Cadbury Takeover

In March of 2012 Steve Parkland was hired as the new president at Charles Chocolates. He was immediately faced with numerous decisions about the future of the company. The board of directors had tasked Parkland with doubling or tripling the size of the company over the next decade, but the board and the senior management team had different opinions about the strategy that would accomplish this goal. The main issues that Parkland faced were how to increase the company’s operations while maintaining the traditional culture and support of the board.

In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s the food industry was struggling with weak sales and low inflation which caused waves of consolidation among some of the largest firms in the industry. In 1998 General Mills studied areas of potential growth and value creation for their company which lead to small acquisitions of other firms. Looking to further grow their company, in December 2000, management of General Mills made a recommendation to its shareholders that they authorize the creation of more shares of common stock and approve a proposal for the company to acquire Pillsbury Company, a producer of baked goods, from Diageo PLC.

The employees being laid off are major stakeholders as their means of living in jeopardy. In addition, as a result of the layoffs, the local economy will be effected. The culture of inclusiveness was one of the things that attracted Dennis to the company and the layoffs could seriously damage the institutions culture (Gentile, 2009).

The Boston Matrix is a tool used by marketing managers to make decisions on which products within their portfolio that they should market and under what category on the

The food industry in the UK is a multi-billion pound industry that is mainly dominated by a few competitors such as McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and Subway. Most of the food sold in these fast food restaurants is unhealthy, which is becoming a huge concern as there are many people dying of obesity and other health related problems. This is one of the key social factors facing the fast food market at the moment.

As a result of the approach, there was high turnover of staff and there was very little initiative amongst the remaining staff. Individuals were initially reported as being highly competent but later were blamed for things going wrong, shortly before they left. The team was very tightly knit and generally appeared supportive of the team leader.

The workers believed that the firing of Arthur T. Demoulas would lead to the destruction of Market Basket. The belief that Arthur T. Demoulas’s firing would be the end of Market Basket was due to his replacements, James Gooch and Felicia Thornton. Gooch and Felicia Thornton were hired simply to ‘because they were experts at taking apart companies’. (QUOTE???) If Market Basket went down, employees would not only lose their jobs but they would be losing a great job that had benefits like scholarships and stock shares. Many of Market Basket’s employees that had been working there a long time had made it their careers and didn’t have experience elsewhere. Without outside experience, and a general reluctance or refusal to work for other grocery chains, those employees were filled with fear and anxiety because Market

Thus, minimizing the risk of employee dissatisfaction is crucial to the growth and expansion of a retail grocery industry. The financial setback due to interruptions in operation and management from unionization brings to light that it is imperative in maintaining a healthy workforce to reduce risk in union formation especially for the longevity of Fresh

In September 2009, Julius Walls resigned from his position as CEO of Greyston Bakery. William Mistretta became the new CEO after Walls’ resignation. These two men were different in that one had more corporate business experience than the other. More specifically, William Mistretta had about 25 years of experience in corporate when he became CEO of Greyston. In comparison, Walls had only worked in a chocolate company and served on the board of Greyston as a marketing director. In my opinion, the transition from Walls to Mistretta should be a smooth transition for the corporation. According to the text, Walls strongly valued a task-oriented system based work environment. He seemed to know exactly what he wanted from his

Because of the hasty decision to implement the change there is a very high risk of employee resistance to change. The upper management had no investment in the decision and will feel a resentment and lack of control that could trickle down through the organization. The dangers her are that original companies will become infected with a negative attitude toward the new parent company causing

The old crew began to hate the new supervisors. The supervisor’s attitude towards the employees were close monitoring, giving orders, and yelling. This caused stress and frustrations among employees, reducing their job performance. The supervisors made changes from the previous year that resulted in job satisfaction. The supervisors decided when to eat, how they wanted to do the job, and always drove the truck. They didn’t allow employees to talk to each other or to the customers on the job. This negatively affected customer service and customer relations.

CEO did not have an easy initiation as he tried to deal with the resulting economic downturn, the

Another change could be mergers and take-overs which can sometimes leave employees feeling uncertain about their future with the company, loss of trust and experience staff leaving.

When organizational changes are announced, particularly when there is downsizing involved, employees generally divide into one of two groups: those who will attempt to control their fate and those who want to get out before the changes occur. The group taking control will usually dig in, increase their productivity, hit their deadlines and do everything they can to shine in front of their managers hoping they will sail through the changes with their job intact. The remaining employees cope with the changes by avoiding them. You may see these employees taking longer lunch hours, coming in later and leaving earlier or simply not

Whilst the definition of corporate governance most widely used is "the system by which companies are directed and controlled" presented by Cadbury Committee, (1992). More specifically it is the framework by which the various stakeholder interests are balanced, or, as the IFC (International Finance Corporation) states, "the relationships among the management, Board of Directors, controlling shareholders, minority shareholders and other stakeholders".