Au Bon Pain Case Study Essay

Business Strategy Au Bon Pain (ABP) is an upscale french Bakery chain restaurant that competes with other devalued food restaurants. They would deal to go from a Cycle of Failure to differentiating themselves from their competitors by up their guest follow by means of.Alignment Au Bon Pain wanted to differentiate themselves from other fast food chains by increasing the customer experience so that there would be much repeat customers and a consistent income stream. This meant improving relationships with customers which would increase if they had positive experiences and name recognition by staff. ABP had to decrease disturbance of staff and increase autonomy at local stores to create the experience that they wanted for their customers. They did this by creating the Partner/Manager Program, which created Partner Managers at stores who were much than autonomous in the day-to-day decision-making, and in turn, shared out in get.The chopine meant that Partner Managers now sha red in 35% of the profits, appurtenants shared in 15% of the profits, which was a significant increase in the reward/ remuneration bodily structure at the company. By changing the reward structure, PM and Assistant Managers took on more responsibility for their individual store which changed their role to involve things like ordering, staffing, and store aesthetics. During the trial of the Partner/Manager plan, the two stores that volunteered to insert both had managers from different backgrounds who were very driven, independent, and creative. ABP central management hoped that a program like the Partner/Manager Program would help them to recruit more staff that espoused these characteristics, which they viewed as vital to their success and growth.Application ABP changed the reward structure to increase productivity. This is consistent with the Expectancy Theory in which employees figure in Expectancy (the belief that effort provide lead to results, in this incase increase co mpensation), Instrumentality (the belief that a desired outcome ordain come from performance, in this case increased store profits will lead to increased personal compensation), and valence (the outcome, in this case increased compensation). The effort of the PM and Assistant Managers increased because their expectation of compensation was get off related to the profits of the store, which meant that the desired outcome of the company and employees were aligned and profits increased. The profit-sharing compensation method used by ABP is similar to the method that strong Foods uses.The difference is that ABP only involves the Partner/Manager and Assistant Manager in profit sharing while Whole Foods shares profits with all employees through their Gainsharing Program. While at ABP the Partner/Manager Program increases the dedication, productivity, and hopefully decreases turnover of those involved in profit-sharing, it does non do anything for the periodical employees who hav e a high turnover rate and are the ones that actually have the direct customer interaction at the registers, cleaning the stores, and making the food. This could lead to problems for ABP since the hourly employees are directly related to the consumer experience that the ABP is trying to improve, and this program does not address them.ExhibitRoles With the introduction of the Partner-Manager Program, Au Bon Pain looked to transform the roles of soil Manager, create a Partner Manager and Assistant Manager who shared in the profits, and increase autonomy in each store. In the hoary system, the District Managers micromanaged their stores, but in the new system they were given more stores and had to focus on the big.