Assignment #3: Business Analysis Report

Business #1: H&M
H&M is a clothing store that focuses on providing customers with great fashion and quality at the best value. The business was started in 1947 by Erling Persson in Vasteras, Sweden. Currently, H&M have over 2200 stores across 41 markets. The business's industry is multinational. Their products include affordable clothes, accessories and footwear. They target families and teenagers with potential. Their target market also depends on the location of their store. H&M is cost conscious and they have an advantage because they efficiently distribute their products. The reason that H&M have been so successful is because they have affordable clothing and they always have an attracting atmosphere. Some weaknesses include quality of jeans and low supply of sizes on products.

Business #2: Seattle's Best Coffee
Seattle's Best first started in 1970. Their main products was coffee. They target coffee drinkers that want the best coffee out there. Pricing of Seattles has to include inventory, labour, building costs, and advertising. There are five stages of production. This is an overview:
§ Ranking their coffee in levels:
1: mild, light, and crisp
2: bright lively, easy drinking
3: balanced, smooth, full flavoured
4: rich, elegant, complex
5: bold, dark, intense
§ Growing:
-Work with coffee farmers to ensure quality standards are met.
-Responsibly grown and ethically traded coffee
-Coffee cherries are grown on trees and contain 2 beans
§ Sourcing:
-Obsessively taste dozens of coffee bean shipments
-Beans are tasted a minimum of 3 times a day so they match up to a level
§ Blending:
-To balance Level 3, the best beans are sourced and then blended together before roasting.
§ Roasting:
-Each level requires its own finely calibrated roasting curve
-The gentle roasting process coaxes the flavour out of each bean while producing the signature Seattle’s Best Coffee.

Business #3: Starbucks
Starbucks is an multinational industry. Their main goals are to inspire and nurture the human sprit, one person, one cup, and one neighbourhood at a time. They started in 1970 where the first Starbucks in Canada opened on March 1st, 1987 in Vancouver, B.C. The name "Starbucks" came from Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick." Currently, there are over 6,000 locations in over 30 countries. In country, there are over 785 company-operated stores and over 266 licensced concept stores. Employees at Starbucks are called "partners." Starbucks main products are coffee, coffee beverages and pastries. Their main competition include Second Cup and Tim Hortons. Starbucks has an advantage over their competition because employees are friendly, food is fresh, service is fast, and coffee is never served more than 30 minutes when it was brewed.

Business #4: Cora
Cora is a licensed chain restaurant that started in may 1987. The chain was started by Cora Mussely Tsouflidou who bought her first diner in Montreal. The main goal of Cora was to change the generations eating habits and to promote the importance of breakfast. Currently, Cora has expanded over 120 franchised restaurants. Their main products are breakfast favourites such as omlettes, waffles and crepes.

Business #5: Ikea
Ikea is a furniture store that was founded by Ingvar Kamprad in 1926 in Smaland, southern Sweden. Ikea's vision was to provide well designed furniture at low prices so that they could create a better life for people. Ikea has over 280 stores in 26 countries. Sales revenue were at 23.1 billion annually. Ikea's business idea was based on their relationship with the customer. They start off by working with manfacturers and then their buyers look worldwide for suppliers with the most suitable raw materials, then they buy bulk materials on a globe scale to get the best deals and the lowest price.