Executive Summary
The Taco Bell Corporation is well positioned to continue to be a strong and expanding presence in the highly competitive fast food industry - if they maintain their strategic vision. The combination of strong, supportive knowledge based IT systems complementing a corporate culture that rewards innovation and entrepreneurial thinking offers unbeatable corporate efficiency and flexibility. The IT systems are used both to empower the staff and maximize the efficiency of scaleable delivery systems in a mature industry.
By treating the IT systems as tools for the staff to reach a more sophisticated industry understanding, the company can push decision making down into the organization close to the customer, while maintaining appropriate top level controls. Taco Bell's management understands that the fundamental unit in the fast food industry is the individual location and the staff that manages that location. These people can quickly react to the customer's requirements - if they are given correct and timely information in a useable format.
A co-branded Taco Bell/KFC fast food restaurant in...
Taco Bell Grande's Logo
English: Original design for Taco Bell restaurants...This flattens the management infrastructure and builds inherent flexibility into the company. This powerful strategy is not limited to delivery of Mexican fast food, indeed it can be applied to any type of fast food. Taco Bell has created a highly trained and highly leveraged workforce by using sophisticated IT systems that gives the company the adaptability to take on new challenges and fast changing markets with maximum efficiency.
Using IT to empower staff
TACO, a powerful "smart" system tool to help with unit daily operations, is the essential system used to achieve the company goals. By giving the store crew direct and useful information about the specific store in language the crew can understand, they can make decisions and act at a micro market level. The power to maximize efficiency, while responding to a local run on...