Issue
The building blocks of a successful global business company starts with a sound strategy, which incorporates structural, leadership and cultural forces the business needs to take into consideration. Good Earth Coffee selected the strategy of franchising for that reason as well as the exceptional marketing and operational structures in place. With this strategy, it has been able to expand its business operations and it is ranked among the best coffee houses in Canada.
With this strategy, it plans to diversify its business in Ontario where it expects to succeed. The implementation plan for this strategy allows the business to compete in the global market by producing quality products at low cost hence growing shareholder value (Good earth coffee case study).
Achieving the implementation plan takes utilization of critical success factors, as well as knowledge of the plant capacity and production output maximums. Identification of risks associated with the strategy and plans to combat the risks will allow the business to make necessary provision to address the situations when they occur.
The success of the strategy will be accomplished through continued evaluation of the plan to make necessary changes to realign the strategy with the businesses vision.
Research and Analysis
SWOT Analysis
The SWOT analysis is, by definition, a summary of the key issues emanating out of the marketing audit. It is generated from internal debate; it is not just one person’s opinion. The SWOT should provide answers to such questions as:
- What do our customers need?
- How do they buy?
- How well are we meeting our customers’ expectations?
- What are our competitors doing?
The SWOT analysis should be interesting to read, contain concise statements, include only the relevant and important data, and give greater emphasis on creative analysis. A crucial role for the management of Good Earth Coffee is to differentiate their company from their competitors. They should be able to identify and pin down the real issues which should be addressed in the future as a matter of priority (Pahl & Ritchter, 2009).
The SWOT analysis should contain clear indicators of the key determinants of success in the segment being focused on. It should, in effect, encapsulate the perception of the marketplace; summarize what the management is trying to do; and point out required future actions. If pursued aggressively, this approach will make competitors into followers.
Strengths
- A strong brand name.
- Strategic leadership and effective management.
- Strategic expansion through franchising.
- High technological innovativeness.
- Strong value chain and business model- reliable and speedy fulfilment activities.
Weaknesses
- Prioritising the customer over strategic relationships.
- Inflexibility.
- Low profit margins due to competition.
Opportunities
- International business expansion.
- Market development.
- Increasing technological advancements.
- Emerging markets.
Threats
- Global competition.
- Intense rivalry.
- Political problems.
- Price competition.
- Counterfeit products.
Good Earth Coffee has a strong and close relationship between its suppliers and distributors. It has expanded its markets in the social and cultural contexts and this has contributed to its success. It has been using high technology which has been rising over the years leading to success in all its activities. An effective procedure is followed in order to establish new and attractive ideas for the success of the organization.
Some times it is not able to make the expected profit margins due to competition. It has an opportunity of franchising with global restaurant and to expand into other countries. However, it is often faced by the threat of intense rivalry, price competition, and government regulations (Good earth coffee case study).
Porters’ Five Forces Model
Porter developed a structure for analyzing the nature and extent of competition within an industry. His argument was that in every industry there are at least five competitive forces, which establish the nature of competition within that industry.
It is necessary to conduct this analysis because Good Earth Coffee is in an industry that is highly competitive and there is a need to understand the forces behind this competition. These five forces are discussed below:
Buyer’s bargaining power
Buyers have the ability to determine which products will move first and which will not. It is through buyers that a company realizes its competitive advantage in the market. Good Earth Coffee is subjected to the following buyers’ power.
- Low switching costs.
- Buyers are many and are not concentrated.
This is a weak force since the buyers have limited bargaining power.
Competitive Rivalry in the industry
Within the food industry, there are businesses which compete with each other for the available market share. These businesses either specialize in the production of similar products or differentiated products. This competition is based on:
- Low prices.
- Quality.
- Performance.
- high exits barriers.
- Little product differentiation.
- high investment intensity.
Though there are few companies which offer high quality and low cost coffee, there is still great rivalry in the industry as products are close substitutes to each other.
Threat of Substitutes
Good Earth Coffee’s products are likely to face many substitutes in the market. Other companies are likely to come up and offer similar products thereby threatening the survival of its products.
Threat of entry
Good Earth Coffee enjoys the following barriers:
- Strong economies of scale.
- Brand loyalty of customers.
- Strong capital cost on entry.
- Legal constraints.
- Franchises.
It stands to win over the threat of entry in the market because; the government has put strong entry barriers.
Supplies’ bargaining power
- flexibility to the industry’s request.
- volume and price provided.
- concentrated suppliers.
- high switching cost.
The suppliers bargaining power is weak over the buyers’ and could always lower their prices to ensure a share of the buyers’ prospective profit.
PEST Analysis
Political
- free and fair government which promotes equality.
- Fair Trade Practices.
- Consumer Protection.
- taxation policies.
Economic
- Factors affecting the GDP- for instance employment, inflation, and government spending.
- More disposable income.
- Seasonality issues.
- Developed economy.
Socio-cultural
- Lifestyle trends and consumer preferences.
- Demographic changes.
- Increased consumer spending.
- Multi-cultural society.
Technological
- Innovation capacity.
- Improved infrastructure.
The forces described above helps in determining the market growth (or decline) of Good Earth Coffee and the implication of its strategic business unit. If an economic recession occurs, the economic forces would have a considerable bearing on the future market strategies through ripple effects on the political and socio-cultural factors.
Political factors put a restriction on the development of the industry by putting tough taxes and regulation requirements. Ontario has been experiencing low tariffs barriers which have led to an expansion in the international trade thereby resulting in increased demand for food products.
Ontario’s economic growth potential is facilitated by its demographic advantage and could therefore open up opportunities for industry development.
Marketing Analysis
Over the years, the food industry has been undergoing a substantial change. This has been as a result of the increase in competition globally and the change toward global supply sequence. The end users play a major role in terms of selection of suppliers and in decision making of products which is changing from being operational to being strategic.
The increased number of producers resulting from emergence of new entrants in the market has led to increased competition. Consumers have become choosy due to the increase in the number of product options in the market (Hines & Bruce 2007).
They now desire for an exciting shopping in innovative stores. This has led to increased operation cost on the side of producers trying to match up with the customer need. It is the work of the operation management to utilize the scarce resource and maximize returns.
In striking for the right opportunities, the company will have to analyze its main market rival as this is the major threat it has to face. The strategies being employed by the competitor should be critically assessed and evaluated for necessary counter action. In addition, the general plan of the competitor in a bid to control the market is a vital toolkit which this company can use to estimate the competitive edge of the market.
Similarly, the product being offered to the market at lower price should be investigated to determine its type and nature. Why, for instance, is the company lowering the price of this commodity? Do they have access to cheaper raw materials or is it that quality of the product has been compromised and can be offered at a lower price than normal market value?
Finally on opportunities, the marketing department will have to investigate the motel’s managerial structure both current and in the past and give a detailed finding as well as possible conclusions on the same.
Risk analysis
Risk is a result of the ambiguity about the future prospects. It is a reality of life and has to be faced. Most of the time, people tend to avoid the things that they are not certain about or those which involve high risks. The best way to go about risks is not to avoid them but to look for ways of handling them.
Although the company has been doing well and the future is promising, Good Earth Coffee has to overcome some obstacles before it realizes its full potential. First there is the government requirement which it has to adhere to before being allowed to operate, increased capital costs, requirement of skilled labor force, and rivalry from other firms.
To add to these risks, the product is not guaranteed of a ready market in the new market making it a risky undertaking. Some identified risks Good earth coffee needs to be aware of arise from the following:
- Discrimination lawsuits through employee malpractice,
- Corporate social responsibility issues, and
- Ethical dilemmas.
Good Earth Coffee could also face PR issues mostly arising from these malpractices. The procedure for handling these issues are defined in Good Earth Coffee’s Business Continuity Plan (BCP), which is a systematic strategy detailing how to mitigate those risks.
The risk in a leaning strategy is in determining which activities are not critical to the core competence of the firm. If a firm mistakenly cedes out crucial activities it can severely cripple its long-term strategy (Mintzberg, et al 2003)
Human Resource Analysis
Management is the driving force of an organization the kind of approach that they give to different issues dictates the success of an organization. Decisions are the driving force in an organization. The quality of decision that managers make give their organization direction and focus.
The growth and competitiveness of Good Earth Coffee is influenced by the quality as well as acceptability of decisions made by managers at all levels. The strength of this company is undoubtedly engineered by its internal managerial mechanisms. In order to have a competitive edge in selling its product, it will be advisable for the company to take advantage of its ability to compete favorably with equal players in the market.
Organizational Culture
Organizational culture can be defined as the values, norms or pattern of assumptions shared by members of a particular organization. These values or assumptions have been found to be important in improving the effectiveness of an organization. Employees learn about the important aspects of the organization they are working for through values.
By critically examining Good Earth Coffee organization, we can explain its culture in terms of “shared values”. Great attention is focused on listening and responding to views from staff on issues related to the performance of the business. Such views are normally brought up during annual meetings.
All members are kept up to date with all the activities in the organization and this boast their morale and motivate them to work harder. They understand that they are valued and are willing to bring in more ideas and pay much attention to the success of the organization.
Cultural work practices include sharing of knowledge and information freely risk taking, and tendency to promote and follow rules. For a methodical discussion of these practices, they have been grouped into support, rules, innovation and coordination orientation. Support aspect in the model is related to the help or support an employee gets from an organization.
For instance, Good Earth Coffee provides different training and counseling services to employees. Innovation is the introduction and implementation of new ideas that positively benefit the organization and its members. Thus, managers consider innovation as the major source of competitive advantage in Good Earth Coffee where employees’ suggestions are put into consideration.
Coordination refers to amalgamation of efforts to ensure successful attainment of objectives. Coordination can be achieved by means of planning, organizing, actuating and controlling. Every organization has at least some rules and regulations. Organizations make rules to ensure that tasks are performed with little or no problems.
The success or failure of any business or organization depends on the organizational behavior perceptions. The way the management team together with the employees handles these perceptions in Good Earth Coffee determines whether the organization will close its operations or it will continue. This is because management and employees are responsible for the future development of the organization.
This is done through motivation, communication, politics, and power. Businesses have to develop a competitive advantage if they are to continue and failure to do so will lead to deterioration (Good earth coffee case study).
For a relationship to exist, messages have to be sent and received between people such as employees and companies such as suppliers. Good Earth Coffee has realized that communication is one of the ways that a company can establish customers’ needs and wants as well as their employees.
Critical Success Factors
The company already has a strong brand name. This is an upper hand in positioning itself in the new market. Other than the company itself, the companies that it has franchised are also doing well. This is the expertise that the company boasts of.
This is gotten from the franchised companies and the developments that have been taking place over the years. Using this, the company should come up with measures that are aimed at countering competition by offering quality to the clients
Low cost and quality are not normally associated with each other but through careful application of business practices, strategic alliances and marketing initiatives, Good Earth Coffee can achieve both. To achieve this, the organization has to understand its critical success factors. Critical success factors for most companies are similar.
These factors include such measurements as Customer Satisfaction, Management, Finance, Innovation, Production, Distribution, Marketing, Sales and Service. More importantly, a company’s success in the industry is its ability to differentiate itself from its competitors. This is done by developing and focusing on the organization’s core competencies.
In the case of Good Earth Coffee, Low Cost is developed with effective supply chain in conjunction with production and distribution efficiencies. The company seeks to standardize as much of the processes as possible. Standardized processes are important to maximize the efficiency of organizations (Mintzberg, et al 2003).
To achieve an acceptable level of quality, Good Earth Coffee must invest in technologies and partnerships that support process improvement and innovation. It must develop superior material supplies and engineering technologies.
The Six Sigma process has been attributed to not only with quality, but also with improving cost structures of companies. Six Sigma is focused on effective implementation of proven quality principles and techniques; aimed at error free business performance (Pyzdek, 2003).
Almost every company will share critical success factors, but the most successful companies identify core competencies and develop strategies around those core competencies. For example Good Earth Coffee distribution system is less expensive to operate than competitors (Burdett, n.d.).
For Good earth coffee’s positioning strategy to be successful, the organization must be configured to improve Quality and maximize the efficiency of the network. Plant or asset utilization is considered by many the most important success factors in today’s global environment. Plant utilization is defined as the difference between maximum capacity and actual output.
Plant and asset Utilization is important not only for cost containment profitability but for reliability of operations to meet objectives (Ellis, 1998). To achieve the maximum of efficiency, Good Earth Coffee must seek to improve asset utilization. One component is the sales process.
Expansion into Ontario market will help Good Earth Coffee achieve greater asset utilization. With the correct acquisitions and strategic alliances, Good Earth Coffee will be able to further improve asset utilization with plant specialization.
Alternatives
Global marketing strategies call for developing strategies to develop and build brand image and loyalty among customers. This includes develop the positioning strategies as compared to competitors worldwide. Branding and positioning strategies must fit the product and the company across multiple countries. Because Good Earth Coffee’s primary customer base are global customers, advertising campaigns must be similar.
Before choosing a business strategy, one has to evaluate different options and only chose the best. There are many different strategies that can be used in a business but all of them do not give equal results.
It is upon the management to make a choice in which is the best taking into account the business operations and the needs of the market. The company can choose to expand organically and increase its range of products or expand internationally into Ontario through a strategic alliance.
Organic Expansion
Organic Expansion of the company’s business in the domestic market can ensure increased returns for Good Earth Coffee. By capitalizing on its existing potency and unique resources, the company can effortlessly gain a competitive advantage in Canada and realize high returns on the capital invested. Through organic growth, the company can choose suitable locations for its coffee houses in the city centers and towns.
Good Earth Coffee can be able to succeed in its expansion strategy because it will able to capitalize on changes in the coffee house market. Through this strategy, the company can be able to expand its operations in many parts of the country as opposed to the other coffee houses which are reluctant in deciding how to adapt the changed environment.
Through this strategy, Good Earth Coffee can be able realize a high turnover growth which offsets its low profit margins and enables sustainability of the cooperation’s price-based competitive advantage. In addition to reinvestment of margins, Good Earth Coffee can achieve differentiation through its products as well as imperfect mobility of its brand name, which is inimitable.
Expansion To Ontario Through A Strategic Alliance
Good Earth Coffee’s growing customer base will be global business entities. The expansion choice of Ontario is substantially based upon the expectation this country is or will be strategically important in global competition. It is targeted as a potential market for expansion not only for the market opportunities but also for the possibility of a successful strategic alliance with an Ontario coffee farmer.
This could be considered one of the more important benchmarks of the strategy. Not only does it open other markets to increase sales and revenue, creating an opportunity for greater economies of scale, but Ontario is recognized for the precision processes used in their manufacturing processes.
The acquisition or strategic alliance with a coffee producer will also present opportunities to improve Good earth coffee’s supply chain efficiencies. If Good Earth Coffee is successful in developing a strategic alliance or joint venture with a coffee farmer it will have taken a very strong first step in developing a marketing branding position for quality.
A successful alliance with a large scale coffee farmer could open additional markets for Good Earth Coffee. This strategic alliance has the capability of improving not only economies of scale, but also production efficiency, especially as it pertains to the supply chain for Good Earth Coffee’s coffee production.
Perhaps more importantly an operation within Ontario can capitalize on the trade agreements negotiated by the government. This component of the strategy is built on growing the customer base.
If Good Earth Coffee can become the most recognized brand in Ontario, the company will have succeeded acquiring a competitive advantage in those markets. By increasing the customer base, Good Earth Coffee can gain greater control over plant or fixed cost utilization.
Best Strategy Recommendation
Good Earth Coffee’s strategy of international expansion through a strategic alliance is an example of a business strategy that is strategically chosen. This is because it meets both the company’s expectations as well as the expectation of the external environment. Ontario country has its own challenges and opportunities for Good Earth Coffee. This calls for different strategies of entry into the market.
In general, the goal is to seek mixed strategic alliance. The best option would be a strategic alliance with the goal of acquisition of a subsidiary. The advantages of strategic alliances are significant not the least of which is the opportunity for even greater economies of scale. Mixed Strategic alliances are effective at managing uncertainty, risks and sharing cost (Barney, 2007).
Before this strategy is implemented, there is need to conduct a marketing mix. An effective marketing mix ensures that goods are available to the target customer, when they need them and at an affordable price. In Ontario before the company decides on the particular market, the first point is to collect adequate market data and analyze it.
The company uses business intelligence tools to collect a wide range of data essential for its operations. Data is then interpolated in terms of age, sex, region, education, income, and lifestyle. This assists the company in identifying the products that it will develop if it has to remain competitive. Its research centers offer great assistance in ensuring that all is set in terms of data availability for decision making.
Action Plan
Good Earth Coffee could target a much larger industry base in Ontario. To provide some central control, but allow specialization as required to penetrate industries, Good Earth Coffee will assign product managers. The product managers are the trouble shooters to resolve production, supply chain, quality, and efficiency. They have the authority to work across all operating companies to achieve goals (Yip, 2003).
Good Earth Coffee will have global customers. To meet the special needs of global customers, Good Earth Coffee will hire, and assign global account managers based on industry. Global companies often have multiple needs. The global account manager will serve as the single point of contact for the client. Industries to target would be consumer sales companies for coffee and food products.
Appendix 1 shows the report structures. The blue line reporting of product managers to the vice president of marketing means they’re to coordinate with marketing personnel for brand and company image but remain primarily operations focused. The green line between global account managers and product managers is to show both are expected to communicate with each other regarding customer needs and expectations.
Market Planning
There are specific resources and methodology that are needed to attain the broader objectives of a company within a given market domain. A systematic plan of these requirements is all under the umbrella of strategic market planning. Price competition as it is evident in this case requires a strategic market plan to see the company through.
Competent distribution of available resources as the company adopts economies of scale is vital and any underlying intrigues need to be established in advance. There will be need to consider the overall market dynamics contrary to myopic orientation (Yip, 2003).
Through strategic market planning, the values of the company as described and the mission and vision statements will be pursued to the latter (Harvard Business School Press, 2006).
Besides, the art of competing effectively will be perfected if the marketing department revisits the mission of the company. As a matter of fact, the company cannot at anyone time bow out of entrepreneurship due to price wars with its market rivals if it has a good market plan.
A strategic market plan will identify the right path as well as enlighten the company on the needs of the current market. It will also ascertain that the different departments within the company co-exist, coordinate, and work as a team in achieving the set goals. In due time, strategic market planning will assist in evaluating the SWOT analysis.
Moreover, other optional lines of action can be explored through strategic market planning. A promotion plan is aimed at increasing sales, launching new products, positioning an organization, or creation of good corporate image.
Global Implementation Plan
The chart in appendix 2 is the Gantt Chart and Work Breakdown Structure describing specific activities required for full implementation of Good earth coffee’s strategy in Ontario. Each task takes into consideration factors such as objectives, resource allocation, deadlines, milestones, and the department responsible for its execution.
Risk Management Plan
Change is inevitable and things change when least expected. It is unavoidable in the modern workplace. To remain effective and competitive, organizations must continually adapt their business processes to manage the rapid changes demanded by the dynamic nature of the marketplace or service environment.
It is also the case that, even in the most structured processes, deviations or unpredicted events will occur with almost every instantiation. Therefore, so that the benefits of workflow management system may be offered to the broader organizational spectrum, the ability to deal with change must be effectively addressed. This can be done through adjusting the business strategy to suit the present market.
As Good Earth Coffee expands, into new territories, it has to expand its risk management and contingency plans to suit the local laws and conditions of Ontario. Most countries have similar laws when it comes to discrimination and ethical practices. Ontario is a fast developing nation trying to implement and adhere to the same global policies.
As stated earlier, Good Earth Coffee would have to abide by all state and local laws and enact a complicit information security policy, which will encompass all their corporate culture as a whole and applied to all new locations. Good Earth Coffee’s risk management plan will have to include training sessions for all managers on good ethical decision-making.
Management needs to be taught contingency plans for looming risky situations and the steps necessary to mitigate them.
The simple steps are basic awareness of the ethical perspectives serve as the foundation of our good moral and ethical decisions, the art of explaining the principles of our position, and the application of our understanding of an ethical decision that establishes those three principles into an action for the things we do on a daily basis.
There are also risks associated with innovation in which the companies continuously work to improve the product, as well as a lot of capital investment and strategy that takes place in this process. The simple changes or adjustments in existing products, services, or processes are called incremental innovation (Pearce & Robinson, 2009).
In discussing the Public Relations (PR) Strategy as it relates to company’s BCP, Good Earth Coffee will have to mitigate any damages during a PR crisis. They must first make a note of, and understand the potential threats that give rise to a PR Crisis.
All types of discrimination practices, which do not follow the Standard Operating Procedures and ignoring the quarterly testing the viability of the Business Continuation Plan (BCP), will eventually lead to a PR Crisis.
The standards operating procedures include the use of the highest ethical and moral standards while manufacturing their product and shipping it to the customer in Ontario. If crisis expectation is to remain a documented function for PR, ignorance of law cannot be used as a good excuse.
Some other identified risks are unforeseen events such as hurricanes, fires, and manmade disasters. This contingency planning will be referred to as Plan B in the BCP. This includes all superseding events that prioritize one event over another in terms of threat evolution. Internal threats evolve and could be easily mitigated if taken care of immediately inside the triage of the actual threat event.
The BCP has to have a continuous assessment of the goodness of fit so that there is a continued evaluation of the plan, which would fit a variety of crisis. In launching a new product, Good Earth Coffee will also need a contingency in place for market and technology risks.
Market risks come from uncertainty with regard to the presence of a market, its size, and its growth rate for the product or service in question, that is, do customers exist, and will they buy it? The risk emanating from technological assessments is the uncertainty of how the technology will evolve, and the complexity through which technical standards and dominant designs or approaches emerge (Pearce & Robinson, 2009).
Plan for Ongoing Evaluation of the Strategy
In its expansion Good Earth Coffee is pursuing a global strategy which is a combination of international business and strategic management. According to Omolewu (2005), strategic management involves formulating and implementing strategies that enable the organization to reach its objectives.
Therefore, it is important that an organization measures its success in the formulation and implementation of its strategy and this is called strategy evaluation.
The factors that are likely to have an impact on reaching these goals are the size of the organization, management styles, complexity of the environment, nature of the production processes, nature of the problem and the purpose and planning system (Omolewu, 2005).
Strategy evaluation is important to ensure these factors do not hinder the achievement of strategic goals and evaluation should be followed by continuous improvement. Strategic evaluation is important since no strategy can be expected to produce 100 % of the desired results due to changes in the environment and the fact that for Good earth coffee there are different implementation environments.
Evaluation is a continuous process, which is included in each stage of strategic management. According to Rumelt (2000) strategic evaluation should help us know if the objectives of the business are appropriate, if major policies and plans are appropriate and whether the results obtained confirm or are against critical assumptions on which the strategy rests.
Rumelt (2002) says some of the factors that make evaluation difficult include the fact each business strategy is unique, the fact that the strategic management process involves the selection of goals and objectives and different people are involved in this process thus resulting in varying results. In evaluating the success of a strategy one should measure consistency, consonance, advantage, and feasibility.
Some of the performance measures Good Earth Coffee can use in evaluating the success of its strategy include Return on its international investments, percent variation from budget of each of the implemented strategic decisions, amount of variation in capita spending, amount of changes in the strategic plans, cost of poor quality, variance of actual variance from the budgeted revenue, percentage of target dates of completing implementation of a strategic phase that have been missed, and the amount of security violations per month.
Other performance measures that can be used to measure the success of a strategy include the variation of actual production volume from the actual volume. Return on investment is the most widely used and it gives results that can be easily evaluated. With regard to performance measurement based on amount of changes in the strategy this should be completely eliminated since it is a sign of incorrect strategy formulation.
Proper environmental evaluation ensures that the named strategy can be well implemented with changes only in the implementation phase. A strategy is a roadmap; hence if properly formulated should have very few adjustments.
According to Puri (n.d), benchmarking which is used in evaluating strategy involves setting performance parameters and then evaluating the various applications to ensure that these parameters are met. This can be done for human resources or equipments in the organization. The aim is to remove any bottlenecks in the achievement of these goals and also see areas of future improvement in a process or equipment.
Conclusion
Globalization of businesses is occurring rapidly in this day and age of fast paced technological advancements and endeavors. However, the success of business is measured by the strategies being deployed. Good Earth Coffee will succeed by using sound strategies, which strive to standardize processes by applying the Six Sigma approach to ensure high quality products at low costs.
Organizations are formed to achieve certain goals. Good Earth Coffee’s organization is built to grow shareholder value by delivering quality products at low costs. Low cost and quality are not normally associated together. However, through careful application of business practices, strategic alliances and marketing initiatives, Good Earth Coffee can achieve both.
Increasingly we find evidence suggesting the success of the strategy is very closely tied to the organization’s structure. The Business Continuity Plan provides the manual for addressing any possible risk management issues the business could face.
Continued evaluation of financial and operational performance ensures the business stays on top of their game tackling issues before they become major problems affecting the success of the business.
Good Earth Coffee will be an unstoppable force within the global business industry by following the strategies and plans provided in this assessment. Global organizations must balance the need for autonomy and integration. Subsidiaries need some autonomy to react to their domestic situations; and integration to fit within the company’s global market strategy.
Global businesses are best served with a centralized authority for development of products, marketing and global competitive moves. This calls for extensive coordination between subsidiaries. Subsidiaries should share technology and the company will need a global information system. The information system needs to include supply chain management and customer account management capabilities.
Reference List
Barney, J. B. (2007). Gaining And Sustaining Competitive Advantage (3rd ed.). New Jersey: Pearson-Prentice Hall.
Burdett, A. C. (n.d.). A Practical Guide to Strategic Planning. Clint Burdett Strategic Consulting. Web.
Ellis, R. (1998). Asset Utilization: A Metric for Focusing Reliability Efforts. Seventh International Conference on Process Plant Reliability, Good earth coffee case study, “Go East young man”.
Harvard Business School Press, (2006). Essentials of Strategy Harvard Business Literacy for HR Professionals’ Series. Harvard: Harvard Business Press.
Hines, T. & Bruce, M. (2007). Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues. New York: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Mintzberg, H., et al (2003). The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts, Cases (4th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson-Prentice Hall.
Omolewu, G. (2007). Global Strategic Management Is The Key To Business Success. Web.
Pahl, N. & Ritchter, A. (2009). SWOT Analysis – Idea, Methodology and a Practical Approach Akademische Schriftenreih. New York: GRIN Verlag.
Pearce, J. A., II, & Robinson, R. B., Jr. (2009). Strategic Management: Formulation, Implementation, and Control (11th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Puri, S. (n. d). Recommendations for Performance Benchmarking. Web.
Pyzdek, T. (2003). The Six Sigma Handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Rumelt, R. P. (2000). Strategy Evaluation. Web.
Yip, G. S. (2003). Total Global Strategy II (2nd ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Appendices
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Good earth coffee: Gantt chart for Ontario.