General Mills: SWOT Analysis Essay

General Mills is an American company that manufactures consumer goods, including breakfast cereal, yogurt, snack foods, and others. The firm is considered a successful representative of the given kind of business, and its rich history supports this idea. However, past performance is not sufficient to predict how the company will develop in a while. That is why it is reasonable to identify the firm’s strengths and weaknesses to predict its future, and the SWOT analysis is a suitable tool to achieve it.

External Environment Analysis

To begin with, one should draw attention to Porter’s Five Forces model. This approach helps identify the industry’s attractiveness and the probability of obtaining profits (Mind Tools Content Team, 2009). As for General Mills, its sphere of business features intense rivalry because significant competitors include ConAgra, Kellogg, Kraft Heinz, and others. This fact indicates that there is a threat that buyers and suppliers will find working with these competitors more beneficial for them. However, General Mills offers products of high quality and reasonable prices, which provides them with many customers. Consequently, the company has substantial buyer power that is another element of Porter’s model (Mind Tools Content Team, 2009).

In addition to that, it is reasonable to use PEST analysis to assess General Mills’ remote environment. On the one hand, one should consider health consciousness that is a part of social factors (Quick MBA, 2007). Since more people draw attention to healthy nutrition, it will drive them to buy the products of General Mills. On the other hand, economic factors, including exchange rates, are also of significance (Quick MBA, 2007).

It is so because the company distributes its goods to a few foreign markets, and different exchange rates can result in some problems for General Mills. Considering the information above, one can state that it is challenging to assess the overall environment for General Mills unanimously. If one uses a 1-10 ranking system for this purpose, the company will get 7. It is so because there are both positive and negative predictors, but the advantages, including the buyer power and health consciousness, are said to have a more significant impact.

Internal Analysis

One should mention that the internal environment of General Mills has a few productive phenomena. It is challenging to identify significant weaknesses of the company, and that is why it impresses with various strengths. Firstly, it refers to a numerous workforce that includes approximately 40,000 employees (Craft, n.d.). This figure is the biggest among General Mills’ main competitors. Secondly, the company offers multiple products, and this fact meets the needs of various customers and increases sales. Consequently, it is possible to say that the advantages of the internal environment outweigh any potential drawbacks.

In conclusion, since the information above presents the data on both external and internal environments, it is reasonable to apply a SWOT analysis to identify the organization’s outlook. According to Friesner (2016), this analysis is necessary to add value to the company’s products and attract more customers. The threat, severe competition, can be overcome if the company manages to “match its internal strengths with external opportunities” (Friesner, 2016, para. 2).

In this case, it is reasonable to intensify the buyer power of General Mills by offering more new products of decent quality to its customers. This scenario seems to be real, which indicates that the overall outlook of the company is favorable.

References

Craft. (n.d.). General Mills competitors. Web.

Friesner, T. (2016). SWOT analysis. Web.

Mind Tools Content Team. (2009). Porter’s five forces: Understanding competitive forces to maximize profitability. Web.

Quick MBA. (2007). PEST analysis. Web.