Running Head: STRATEGIC PLAN 1

Strategic Plan for Yogurtland

Elba Michelle Soto

Ana G. Méndez University System

South Florida Campus

February 26, 2011

STRATEGIC PLAN 2

This work is part of the requirements of the Strategic Management 601 class of the

Metropolitan University of Ana G. Mendez System. After discussed in class what is, how it

function, and the benefits of a strategic plan, we have to develop our own strategic plan. I

selected Yogurtland an industry leader providing frozen yogurts. Yogurtland opened operations

in 2004 and is a self serve frozen yogurt store in which the customers serve their yogurts and the

toppings they wants.

Six months ago a new franchise store opened in the city where I lived and now I’m a loyalty

customer of them. I liked the product and the business concept is exceptionally. I saw them

since the beginning and how still have enough customers. This company has little time operating

and I think they have a lot of opportunity in develop new strategies to be competitive in a market

with high competencies.

Yogurtland is the fastest-growing self serve frozen yogurt brand in the United States and is

considered to be an industry leader in providing top-rate frozen yogurt treats. Phillip Chang,

CEO of the company, conceptualized the idea of Yogurtland and opened the first store in 2004 in

the city of Fullerton, CA. Yogurtland’s corporate headquarters are based in Anaheim, CA.

Yogurtland currently has a total of 80 locations throughout California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida

and Hawaii as well Japan. Yogurtland is expected to have approximately 150 locations by this

time next year. Yogurtland is a franchised brand (Yogurt-land.com)

STRATEGIC PLAN 3

Mission / Vision

The mission at Yogurtland: To bring people together for the most flavorful, natural and

fun frozen yogurt experience while promoting a healthy lifestyle. They want to create an

atmosphere in which the combination of their premium quality products, superior service,

attractively designed stores, and a vast selection of flavors and toppings in a self-serve

environment sets us apart from any other frozen yogurt concept (Based on their website Yogurt-

land.com).

Critical Success Factors

1. Yogurtland is the fastest growing self serve frozen yogurt brand in the United States.

2. Customers are their priority; they compare the treatment of their customers to visiting

guests in their home. The customer is the foundation of Yogurtland.

3. Yogurtland has adopted a new tagline, “You Rule,” which encapsulating their belief that

“You,” the consumer, “Rule” everything while you are in their stores.

4. They offer premium yogurts which is made in house.

5. They offer the choice of 16 flavors of frozen yogurt and 32 toppings.

6. Core customer base is 18 to 39 year old woman (primarily women with children).

7. Target market includes teenagers and college students with lower discretionary income

who are looking for a place to “hang out” with their friends while enjoying frozen

yogurt.

8. Most of the marketing takes place at a local level and consists of banners and signs on

corners of shopping centers to gain recognition for each location.

STRATEGIC PLAN 4

9. Yogurtland attract health conscious consumers who view frozen yogurt as a healthier

alternative then ice cream or other fattening snacks and desserts.

Yogurtland continues to be committed to providing only the highest quality products and

superior service to the customers they serve (Based on their website Yogurt-land.com).

Environmental Variables to Consider

The majority Yogurtland stores are operated as a franchise, each of them must be in force to the

environmental laws of the state or country where they operate. Before the opening of a new

store they need to pay attention on all demographic factors to meet the expectations of the

customers. Variables to consider are tastes and preferences, life style and economic status.

Diagnostics – SWOT Analysis

STRATEGIC PLAN 5

Scenario

The Company needs to open at least 35 franchises in the next 6 months and expand to Latin

American Market. The company expected to have 150 locations in the next year and it’s only

operating 80 at this moment (Based on their website Yogurt-land.com). Our goal is to open at

least 5 franchises every month to go in line with the corporate objective. We are going to start

expanding to Latin American market because the competition there is lower than in US Market.

As a starting point we will develop PR. market in Dorado and San Juan city and then in cities

like Caguas, Ponce and Guaynabo. The reason was there are only 5 direct competitions (Yogen

Fruz, Orgánica Yogurt, Colombo Distributors Yogurt, Yogurt Shop and Best Food Yogurt) and

our type of business are innovative and an excellent alternative to their local options.

Objectives and Tactics

1. The company needs to be perceived as unique brand and as unique experience for the

consumer. The tactics we are going to use are advertising in the traditional media (TV,

radio, magazine) and in no traditional media (Billboards, social networks).

2. Open stores in Latin American market. We are going to focus in penetrate to San Juan

and Dorado in Puerto Rico. The population in Puerto Rico is 3.8 MM and 3.03 MM are

people between 15 and 64 years (our target market). San Juan is the capital and most

populous municipality in PR. Also is a tourist’s major port. The population is 442,447

and the average income was $12,437. In other hand, Dorado has a population of 34,099

and the average income was $16,378. This city has become an area to invest and is being

developed for retail spaces.

STRATEGIC PLAN 6

3. Have a good selection for diabetic people. We are going to introduce 3 to 5 yogurt flavor

in each store and a variety of sugar free topping. The selections in each store are going to

depend on the size and population of the area.

4. Create a “low calorie” menu. Today the people are very conscious in the intake of

calories in their regular diet. Our nutrition experts we will develop 5 low calorie options

every three months.

5. Increase the average ticket introducing new items. The products we will be adding are

bottled water and souvenir items.

Strategies

Our business level strategy focused is the differentiation. Rather than costs, we focused on

continuously investing and developing features that differentiate our product and service in ways

that customers value (Hitt M. p.161). Our corporate level strategy focused is in growing. We

want to open an average of 5 stores every month.

1. The company will be investing $100,000 in advertising in the next 6 months.

(a) TV Commercial – The selected channels will be CBS, Univision, Sport

Channel and Kids channel. We selected those channels because call to our

target market.

(b) Billboards in the expressway. Those billboards going to be very close to the

new franchise location.

(c) Magazines Ad – We are going to use local magazines in the country where a

new franchise opens.

STRATEGIC PLAN 7

(d) Sponsorship of sports leagues – The Company will invest in creative banners

to create desire to go to Yogurtland after the games. We will offer coupons

and goodie bags in tournaments.

(e) Social Network advertising- use Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, MySpace,

Twitter, etc. to connect, make offers, and get noticed.

2. To penetrate in Latin American Market we are going to focused efforts in public

relationship explaining the benefits of yogurts and win success stories in other countries.

We plan to offer free seminars of the opportunity to own a Yogurtland Franchise. In

those seminars we will cover all you can need to open a new store and how we are going

to help them in term of permissions, advertising and operational process.

As part of our commitment to support the opening of new franchises we are going to

create a “Yogurtland SWAT Team”. This team will help in all details in the grand-

opening of the franchises and also be there for the first month of operation. The SWAT

Team is going to be in charged to prepared a Franchise Development Program with all

franchise Documents, such as; Franchise Agreement, Franchise Exhibits, Consulting and

Support, Pre-opening procedures, Personnel Manual, and Main Operations Manual.

Then they will move to the next opening.

3. To encourage diabetic person as a customers, we will add 3 to 5 flavors of sugar free

yogurt. In the topping bar we will include chocolate bits, cookies bites, gummies, and

chocolate and caramel syrups sugar free.

Also we are going to support Diabetic Association in donate money in a quarterly form.

How we are going to do this: with the support of our employee and our customers. We

STRATEGIC PLAN 8

are going to make events where we donate 20% of our sales in a specific day. Another

way to rising funds includes selling of candles, paper sneakers, bracelets, etc.

4. In our stores we’ll add a low calorie menu. This consist in post a poster with some ideas

in how to prepare a low calorie yogurt, keep in mind that the customer can add whatever

they want. Those ideas are going to help people who are on a diet to saw in an easy way

what they can serve to not overpass the calories. We want the people who are on a diet or

just want to count it calories can do it.

5. Currently we only sale yogurt in our stores. We are going to add bottled water and

souvenirs items with the logo of Yogurtland. We are going to introduce sundae cups,

cups and spoons. The price of these items can add an increase average of $3.45 in each

ticket.

New Items Price List   Bottled Water $ 1.95 Sundae Cups $ 4.95 Regular Cups $ 3.95 Funnies spoons $ 2.95

Budget

The budget to run this strategic plan is $321,000. It’s represent an expense of 5 % of the

expected revenues.

STRATEGIC PLAN 9

*This budget is only a simulation for this strategic plan. Yogurtland is a privately-held

company and they do not have any financial information available to the public.

Controls

Before the opening of a new franchise:

1. A study of market of the area would be realized where the new store will open. This

study determined if is a good place or not.

2. Focal groups would be realized to measure tastes and preferences of the target market.

3. It would be a requirement to attend to Business Plan Training by three months before to

operate a franchise.

After the opening of a new franchise:

1. Customer’s satisfaction survey trough social networks sites and suggestion boxes in the

store.

2. All the franchises will be visited every three months to evaluate their Business Plan and

to make any changes if it necessary.

3. The “SWAT Team” stayed there over the first month of operation.

STRATEGIC PLAN 10

Contingency Plan

To have success in the implementation of this strategic plan we developed a contingency plan to

prevent if something wrong happened in the process. Our most important assets are our

employees and customers so we develop a contingency plan of evacuation in case of fire or

earthquake. Those plans will be posted in the store in a visible area. Another contingency plan

that we need for this project is a Roles and Responsibilities Plan. The plan specifies teams and

individuals and the areas for which they are responsible in an emergency situation. The people

involved will must understand their roles and the expectations that these roles place upon them,

and they will be fully prepared to implement their responsibilities at short notice when required.

The second area which is important for us is the information system. It will emphasize the need

for information gathering, correlation and review processes to meet the company requirements.

Advantage and disadvantage in the utilization of objectives to evaluate the performance? 

The advantages to use the objectives mentioned in this document are key part of our success. By

establishing clear objectives with a specific target will help us to measure our progress. Without

clear objectives will be impossible to measure. We will use this document as our baseline to

follow and meet our goals at the end of the year. The way that we have established our

objectives will allow us to do reviews in a quarterly base in order to improve during the process

avoiding any delays and or obstacles. This document and many other planning documents

helped to meet our main objectives and stay focus financially, operational and market wise. One

disadvantage will be that the objectives not only focus in financial goals, is more extensive.

STRATEGIC PLAN 11

References

EHow Website, (2011) Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/how_4465103_make-company-

budget-plan.html

Executive Summary of Yogurtland, (2011) Retrieved from

http://ericreed-online.com/uploads/Marketing_Campaign_for_Yogurtland2.pdf

Frandocs Site (2011) Retrieved from http://frandocs.com/?

gclid=CO66v4HHmacCFUHr7QodCUY3cA

Hitt Michael, Ireland R. Duane, Hoskisson Robert, Strategic Management Competitiveness and

Globalization (Fourth Edition).

Ibiss Contingency Planning (May 4, 2010) Contingency Planning. Retrieved from

http://www.ibisassoc.co.uk/contingency-planning.htm

Mariscal Briones W. (2008) Análisis de la Toma de Decisiones Gerenciales en La Organización.

Retrieved from http://www.gestiopolis.com/canales2/gerencia/1/decgerorg.htm

My Strategic Plan Website (2010) Functional Tactics & Implementation. Retrieved from

http://mystrategicplan.com/resources/functional-tactics-implementation/

Super Pages PR. Site (2011) Retrieved from http://www.superpagespr.com/Searchpg.aspx?

nombre=yogurt&clear=true&lang_code=E S

Yogurtland Website, (2010) Retrieved from http://www.yogurt-land.com/