Sara Lee’s original corporate strategy prior to retrenchment was to acquire mostly unrelated businesses to increase overall company profits, which proved to be difficult to manage properly with such a broad focus. In 2005 when Sara Lee hired a new CEO they announced a plan to become a more tightly focused food and beverage, and house hold products company. They began by divesting the weakest preforming businesses and product lines also by exiting businesses that they find to be nonstrategic.
Since then Sara Lee has completely changed the way the business operates and looks. They’ve gone from a giant and diverse group of businesses to a tightly focus core group of businesses and product groups.
Sara Lee’s competitive strengths will come from the more focused approach on food products and related businesses as well as significantly reducing their operations in other business units in alternate industries. With a narrower focus of food products Sara Lee can continue to reduce cost and increase margins along the primary and secondary activities of the value chain.
Every industry that Sara Lee elected to keep within their portfolio of products is a top producer with many brands being number one in their category, as well as businesses that have significantly increasing revenues so the long term attractiveness is greater with the remaining businesses.
Sara Lee’s retrenchment strategy has allowed the business to return to its core expertise which is the food industry. This
Their strategy was about customer service rather than profit or revenue. The growth was built on creating new products for the existing target market.
Burt's Bees has the benefit of using every single natural product yet can offer a wide range of things that are sound and stylish. Further, Ocean Cosmetics’s conveyance and marketing are frail. Its products are sold in just a couple of outlets in one US area, the Northwest. Another worry identifies with Carol's capacities to grow her business. In the event that she chooses to accentuate development as an objective, the business could do well. In any case, then again, she has no past encounters (and maybe no instructive foundation) with overseeing development. These weaknesses are frequently connected with little, new ventures like Ocean Cosmetics. Another weakness is that Carol does not presently have a patent on her cream. At last, despite the fact that Carol's relationship with Sage Shipping can be consider a quality, it can likewise be a weakness if, for instance, Sage were to close and leave Ocean Cosmetics without a supplier for a significant number of its ingredients and compartments. Given different sellers exist for makers of skin care products, Ocean Cosmetics would have the capacity to distinguish different suppliers yet it would be a tedious
Next the evaluation of current and future opportunities available to Kudler Fine Foods would want to be evaluated. These opportunities could include technology upgrades, market positioning, diversification, or any other related areas. During this evaluation it might be useful to gather information from industry experts or consultants (MacVicar, 1996).
Trader Joe’s is a leading firm that is taking over the supermarket industry. The company completely altered the idea of a traditional supermarket and turned it into a whole new experience for consumers. Through Trader Joe’s strategic planning, they’ve paved a way for consumers to have high-quality products while paying low prices. Trader Joe’s provides fewer products that are health-conscious, unique and privately labeled. Trader Joe’s has utilized this, secrecy, employee job satisfaction, culture and starting trends to its advantage. Within its industry companies are divided into different strategic groups. Aldi, similar Trader Joe’s strategic planning, is apart of the cultured-discount neighborhood market. This firm continues the low-stock, less-waste, small store, and low price method. A Walmart express used a hybrid strategy that made it a cross between a grocery, pharmacy, and convenience store. Tesco is the third that falls with small neighborhood markets strategy and focused on organic products, similar to Trader Joe’s. As the company grows and expands, there is caution in change of Trader Joe’s processes. With growth, there comes new management and employees which can alter the way a specific store is ran and there is worry of change in the stores normal procedures. Change that doesn’t follow the process could ultimately result in a downfall, so this can be considered a key challenge to watch in the future. Increased bureaucracy is additionally a
Using benchmarked data, Kudler Fine Foods can "reduce costs of ordering foods and minimize the amount of food to be stored, while also having a zero stock out policy [and develop] a supplier relations program " (Apollo Group 2, 2005) These initiatives will reduce Kudler Fine Foods ' internal costs which can be passed on to the consumers.
With giants such as Walmart, and Kroger running the grocery store industry it’s difficult for companies such as Smuckers to bargain for shelf-space and prices. Brand name items drawn to the center of the store are what leverages these companies to succeed in the industry. After numerous acquisitions and strategic alliances, Smuckers developed a solid core of product lines which experienced success rapidly. Product lines that experienced the most success as a result of strong positioning in the industry included their Coffee labels, flour and baking products, Oils and food spreads. A 9-Cell Industry Attractiveness/Business Strength Matrix shows that the Industry attractiveness is relatively moderate. With many competitors and strong buyer power from large grocery chains such as Kroger, companies such as Smuckers have explored different strategies that have proved successful in what can be described as a saturated industry. The case insinuates that there may be opportunities in the industry in regards to special markets and perhaps Oils and Baking with sugar free products, but otherwise the recession, although it drove families to buy store bought as opposed to eating out, has had its effects on the food service industry as well.
Panera has three business segments: Company-owned bakery-café, franchise operations and fresh dough operations. The company’s growth strategy was “to grow their store profits, to increase transactions and gross profits per transaction, use capital wisely and put into place drivers for concept differentiations and competitive advantage” (Vincelette & Fogarty, 2010, p7.). In 2009 while everyone else was experiencing the hard economic times Panera Bread was sticking to their strategic plan. Panera did not lay off employees, or worry about closing underperforming stores. Instead, they continued to add menu items and even increased prices on existing items. This strategy worked for them and they were able to take advantage of clientele that came from fine dining. The company has
The generic competitive strategy that Panera best fits is broad differentiation. This is primarily because Panera sought to be the first choice for patrons looking for fresh-baked goods, a sandwich, soup, a salad or a beverage in a pleasing environment. In this platform Panera has set their eyes on people who may not necessarily be looking for an expensive meal, but might also not want cheap, fast food but instead are looking for a fresh meal that can be enjoyed in a relaxing environment. In this Panera is looking for a
1. What is Kraft Foods Inc.’s corporate strategy? How has its corporate strategy evolved since its independence in 2007?
Reed Supermarkets started out as a lower-end retailer, but over the past two decades Reed has moved into the high-end in the supermarket business. They have done this with a combination of exceptional customer service, a full assortment of both standard and high-end products, including bakeries, meats and seafood. This niche has been very successful and been the diving force in their growth. Unfortunately, as noted above, customer loyalty to a quality brand has dwindled and been replaced y the need to find the best price. Reed has attempted to combat this by both increasing their high-margin products (private label and prepared foods) and increasing the number and amount of specials they offer. These tactics have done little to change customers’ perception of Reed as a high-end and high-priced retailer. See Appendix A for a full SWOT analysis on HLL.
Panera Bread’s intention is “to make Panera Bread a nationally recognized brand name and to be the dominant restaurant operator in the specialty bakery-café segment.” Panera experienced competition from many numerous sources in its trade areas. Their competition was with specialty food, casual dining and quick service cafes, bakeries, and restaurant retailers, including national, regional, and locally owned. The competitive factors included location, environment, customer service, price, and quality of products. Panera learned from its competitors, none of its competitors had yet
The decisions that she she made to restructure and diversify the company have definitely positively impacted how the company is being perceived. Those decisions also provided various opportunities within the food industry be creating healthier food lines and adding competitive advantage.
This report focuses on the United States-based ice cream producer, Dreyer’s, Inc., which used to be the largest ice cream company in America. In order to consolidate the ice cream industry, Rogers and Cronk, CEO of Dreyer’s, carried out some advancing operation philosophies including the launch of a strategic plan named the “Grand Plan” in the year 1994. The report gives a description of the expectations of the “Grand Plan” and their
The products that had given the company success, were forgotten. For that reason, the new strategy was based to revive those ‘core products’ and bring with them back the values that their founders set at the beginning (Breen 2013). (See Appendix 2)
Her transformation of Burberry had become a text book example of how to transform a business that other luxury brands are sometimes said to be “doing a Burberry” (Financial Times 2004). In 2005 Angela Ahrendts, replaced Bravo as Chief Executive who made changes to Burberry product line by making checks more stable and by focusing more on higher-margin products like handbags and perfumes (Friedman 2011).