Case Study: Dannone

This initial setback with dairy products drove Danone to copy in China the alliance strategy used with great success to expand into Italy and Spain in the 1980s. Danone decided to capitalize successful local businesses rather than build its own businesses from scratch, resulting in a strong focus on joint ventures and acquisitions. Unlike most multinationals, Danone gave these acquired local businesses a great deal of autonomy. The joint ventures and acquired firms continued to sell their products under their own brands. Until late 2002, 80 per cent of Danone’s sales in China were under local brands. Furthermore, Danone let the former executives run the businesses and didn’t get involved much in daily operations. In fact, Danone functioned more like a capital investor, linking its joint ventures through capital investment rather than joint products. This expansion strategy in China worked very well. In 2001, Danone had become one of the largest food concerns in China, with $1.2 billion in sales, more than 50 plants and around 25,000 employees.14 Accounting for 9 per cent of Danone’s international sales in 2003, China became Danone’s third largest

According to The History of Danone (2009), Isaac Carasso was inspired by the research of Elie Metchnikof, and in 1919 he began using ferments from the Pasteur Institute to manufacture yogurts to sell on prescription to pharmacies in Barcelona, Spain. Carasso began this work, because he saw an opportunity to help the number of children suffering from intestinal disorders, due the lack of healthy nutrition following the First World War. By 1929, Daniel Carasso, Isaac’s son, continued to grow the company by launching the company Danone in Paris. Business for Danone continued to prosper in Paris until 1941, when Daniel

Danone felt that the U.S. was an emerging market for yogurt and hence, Dannon focused its marketing strategy on increasing the yogurt consumption and expanding the category. Dannon had to follow Danone and maintain a strong commitment to CSR. At Danone, local decision making and was trusted and encouraged. Also, Dannon had a responsibility to its parent company and was accountable for a set of deliverables and data for reporting purposes. It believed in collaborative decision making and therefore major strategy

The Dannon Company is a subsidiary of Danone whose heritage dates back to 1919 and founded by Isaac Carasso in Spain. When Carasso immigrated into the United States in 1942, he established Dannon Milk Products, Inc. in New York, changing Danone into “Dannon” to make the name sound more American. Like most startup companies, Dannon faced challenges as a company until several decades after, in 1988, when Dannon capitalized on the advantages of having an FDA approval that they had one of their first most successful product launches. Since

Also by these systems the company reduced its business cost and maintains the information and the data very updated form.

Close Integration with International Expansion - The business strategy should guide the IT strategy. The senior management team has decided that each member is responsible for international operations as well as national Hungarian operations; therefore the IT strategy should support this direction.

The parent company Danone, as part of its social activity teaches and educates Corporate Social Responsibility initiative across its subsidiary. Internal and external communication program help blend corporate global culture and shapes the best practices in the U.S where Dannon operates. Dannon views U.S market as a growth oriented with per person consumption, which is much less than other part of Europe. Dannon executives identified this opportunity as a high growth area and used its Corporate Social Responsibility programs in its communication with customers. According to Arevalo, & Fallon (2008), corporate citizenship initiative is to embrace, support, and carryout values in the areas of human development and environment within the business

Ability to identify new emerging markets and having advantage of an already set up network system

Founded first as a restaurant called Open Kettle, it was later renamed to Dunkin Donuts in 1950 by William Rosenberg and Stephen So in Quincy, Massachusetts. Dunkin Donuts has become most famous for its donuts over the years, as well as their coffee. They have approximately 3,000 restaurants in the US and around the world, and sell 2.5 million donuts every day. Dunkin Donuts has evolved into one of Forbes magazine “Top 10 Global Fast-Food Chains”, and tops the lists of other noted industry websites and magazines. Recently, Dunkin Donuts has changed the way they want customers to think about them by incorporating the tag line “America Runs On Dunkin”, and adding new menu items, to their marketing

The company under analysis in this report is Dunkin Donuts. The brand of Dunkin Donuts originated in 1950 when Bill Rosenberg opened the very first outlet in Massachusetts, USA. Today Dunkin' Donuts is the world's leading baked goods and coffee chain, serving more than 3 million customers per day worldwide. It sells about 52 varieties of donuts and more than a dozen coffee beverages as well as an array of bagels, breakfast, sandwiches, subs and other baked goods. Dunkin Donuts is a subsidiary company of Dunkin Brands Inc that owns companies like Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robins etc. Dunkin Donuts is a multinational company with its presence in more than 32 nations. By the end of 2011, there were 10,083 Dunkin' Donuts stores worldwide that included 7,015 franchised restaurants in the United States of America and 3,068 international outlets in more than 32 countries across the globe employing more than 9000 people. According to the financial report published by Dunkin Brands Inc, the parent company of Dunkin Donuts the net sales worldwide totaled up to $8.77 billion, up 5.2 percent from the previous year and the Net income for the year was $108.3 million, up 214.5 percent as reported by the company.

Diageo, one of the world’s leading consumer goods companies, was formed from the merger of GrandMet and Guinness. In 2000, the company announced its intention to sell its packaged food subsidiary, Pillsbury, and 20% of its Burger King subsidiary. Because of the restructuring opportunity, the company wanted to rethink its financing mix.

However, Danone may need to consider extending its concept deeper, richer or wider to determine whether the benefits may be higher than they currently are (Edmondson, et al., 2008).

When looking at the economic aspects affecting the industry and Diageo the main concern is the market saturation reached in many of the developed economies worldwide. With demand remaining constant and competition increasing it is important for firms to identify new markets to invest in, with particular focus placed on Emerging markets. Another important development is the growth patterns in the alcoholic beverage market with the demand for beer increasing by 2.7% with particularly strong growth in the premium brands market. In contrast there has been a decline in demand for wine and spirits which are the industries that Diageo has a large market share. There has also been a recent reduction in operating profit of Diageo in Europe, which can largely be explained by the higher taxes imposed by governments who are striving to reduce alcohol consumption.

Soren Chemical produces industrial strength chemicals, cleaning solutions, and chemical solutions for treating water. Since it’s founding in 1942, Soren has operated as a business-to-business company. They have recently introduced Coracle, a pool clarifier aimed at the consumer market. The goal for first year sales is $1.5 million. At 6 months, sales of Coracle are just $111,000.

DANONE is one of the largest multinational companies in the food and beverage industry. By the end of 2016, counting from the consolidated companies to the sub-divisions in more than 130 countries, DANONE has 99,187 people as full-time employees (Danone, 2016). Base on the geographical area, majority of the employees, they work in European countries