Critical Analysis Of Quaker-Muller Quaker Joint Venture In Asia Market Essay.

Task 1: Industry and Market Contexts

Task 1: Outline in a background statement the industry, company and competitive market contexts.

Task 2: Complete a critical analysis of the organisation's existing business model to identify key strategic weaknesses in relation to their current competitive business position.

Task 3: Propose justified modifications to this business model as deemed appropriate for future business sustainability.

Task 4: Explain the consequential changes that will be required to organisation structure, operational processes, information technologies and human capital resourcing

Task 5: Consider the human capital management changes that will be required during the transitioning period with detailed attention being given to:

5.1 The nature of the changes required

5.2 how these changes will be introduced, monitored and evaluated

5.3 the anticipated impact upon staff morale.

Quaker company has announced a joint venture between Quaker and Muller Quaker for its production, sale and distribution of cereal, wholesome foods and savory snacks in Asia. Muller Quaker has another wholly - owned subsidiary in Asia called Kohai – Berry Investments Co Ltd which will also participate in the joint venture.

There are various responsibilities for the companies where Muller Quaker will contribute to infrastructure, supply chain sale, extensive sales and distribution network in Asia. They will also contribute for the local network in Asia as well. The companies are huge enough to manage the local market in Asia and manage a portfolio of the globally recognized brands which will in turn contribute to the large cereal product base and other snacks expertise. The joint venture will use the Quaker brand in the Asia market as well. The brands will work together in order to leverage this complementary expertise and they would maximize their potential in terms of marketing and production.

Asia is an ever evolving country in Asia terms of market and new product launch and in the next 5 years Asia will outperform the food and beverage industry which targets any consumer class base in large cities with an increased desire for a wide range of packaged foods. Most of these foods fall into the category of the branded foods as well. The consumers of the food market have changed their pulse in terms of food consumption and this has been driven by the health benefits of various foods which the people learn about. For example there has been an immense growth in the milk perspective of food consumption which has also given a major impact to the cereal consumption as this has been viewed by the consumers as the most convenient food for breakfast. Asia has also been driven by the snack food industry.

Asia’s snack food industry has grown to a great extent where its growth is estimated to be up by $12 – 15 million annually and has been growing more than 40% gradually. If any outer brand comes into the market they should perform in such a way that they are able to outperform the other local brands or at least maintain their standards. In order to capture this growth the local market has to be leveraged in such a way that Quaker and Muller Quaker can bring great opportunity to the market.

Task 2: The weaknesses of the segment

This joint venture helps Asia grow to a massive extent where growth has been immense for the business and this joint venture has developed the business for growth and fundamental changes in the general way the business is conducted.

The brands are huge and they food products an immense corporate responsibility which aims to help and create better days and brighter tomorrow for the consumers, employees, stakeholders and communities where all of them are better influenced by the environment.  They share a responsible corporate responsibility towards maintaining a better environment as well as they are involved with working towards protecting the environment as well by protecting the interests of the farmers in reducing their environmental footprint and improve their efficiency.

The other environmental factors which they can focus on are

• Growing their health and wellness related food offerings
  
  
• Leveraging their brand in terms of providing benefits of cereal, additional health benefits in the form of breakfast bran and drinks
  
  
• Increasing the health benefits of consumers by decreasing the frozen foods in the brand which they can offer
  
  
• Accelerating the growth in the food consumption by promoting the health benefits

These are the main areas which are causing issues today and they focus on reducing any complex issues which may arise out of it. Various aspects which an International brand should consider before they venture into the other internationally located local markets are

Strengths Good exposure and knowledge of the local markets and that of the product Good market position Broad network of portfolio services Robust infrastructure New infrastructures and technological aspects being customized as per the Client’s requirements	Weaknesses Geographical focus with its presence in various locations Effective marketing strategies Automation resulting in fears in the employees
Opportunities Expansion in different markets Expanding the Chinese market Online shopping with various models which could be introduced to suit different customer requirements	Threats Compliance with Government rules in terms of sales Major preserved products which might enter the local market and those which are of an international brand. There could be fear of losing market control for the local products from the local vendors Intense competition from other competitors

The type of weaknesses would vary between operational and partnership in such cases when international brands compete with the local markets in order to establish themselves in a specific country where the partnership or the general business would have are

Under production orientation the entire focus is on the process of production and its efficiencies.

Under product orientation the entire focus is on making new products, revising or making their products for effective for the customers and working towards enhancement of sales activities in order to sell their products. Such companies have their total focus on product invention and their sales with not effort on improving the levels of customer service (Narver, J, 1990).

Case: If a person buys food products then he is provided some other product for his use.

There is another segment under business orientation which is closer to product orientation and is called as the sales orientation. Even under this segment the companies concentrate on improving their sales methodologies and their number in sales when compared to customer service levels.

The last segment under the category of business orientation is the market orientation. Under this segment there are a lot of factors which are considered to implement various processes effectively. It is a distinct strategy under which all the plans and policies, norms and procedures, strategy of the management, marketing strategies of the business, methods of customer service, Organizational objectives, employee values and many other factors are taken into consideration. Market orientation has its entire focus on the levels of customer satisfaction it achieves as an Organization. The Customer service levels constitute the main part of this business (Bearden, 2005).

Case:  If we consider the product of Food products the company designs the products taking the customer’s desires into account. Lots of models have been released in various flavors (Todnem, R, 2005).

A lot of Organizations are adapting the market oriented approach. One of the reasons why market oriented approach is becoming more prominent is that there have been a lot of companies which produce the same kind of products under different labels and because of this all the customers are aware of the kind of products, their advantages, their constitution and many other factors. This has made the businesses think in a different perspective and come up with such a kind of competitive strategy which is called as market orientation ( Choen, J 1975). The companies should have that competitive advantage over its other competitors as there a lot of chances for them to lose out on their customers if they do not come up with more competitive products (Bearden, 2005).

SWOT Analysis

These aspects could pose certain risks however food industry is directly linked to the consumers and any issues would impact the business of the industry directly.

This is based on the suitability of the product and the nature of the business. This is specific from project to project and it depends on the size of the project mainly. There are certain specific limits set by the projects or the partners involved in it. Most of the times partners exist in the project with a vision of producing various products for multiple purposes however they can’t manage to produce them on their own. This requires the intervention of other sources that can create, design, implement and produce the products. For example this is most suitable for software products. In the current situation if we consider the food industry a joint venture is possible where they are establishing it in Asia and they require the intervention of the local Asian parties who can help in designing the products suitable for the Asian market.

In this case where it is a food industry and where it has to be established in a foreign market there are various aspects in terms of correction plans like

• Disciplinary alternatives – Market, Research, Plan, Design and Implementation
  
  
• Guiding Principles – Code of Ethics, Labor Law and Legal obligations of those countries
  
  
• Training – managing employees
  
  
• Managing and taking change to a next level – Controlling change in various aspects of management

Organizational Structure is very important to achieve results allowing great no. of people to work as teams to handle various projects effectively. It is linked with the culture of the Organization as they are dependent on each other (People's Daily Online, 2008).

 The organizational culture follows a strategy where it recognizes the efforts and contributions of the employees of the organization and it provides an understanding of how these results are to be achieved, the various ways in which they can align their objectives to their organizational objectives and how the employees can achieve their objectives. This concept emphasizes that the organizational culture could be a way of maintaining the employees in line and encouraging them to achieve the organizational objectives. All these factors contribute a lot to the organizational success (Adair, J 1988).

Some of the leadership models which can be adapted and implemented in this process are

 John Adair has developed a simple leadership model which provides a great leadership model to the employees or an organization. Action centred leadership model is also a simple leadership and a management model which is good to adapt in any situation.

The 3 parts of Adair’s Action Centred Leadership Model have 3 main responsibilities like

• Achieving the task
  
  
• Managing the teams
  
  
• Managing the people

This model has a great advantage which would guide the manager with his responsibilities like responsibilities of a manager to achieve the task and the responsibilities of a manager for the group like

• Identify the activity
  
  
• Identify the resources, people, processes, systems, skills and tools
  
  
• Create a plan to conduct the task which would include evaluation tools, timelines which are critical for the completion of the projects, strategy and policies which are to be implemented
  
  
• Decide on major factors like responsibilities of the team, organizational objectives, accountability and measures of the team
  
  
• Planning and Strategizing the standards, quality of work, time and reporting standards which are to be followed
• Monitor and maintain the overall performance plan
  
  
• Report on the progress which has been achieved for the group’s objective
  
  
• Timely evaluation and review process of the plan and methods which are used to conduct different processes and work on any of the processes if the results are not effective

In all these responsibilities the major factors which are critical for the leadership model are

• Planning
  
  
• Initiating
  
  
• Controlling
  
  
• Supporting
  
  
• Informing
  
  
• Evaluating

The Action Centred Leadership Model is a model which has a method of managing and leading and this also includes a strong emphasis on applying the principles by using various methods. This model also promotes various situations which involve 2 people who can influence where 50% of motivation is in an individual and 50% of the motivation is from an external source.

Information technology had a positive impact on all the automation and information aspects where it has offered immense benefits and has also offered a lot of growth perspectives to the people. There are various positive aspects which have provided immense learning opportunities for the employees and have also resulted in providing various tutorials which have benefitted the employee group to a major extent. Self – directed tools have also come into effect which has offered great self – learning opportunities to the people. Through this Employees have had a major access to the organizations which promoted a greater way of learning by customer information and by providing greater access to online information. It has provided them a great motivation in developing language skills and avoiding larger curriculums which can be avoided through a safe way of learning (Kathleen, 2011).

The five new jobs which have emerged in the last 5 years were much related to Marketing and Management like the Product aspects and the Management aspects. Roles like Product Managers, Product Analysts, Business Analysts related to business analysis and research and Project Managers have evolved much to an extent in order to design and manage various aspects in an Organization. With all these various roles which the Organization can introduce it will attract more employees with an effective standard service the human capital can be strengthened.

In order to leverage the marketing relationship programs and investments by the companies the organization should target their time to ensure they attain a marketing benefit in such a way that the customer’s needs are at its peak. The values should be timed in such a way that benefits are timed to a greater extent.  Understanding and managing gratitude and its role in building and maintaining reciprocity play a major role in effective relationship marketing. Grateful customers always come back with a lot of gratitude and the organizations should give them an opportunity to reciprocate after they receive an RM benefit (Narver, J 1990).

There are a lot of researches which have been conducted and there are 3 main aspects which have been suggested in terms of relationship marketing like

• Engagement activities across various stages of relationship lifecycle ( Gronroos 1997; Sheth Parvatiyar 2000)
  
  
• The no. of stages and terminology are different in nature sometimes where even multiple stages are involved in it (Dwyer and Oh 1987; Wilson1995).
  
  
• The other critical aspect is the target or the scope of the relationship in the marketing activities where most of the activities are restricted to customer relationships and other relationships in the internal departments (Morgan and Hunt 1994)

All these aspects open up a scope of relationship marketing practice to any target entity which seems appropriate. There are many recent researches which have been conducted in terms of managing customer relationships with parties other than customers in most of the cases (Rindfleisch and Moorman 2003; Sivadas and Dwyer 2000).

Pricing is the most critical aspect of a marketing mix which can produce greater turnover of the organization. There are variable costs to produce a product and there is a cost involved to promote them. Pricing should support all these elements of a marketing mix (Business Balls, nd).

These products can be divided into consumer products, commodity business, non - commodity business and sales. A reliability analysis can be conducted by taking various products from all these groups and can be tested on reliability and validity. The factors of reliability are for customer orientation and competitor orientation which enhance the relations to increase their sales. The long term objectives and the profit objective measures might be different because the products might not be meeting the demands of the customers (Business Balls, nd).  Economies of sales which are generated by production a large mass of production will reduce the costs of production and contributes to creating large profits to the organization.

The pricing strategies are based on the objectives an organization has like penetration pricing, skimming pricing, competition pricing, product line pricing, psychological pricing and other factors.

The pricing strategies have their own ways of marketing like pricing on a low price and increasing the prices later, setting a higher price and then reducing the prices, setting prices by comparing with the competitors, prices which are different for various products and the psychology of prices.

The pricing strategy which is most suitable for any type of an organization which could be based pricing. Optional pricing can also be a strategy for setting prices for various services which are provided by the charity they can sell optional services to maximize the turn over which the organization can produce.

A business which increases its market orientation will be able to enhance its market performance. Researches have been conducted to prove this fact.

Let us look at the advantages in implementing market orientation in an Organization. Some of those advantages are:

Customer focus as the Organization’s objective: Organizations who look at customer’s needs as their focus is always competitive in concentrating on newer innovations and newer strategies to satisfy their Customers. By doing this the Organizations would have more no. of satisfied customers who would be retained with their brand for a longer time (Kokemuller n.d.).

A specific strategy: The Organizations should develop a specific strategy and plan to implement that strategy in an effective way. The Organization should also plan their vision and mission of their company and align all their Organizational objectives with the vision and mission of the company. Effective communication should be organized to explain all the advantages of their products to their Customers (Pearce, J . 1987).

Advantages of Marketing: The Organizations should also market their products effectively implementing various kinds of strategies.

Customer retention: Understanding the customer’s needs and satisfying their needs leads to customer retention and such customers retain with the same brand for a longer time.

All these factors contribute to a lot of benefits for an Organization.

After the kinds of marketing strategies and with the ways the companies plan to enter the market the next step of expanding the business would be the strategy of product. There are different models like product positioning strategy, product repositioning strategy, product scope strategy, product design strategy and any new business product strategy (Akkaya, n.d.)

The first strategy involves product positioning which means introducing a product into the market in the right position so that it gets accepted in the market along with many products in the same category (Asikhia, 2011).

The second strategy involves reviewing and revising any of the aspects of the product, marketing mix and looking for a new position for the product.

This strategy helps a lot of businesses recover from its current position where they have a large scope to relook at the product and make any important changes to present it in an attractive way to the customers and the clients.

In all these aspects Customer focus is more important than any other aspect of marketing.

In the third strategy which is the product scope strategy, there could be many products involved in one company where the focus has to be on all the products, their improvements, their individual market competition and their sales.

In the fourth strategy of product which the product design the company has to decide whether it can offer many products or one single product and whether it can customize the product depending on the Customer’s needs.

There are a lot of advantages with such strategies where if the company is concentrating on one product it is focusing on increasing the sales of that product, if the company can customize the products according to the Customer’s needs then the ability to sustain in the market would also be high.

The ï¬Ârst step to becoming aware of ourselves is to recognize our weaknesses, strengths, biases, attitudes, values, and perceptions. There are many ways to enhance our self-awareness. Some of these include analyzing our own experiences, looking at ourselves through the eyes of others, self-disclosure, acquiring diverse experiences, and increasing our emotional intelligence (Fiveoclock, 2012).

The self-analysis process should begin with reflection on and exploration of thoughts and feelings associated with affective events. By reflecting on these feelings and thoughts, individuals can obtain new perspectives relevant to their lives based on these learning experiences. From obtaining new knowledge and perspectives, individuals can become more effective by implementing new behavioral and cognitive changes in future situations (Col William, 2011).

 Thus, self-awareness is an essential skill for developing personally and professionally. If you have a high degree of self-awareness, you’ll be able to capitalize on your strengths and develop plans for improving or compensating for your limitations. Part of being self-aware is being able to monitor and change our behavior. By concentrating on self-improvement, we demonstrate to others our willingness to learn and grow through various external methods of learning like ICT and self - directed theories increasing the likelihood of being able to develop close relationships and success in a profession (Kathleen, 2012).

There are various levels of employees in an organization and they have their own responsibilities where the employees would have to handle.  In all these levels of the organization the employees would have their own objectives which they would like to achieve. When these employees try to work towards their own objectives which are aligned with the organizational objectives they would like to see a growth in their position. This would be possible if they get promoted to the higher levels in an organization (Development, n.d.).

In order to achieve this they should adapt methods where they can implement a procedure in which they can test the adaptability of the employees to a new position or a new role in which they would have a lot of responsibilities to handle and this process can be called as the Ready Now as we have discussed earlier. This helps the employees at the next level to be prepared for the leadership positions. By implementing these methods the organizations would be able to find the potential employees who have all the essential skills to be filled in for the position (T.J. Allen, 1977).

There are some factors which have to be considered before recruiting the cost which the organizations would incur with the recruitment and the cost which would also be included for the training cost of these employees. The external employees should be employed with the essential skills and they should also have some sources like the consultants and with their help the organizations can plan and strategize some recruitment events in which they can search for the skills which they require.

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