Apply What You Have Learned

Ananda Fields is the CEO of a company that operates a very large number of quickservice restaurants. Recently, competitors have been increasing sales at their restaurants at a faster rate than Ananda's. Joseph Smiley, vice president of operations, is encouraging Ananda to introduce a new line of higher priced, higher quality, and higher contribution margin items to increase sales and improve profits. Sonya Miller, her vice president for marketing, is recommending that Ananda introduce a "value" line of products that would be priced very low but that could also have the effect of significantly increasing traffic to the stores.

Question

1. Do you think more customers would be attracted using Joseph's recommendation or Sonya's?
2. What factors would cause Ananda to choose one menu recommendation over the other?
3. What impact will Ananda's menu decision have on the image projected by her stores? What can she do to influence this image?