Internal and External Factors

Internal and External Factors
Greg Bennett
MGT/230
April 9, 2013
Michael Hilley

Internal and External Factors
Internal and external factors affect every business. The way a business meets these factors are the telling story. A company must make the determination at their conception, whether they will be proactive or reactive. Both bring about change, however, proactive separates the leaders from the reactive followers. This is true in every business and in the fast food world Chik-fil-A is one of the proactive leaders.
Chik-fil-A’ started much like any other fast food restaurant, with an innovative idea. That idea was a pressure-fryer, with the capability to cook a chicken sandwich in the same time it took to cook a fast food hamburger (Nickerson & Dochuk, 2011). That patented idea became the technological change that brought them to the forefront of the business.
The company had the drive to succeed, but with the wisdom to grow at a steady pace. The owners made the decision to branch out and franchise the company, but to do so with the focus on type more than quantity of restaurant. Rather than go global or even national, they concentrated their efforts to a particular area, the south. They expanded outward from the home base of Atlanta, Georgia, but the major concentration is in the southern states (Company Fact Sheet, 2012).
The founder of Chik-fil-A, S. Truett Cathy, is man with strong southern Baptist convictions that carried over from personal life to his business. Those strong religious beliefs give the restaurants a noticeable personality not found in the competition, they are closed on Sundays. These same convictions became headlines in January 2011. Chik-fil-A became a co-sponsor for a marriage conference along with the Pennsylvania Family Institute (PFI), known for their opposition to same-sex marriage legislation, and to add to the controversy, the WinShape Foundation, founded by Truett and his wife, made it known that same-sex...