to the approach used in cooking in all its retail outlets, the quantity and quality of data available at each step of the journey taken by the hamburger can be incalculable (Black, 2019). However, as much as the current level of computation of data is still limited, the value of the data still remains significant to the organization even if a small portion of the data is analyzed.

According to Angrave et al. (2016), even google is aware that having infinite computational power does not limit human beings to developing decisions that are backed with data.

Burger King was able to leverage its data capabilities as a first food retailer to strengthen customer experiences. This is realized using a highly modernized website, digital experiences at its outlets, and mobile applications (Arthur, 2020). Founded in 2014, the Burger King App offers location tracker for its retail outlets, special promotions, and personalized coupons to enhance the boring nature of purchasing a burger, and introduced appealing video content to amuse the customers. Furthermore, Burger King skillfully requested for location sharing from its customers in the mobile app, and encouraged the app users to offer feedback directly on the mobile platform, which gave the firm access to new perspectives of the consumer data.

Consequently, Burger King’s new scalable mobile application has been effective in enhancing customer experiences by allowing the customers to receive specific and desirable offers and also access a digital wallet, which has been extensively utilized in making purchases and payments. The mobile application also provides the firm’s brand and its franchisees with plush data about consumer buying habits, which is actively used in enhancing customer experiences (Black, 2019).

Fig 1: Most popular dining brands in the United Kingdom (UK) as of December 2020

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/950444/most-popular-restaurant-brands-in-the- united-kingdom-uk/

Types of data and performance of the sales department

Burger King’s approach to operations management is founded on measuring productivity from various angles including at the regional facilities, corporate headquarters, and franchises. The objective is to raise productivity while keeping the corresponding costs at the minimum. One outcome of this data driven style of management was the enhanced adoption of an omnichannel strategy for linking the physical retail locations to the offerings of Burger King’s digital apps. Using the user feedback, Burger King’s expansion of self-service kiosks in various locations in the UK and revamp of its digital wallet allowed the firm to develop strategic decisions that have significantly influenced consumer shopping experiences. In general, other than the capture of huge amounts of data, the value that has been generated through these innovations have enhanced customer retention and significantly boosted the consumer journey. With regard to metrics, three months after the introduction of app offerings, Burger King recorded 34 percent growth in redemption offers which spun into foot traffic, and recorded astonishing 85 percent conclusion rate in online surveys that were done through its mobile app (Angrave et al., 2016).

Fig 1: Burge King’s Social Media Strategy: A brand case study

Source: https://www.falcon.io/insights-hub/topics/social-media-strategy/burger-kings-social- media-strategy/

The prior narrative demonstrated that Burger King’s consideration of the significance of data in the early years of the second decade of the 21^st century. In the recent years, Burger King has extensively highlighted its strategy of integrating more powerful capabilities in its marketing strategy to promote customer engagement. Specifically, the marketing team at Burger King recently launched the ‘Whooper Detour’ campaign. Here customers were expected to download the firm’s upgraded app and be within 600 feet from McDonald’s outlets to trigger the offer. Leveraging the immense features of google map, the app was able to navigate the user away from McDonald’s and lead them to the nearest Burger King to collect their food within an hour after placing an order via the app. This investment was successful as it resulted in over one million downloads of the app which made the app to be recognized among most downloaded in Apples App Store for some time (Arthur, 2020).

Furthermore, Burger King recently introduced a funny commercials series on its YouTube channel that was driven by algorithms with enchanting voice-overs (Chien & Tsai, 2021). In an attempt to depict limitations of artificial intelligence applications, the ads promoted a chicken sand which that tasted like bird and on various occasions mispronounced its name as ‘Burglar King’, and even ridiculed its own slogan. While these commercials were successful in promoting viewership on the firm’s YouTube channel, the effects of the marketing strategy are still being investigated. As much as the platform was sufficiently funny and captivating, researchers are still questioning whether Burger King will increase on its adoption of complex data analytics to drive its strategy (Chien & Tsai, 2021)

Conclusions and Recommendations

McDonald’s ferocious strategic response to Burger King’s marking campaign should make the firm to review its limited use of existing AI technologies. Recently, McDonalds announced an acquisition of Dynamic Yield at a cost of $300 million. Dynamic Yield is an Israeli startup which offers retailers access to algorithmically driven decision logic technology (Chien & Tsai, 2021). With regard to applications, McDonalds has introduced several dynamic display ads that are founded on machine-learning algorithms that great customers by their first names and offer them menu products on the basis of their historical visits, weather patterns, and flavor preferences. Through this in-depth application, this technology would put McDonalds at par with Amazon’s recommendation engine through jolting the consumers about what was bought by other customers, thus enhancing the costs associated with moving to a competitor brand.

Compared to Burger King’s customer growth of 0.8 percent and low profits, McDonalds was able to collect around $6 billion in the year 2018 and had a cash flow of 4.2 billion dollars.

This implies that McDonalds is able to sustain its focus on the sumo strategy, while Burger King is currently focused on sustaining its existing strategic position and possibly utilizing a judo strategy through intensive investments in cross-brand campaigns, and accruing internal resources from the 3G Group, a private equity group with controlling interests in major global brands including Tim Horton’s, Burger King, and Popeye.

Consequently, integrating the prospects of comprehending the competitive advantage enjoyed by Amazon and a financial outlook that is healthy, McDonald’s penetration into the data analytics scope presents a significant threat to Burger King operations in the UK. While data analytics was comparable to raising awareness on YouTube and Facebook, and launching new mobile applications, the future of AI infrastructure depicts a picture that needs to be seriously taken when a firm is considering establishing and sustaining a competitive advantage in the market.

References