Comparison of Steers Vs Burger King Companies

Steers was founded in the 1960s by, George Halamandres – the very same man who founded Famous Brands. While in the United States for 5 years trying to find new ways of serving food he came up with an idea. George decided that he would bring the idea of fast food catering to South Africa which resulted in our country’s first real steakhouse. The name “Steers” didn’t begin as “Steers” but formed over many years from different names starting with Golden Spur which was changed to Seven Steers then named Branded Steer and was later named Longhorn and then the name “Steers” came about.

The first one was opened in Johannesburg in 1970 by George’s son, John Halamandres. The fourth Steers opened in Sandton City during the beginning of 1980 and attracted many different franchisees.

Towards the end of the 1980s Steers grow rapidly across southern Africa while they were owned by the Comitis family who sold their shares back to Famous Brands after a few years.

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They placed an advertisement in one of the newspapers inviting franchisees to appeal and they have never struggled with a lack of franchises ever since. Two years later more than fifteen stores opened and ten years later they had a total number of 250 stores. Near the end of the 1990s Steers started developed beyond South Africa’s boarders by putting stores some of Africa’s countries such as in Swaziland Botswana, Zimbabwe Kenya, Mauritius, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Zambia. Steers is currently in 18 countries worldwide with over 550 franchises including one in the London in the United Kindom which opened in 2013.

Steers has also managed to accomplish great achievements such as winning the best hamburger award for 17 years in a row and for winning the best chips for 13 consecutive years according to Leisure Options magazine.

Social Responsibility:

Steers being known as one of Famous Brands’ most popular franchises is helped by Famous Brands not only for supplying necessary goods but also for helping out with their Social Responsibility. According to some information found on the internet it seems as if Famous Brands assists Social Responsibility for all their franchises. In their responsibility Famous Brands focuses on the community, their employees, the environment and on governance. In the community they focus on community development & philanthropy, product and human rights & supply chain. These deal with the relationship between the company and the communities this is where goods are given to the communities and volunteer work is done and human rights conventions. The employee section focuses on compensations & benefits, diversity & labour and training health & safety. These deal with the relationship with the business and their employee, this is how they give back to the employees with benefits, policies, etc. The environment section focuses on energy & climate change, environment policy & reporting and resource management. This is how the business enriches the environment and gives back to mother-nature. The last section, governance, focuses on the board, leadership ethics and transparency & reporting. This is their relationship with their stakeholders and the government. Steers had many campaigns over the years to help kids in need over South Africa. By setting out to sell millions of burgers and setting aside R2 from every order they have managed to donate the money made toward childrens’ literacy.

Burger King:

Burger King was first opened in Jacksonville, Florida in the year 1953 by Keith J Kramer and his wife’s uncle, Matthew Burns. The first few stores were named Insta-Burger King because they were made using a piece of equipment known as an Insta-Broiler which could effectively cook burgers. As Insta-Burger King began expanding James McLamore and David R. Edgerton, two friends, got a license to operate an Insta-Burger King franchise. They opened one on the 4th of December in 1954 in Miami and had a few stores in Miami by the year 1959. They then discovered that the Insta-Boiler units’ heating elements made the patties drip and they designed and built a new mechanized gas grill that cooked the patties differently inside the unit. The called the new appliance a flame broiler and it quickly replaced the Insta-Broilers. Fourty more stores opened by 1955 and in 1959 the two friends bought national rights to the chain but decided to rename the company “Burger King of Miami” but was known as Burger King Corporation. Burger King sold licences to private franchisees in the US and got mascot in 1955 to help with advertising. Their menu expanded from offering burgers, fries, sodas and milkshakes to offering a lot more diverse products to satisfy a larger crowd of people. Their well known burger “the Whopper” was put onto the menu in 1957 and has been known as Burger Kings signature product ever since.

During the end of December in 2016 Burger King had 15738 outlets in 100 countries, 61 of them situated in South Africa and almost 50% of them being in the United States. Of all the outlets almost all of them are privately owned. In 2006 the company got new owners who made the company public. Burger King have managed to create a reputation for being courageous, bold and innovative. They have won 76 Lions in the Cannes Lion’ Marketer of the Year award. Their McWhopper has been one of the top winners at the D&AD Awards in London. 2018 statistics show that in the past year burger king had a 3.8% growth which is higher than the 3.5% growth they were excepting to have which gave them a system-wide sales growth of 11%. According to 2015 statistics their revenue was US$4.05 billion, their operating income was US$363 million, their net income was $1.912 billion, their total assets was US$18.41 billion and their total equity was US$2.912 billion.

Social Responsibility:

Burger Kings social responsibility aid to stay committed to their food, to stay committed to people, to stay committed to the environment and to commit to their corporate governance. They aim to give back to all their stakeholders by ensuring that all their guests enjoy their food, by fundraising for people to give back to the communities, by making positive changes to the environment e.g. recycling and doing waste management and also following their corporate governance.

Which is more successful?

In terms of popularity worldwide Burger King is the winner but in terms of social responsibility, Steers is more successful. There is because Steers has a wider focus when it comes to their social responsibility, they divide the four groups they want to focus on into more sections and focus on those sections in great detail ensuring that they give back to and provide for each and every one. Although it is not Steers themselves that does the social responsibly but their franchisee, they are still able to claim the credit for it.

What can Burger King do?

Instead of focusing on large groups as a whole, Burger King can look at different groups individually and make a many small differences that have a large impact. Instead of just focusing on the environment as a whole they must sub-divide the environment into different groups that they want to focus on.