Are you about writing a catering business plan? If YES, here is a sample SWOT analysis for a catering company to help you form a competitive strategy.
Catering Business Plan – Economic Analysis
In starting any business, it is very expedient to know how to cut costs and make more profit. This also applies in the catering industry. This is because if the dynamics of economics isn’t applied, then going by what is on ground, making profits might be a challenge. And the truth is that no one wants to go into business without making profit.
In the catering industry, it is therefore important to only use those things and manpower that only helps to rake in more money, against having to pay more without a tangible result for it. As such, when you are starting out in the trade, it is important to consider based of the capacity of funds that you have , and then operating in a way that will keep costs to the barest minimum.
When caterers operate from their own facilities, it can be said that cost of accommodation would be less, however the cost of maintenance have got to be factored in too.
Labor is yet another economic factor to be considered. For instance; the average company in the Caterers industry in America spends $0.07 on capital for every $1.00 spent on labor; this represents an extremely low level of capital intensity. Caterers need to have access to a large pool of temporary staff and to rent equipment when required so as to cut costs.
A Sample Catering Business Plan SWOT Analysis
We are quite aware that is a stiffer competition when it comes to the catering trade in Chicago, which is why we decided to take our time to perfect our strategies before launching out. Our goal is to become a leading all – round catering services company in the whole of Chicago and the only way to achieve that is to out – perform our competitors. In order to outperform our competitors in Chicago, we hired a business consultant to help us conduct SWOT analysis.
In view of that, we were able to take stock of our strengths, our weakness, our opportunities and also the threats that we are likely going to be exposed to in establishing our catering business in Chicago, IL. Here is a summary from the result of the SWOT analysis that was conducted on behalf of Delicious Delight® Catering Services.
- Strength
We are a complete catering business that does not offer outdoor catering services alone, but offer consultancy services, rental services and trainings. The truth is that, people will prefer to engage a client that can provide them with all they would need to make their events a memory one.
It means that the need to sign different contracts with different providers (vendors) will not arise once they engage our services. Another positive for us is that we will be working with the best of caterers in the US; they are going to be guest lecturers in our Catering School and our CEO is an award winning caterer in Chicago who is widely celebrated.
- Weakness
Our weakness could be the challenge of hiring and keeping the best cooks / chefs in our payroll since most of them may want to work for themselves. This challenge applies to almost all catering business owners. Yet another weakness is that we are new in Chicago, IL.
- Opportunities
When it comes to catering services, the opportunities that are available cannot be quantified. Any entrepreneur can start his or her own outdoor catering business anywhere in the world and still make huge returns on his or her investment.
At Appealing Delight Catering Company, we take pride in the fact that we are one of the few catering services companies in Chicago that offer a wide range of related catering services; hence we are likely going to maximize the opportunities available for catering business in Chicago, IL.
- Threat
There are a couple of first class catering services companies in Chicago IL, and they are a huge threat to us. They pose a threat to us because they are already established, and their brand is well accepted. Also, most of them can boast of a have huge clientele base. Our competitors are able to develop expensive new marketing and sales campaigns and that will mean that we will have to struggle to catch – up.