Carolina Foods, Inc.: Can the Duchess Become Queen?:
After significant growth in 2013, Carolina Foods, Inc.’s CEO, Paul Scarborough, wanted to develop a strategy to maintain that level of growth for his family’s 80-year-old commercial bakery and its Duchess brand. At CFI, no new products had been introduced over the past twenty years, the company did not have any dedicated marketing personnel, and no marketing budget was allocated (a sales budget did exist). What strategy should CFI pursue for growth?
For this assignment, first read the Carolina Foods case in your HBR coursepack. Then create a case that contains the following CLEARLY LABELED sections:
Title Page
1.Company Name (In this case Carolina Foods, Inc.) you are providing for this company, in this case “Growth Strategy”
2. Presented by: YOUR NAME OR FIRM
3. Date: DATE SUBMITTED
1. Background
a. Summarize the case in the first paragraph including a brief description of the players involved, and the situation at hand.
b. In the second paragraph, clearly define what problems you need to solve.
2. Mission
a. A simple Google search will provide basic information that will resemble a mission statement.
3. SWOT Analysis
a. Develop a SWOT analysis in the commercial bakery industry for CFI.
4. Competitive Analysis
a. Develop a 5 P analysis (Step 3: Identify Competition and Threats) for 3 key competitors.
aa. You may do this in chart or paragraph format, as long as it looks neat and professional.
b. Use a BOLD SUBHEADER to organize each competitor.
5. Competitive Advantage
a. Create a Positioning Map illustrating your position compared to the competition.
b. Using Porter’s 4 Competitive Strategies, what one is best suited for CFI?
bb. Defend your answer in 1-2 paragraphs using facts and figures from the case.
6. Options Available
a. Use a BOLD SUBHEADER to organize each of the three options presented in the case.
b. Clearly describe 3-5 pros of this option. Use numbers and facts from the case to support each pro.
c. Clearly describe 3-5 cons of this option. Use numbers and facts from the case to support each con.
7. Recommendation
a. Based on your analysis, present what option you selected.
b. Please use facts and figures from the case to defend your recommendation.
c. Develop an implementation plan for the strategic choice.
d. 5-10 paragraphs total for this section
Books:
1. Moore, G.A., 1991. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers (Collins Business Essentials). HarperBusiness, New York Google Scholar.
2. Christensen, C., 2013. The innovator’s dilemma: when new technologies cause great firms to fail. Harvard Business Review Press.
Please ensure you use facts from the provided data and charts in the case to support your analysis.
For some of you, this may be a new experience to present a case study. Do your best, I promise you will grow as the class progresses. What you want to do is put yourself in a management role…..what are the facts in front of you, what stands out to you, what options are available, what are the pros and cons of each option, and finally why is your decision the best one to take. This is the thought process you want to explore as you approach this assignment.
In writing this case, as with all cases in this class, I would like you to use the Executive Summary writing style as opposed to the academic writing style.
Executive Summaries are designed to provide executives a clear understanding of a situation in a straightforward, factual document.
In Executive Summaries, you are writing to a business; whereas in an academic paper you are writing to a professor. This different mindset is clearly evident in your writing.
Unlike an academic paper, you do not need to define strategies, you simply need to apply them. For example, you do not need to say “Dr. Smith (2013) states a pricing strategy is vital to the success of an organization. According to Smith, there are 4 types of pricing strategies. These strategies are……..” Instead, you would want to say, “Management’s primary objective with the launch of product X in the marketplace is to gain market share, even if it results in a loss of profits in the short term. Thus based on a comprehensive pricing analysis, implementing a penetration pricing strategy of $XX.XX per unit will generate a 14.3% gain in market share.”
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