Founder and CEO, Panera Bread

摘要

I did a study two years ago on the profitability of restaurant companies over the prior five years. Eighty percent of the $1 billion-plus public restaurant companies made less money two years ago than they made seven years ago. You can go back and look at the top 50 restaurant companies 30 years ago; half of them no longer exist. They were sold, bought out, or hit the wall. So you have this very difficult operating environment in which competitive advantage is everything. I've often thought size and scale are actually bad.