Inghams Enterprises Limited: Business Operations, Revenue, And Profits Essay.

This assessment focuses on your understanding and appreciation of Strategic Management Inputs.You are required to identify a corporation in the Agribusiness food related sector of Australia. This report should include the following items:
? Identify an Agribusiness operating in Australia.
? Identify its business units and products and services lines.
? Identify its business revenue units and discuss the importance of the largest of these revenue units.
? Analyse the Agribusiness’ external environment.

? Discuss its political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal operating environment.
? Analyse the Agribusiness’ internal organisation.
? Discuss its resources, capabilities, core competencies and competitive advantages.
? Make recommendations for the future strategic direction of the selected Agribusiness. 
? Write the report in English with structured sentences that conform to academic writing guidelines.
? Follow a report structure with an executive summary, table of contents and conclusion.
? Use Harvard referencing style in text and in the list of references. A minimum of eight (8) journal articles and textbook references are required to show basic research.  

Profile of Inghams Enterprise

The main motive of this paper is to discuss about the business activities and operations of Inghams enterprises limited that provides chicken products to the customers. The firm operates and manages business operations as a poultry producer. Here is the brief discussion about the revenue, profitability and business units of Ingham’s enterprise. A brief information about external environment and internal organization have been explained in the task.

The external and internal analysis is done by the corporation to evaluate and analyze the challenges and issues of the market. Along with this, the paper also provides brief information about resources, capabilities, and core competencies of Inghams enterprise limited. The report outlines that how the company takes competitive benefits by providing delicious products to the customers.

Profile of Inghams enterprise

Inghams enterprise is generally known as Inghams that is incorporated in 1918 in Australia. It is Australian based corporation owned by TPG Capital and producer of fodder and poultry. It is one of the biggest producers of turkey and chicken products in Australia. The firm has employed approx 8,000 people in more than 100 locations in New Zealand and Australia (Inghams, 2018). The organization is constantly improving and enhancing customer service and quality of the products. Inghams is a biggest stockfeed producer who provides wide range of excellent quality stockfeed products to the customers. Ingham is a poultry producer supplies to retail, retail and foodservice customers.

It processes 4 million birds every week. The company entered into supply arrangements with the major retail restaurants in the 1960s. It enhanced it’s processing capabilities to cater changing preference of the consumers towards enhanced poultry products. It supplies a wide range of high-quality stock feed to the poultry, dairy,and industries. Ingham’s is one of the largest poultry providers in Australia.

The company supplies an inclusive range of fresh and frozen chicken and turkey products to food service outlets. It also makes available products like healthy chicken which have been approved by the schools. The company provides free range chicken breast products. The business model of Ingham’s is vertically united and includes 345 facilities and farms across Australia and New Zealand. Ingham’s has unmatched service line of processing and distribution facilities across the country.

Ingham’s is a foreign-owned public company originating revenue from production and sale of chicken and turkey products. The company is listed on the ASX. The operations of Ingham includes ten feedmills, breeder, broiler farms, hatcheries, seven primary processing plants, seven additional processing plants and nine supply centres. The product range of the company includes:

• Chicken: Fresh whole chicken, fresh chicken breast bone, boneless chicken, chicken breast tenders and so on.
• Turkey: Fresh turkey mince, fresh turkey wings, drumsticks and so on.

Product Range of Inghams Enterprise

The company also produces stockfeed which is used internally and sells to the poultry and pig industries. Ingham’s is having business units in Australia and New York. Ingham’s is a leading poultry producer in New Zealand which reported 2.5% gain the earnings and trading also improved in 2017 and the trend has continued in 2018. Ingham is having a leading market position in Australia and is committed to the customer satisfaction (Nzherald.co.nz, 2017). The business units of the company focus on the innovation and commitment to the food standards and safety, employee’s health, and environment sustainability along with family welfare (Paulraj, 2011).

External analysis

The growth of Ingham’s depending on the external environment in the last 40 years. The five force model is given below:

Bargaining power of suppliers: The service provided by the suppliers is quite satisfactory. Ingham’s do not import chicken from any country. It is beneficial for the company as it gets a discount from the domestic suppliers. The factors includes such as delivery on time, superior quality of chicken helpthe company to win the trust of the customers (Zivanovic& Luck, 2016).

Competitor: There are various competitors for the company in the Australian market. The competitors are Samex Australian meat company, Australian Meat Company, JBS Australia Pty Limited and more. The company also faces competition from the companies outside Australia. The companies have adopted the same product range and quality. In such a scenario, it has become difficult to compete.

The threat of new entrants: A good investment is required to take entry into the market. But there are some companies like Ingham’s which are already established. In such a scenario, the threat of new entrants is low in the Australia market. The switching cost is also low in the market (E. Dobbs, 2014).

The threat of substitute products: It is not obligatory that customers will always prefer chicken as a main source of food. The threat of substitute products is high for the company as people are conscious about their health (Financial Review, 2017). So, they can like to consume vegetarian food and can be selective for the non-veg.

Bargaining power of customers: The customers are well educated and like to attain all the required information before getting delivery. The customers can communicate through helpline and websites. The company prefers fixed pricing method. So, the bargaining power of the customers is low.

Pestel analysis

Political factors: The political factors play important role in determining the factors which can impact the long-term profitability of Ingham’s. There is political stability in Australia and the company is supported by the local government. There are antitrust laws related to food (Bailey &Inderberg, 2017).

External Analysis of Inghams Enterprise

Economic factors: The economy of Australia has experiencing uninterrupted economic growth. Australia supports exports of agricultural products (Chuvieco, et. al. 2014). Ingham’s export to New York and is provided support to expand operations in more parts of the country. The inflation rate in the country was 1.9% in 2017 whereas the wage rate grew by 2.1%.

Social factors: Australia has a collection of diverse people living in the younger society relatively. The younger generation is more health conscious and prefers to consume products of Ingham’s. The company also makes available meals for every section of the society such as children, youth and older. People are also highly educated and understand the value of healthy food as a source of nutrition and protein.

Technological factors: The technology used by the Ingham’s helps to reduce costs and improve quality. The company continuously makes efforts for the innovation. It benefits the organization as well as employees. Australia also makes efforts for the technological advancements of the companies like Ingham’s. The technology used by the company in preserving and packaging of chicken.

Environmental factors: Australia is one of the most biologically diverse countries. The country has animals in large number which increases the scope of business for Ingham’s. There are suitable conditions for the animals. The norms and the environmental standards of Australia impact the profitability of Ingham’s (Poultry World, 2017).

Legal factors: The legal framework is capable enough to protect the intellectual rights of the company. Ingham’s is affected by the laws like the anti-trust law in food, discrimination law, employment law and consumer protection. The legal changes such as new systems and procedures affect the cost of the company.

Internal analysis of Inghams enterprise

An internal analysis is an examination of company’s competency, competitive viability and cost position in the global market (Lin and Wu, 2014). Internal environmental analysis provides effective and unique information about the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. SWOT analysis is done by Inghams enterprise to overcome the competitors in the international market. The SWOT analysis for Inghams enterprise has been discussed below.

Resources, capabilities, core competencies and competitive benefits

Resources

Resources that help the company in doing their business effectively and efficiently are the best breed of chicken those are available in market, they have a big farm where they keeps the chicken and rise their own chicken, eggs and turkey products (Cameron and Quinn, 2011). They have the most sophisticated machinery and the largest poultry processing plant of the country (Pritchard and Tonts, 2011).    

PESTEL Analysis of Inghams Enterprise

Capabilities

The fonder Walter Ingham had purchased a 42 acres area in 1918 and start a business with six hens, and one cockerel (Inghams, 2018). In 2001, Inghams established a poultry processing plant ‘Murarrie’ that was a largest plant in the country (Barreto, 2010). In present, the business is expanded to various part of world. The production and supply chain technologies provide employment to approx. 1200 workers (Inghams, 2018). The company employed around 9000 people in more than 100 locations in New Zealand and Australia (Weerawardena and Mavondo, 2011).  

Core competencies

The core competencies of the Ingham enterprises is there products it includes chicken breast, chicken mince, chicken thighs, chicken cuts all are available fresh. The also provide ready to cook products which include chicken kebabs, schnitzels, roosted chicken, chicken meatballs, chicken burger patties (Den Hertog, Van der Aa and De Jong, 2010). They also have freezer section products for super markets that include roasting chicken and chicken kiev.  There are turkey products also available such as small roasts, wings, drumsticks, schnitzel, sausages and turkey mince. Ready to eat line also available roasted and smoked and in frozen there is whole turkey, kiev and buffe. The products of company are exported to Middle East, UK, Asia and South Africa (Owen Raddats and Burton, 2014).

Competitive advantages

With the poultry products, the company also deals in non-poultry products. Inghams enterprises are consider to be the largest Australian stock feed manufactures, the product line include poultry, pigs and horses (Rothaermel, 2015). They also provide some unique products range for breeding, racing and performance horses industries. These product ranges are the factors that are providing competitive advantage to the company (Porter, 2011).      

Recommendations

Some of the suggestions for the future strategic direction of Inghams enterprise limited has been discussed below.

• The company should make various agreements with partners to capture entire market and compete with rivalries in the international market.
• Although, the company is a global leader in poultry genetics but the company must focus on the various commercial products such as Indian river,Arber Acres Plus and Ross.
• Inghams enterprise should focus on the various international strategies to expand its milling, farming and processing capacity in Western Australia.
• The organization should keep an eye on the plans, policies and strategies of the competitors to uplift profitability and revenue.
• Product differentiation strategy shall be used by the company to differentiate its products from the competitors.
• Furthermore, Inghams enterprise must focus on the leadership strategy and management to attract the candidates and to eliminate resistance to change within the organization.
• Effective training and development coaching shall be provided by the firm to the workers to motivate and encourage them towards the attainment of long term goals and objectives.

Conclusion

On the above mentioned limelight event, it is concluded that Inghams enterprise limited is one of the biggest players in agribusiness food sector in Australia. In today’s era, the company provides chicken and turkey products to the customers across the world. The above analysis shows that how the company analyze and evaluate the external environment to identify risks and challenges of the market. Pestle and SWOT analysis are done by the company to gain competitive benefits in the global market. The analysis shows that resources, core capabilities and core values play a vital role to meet the long term requirements and wants of the business. At the end, some recommendations have been given for future growth and progress of the firm.

References

Bailey, I. and Inderberg, T.H.J., 2017. Australia: domestic politics, diffusion and emissions trading design as a technical and political project. In The Evolution of Carbon Markets (pp. 136-156).Routledge.

Barreto, I., 2010. Dynamic capabilities: A review of past research and an agenda for the future. Journal of management, 36(1), pp.256-280.

Cameron, K.S. and Quinn, R.E., 2011. Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: Based on the competing values framework. John Wiley & Sons.

Chuvieco, E., Martínez, S., Román, M.V., Hantson, S. and Pettinari, M.L., 2014. Integration of ecological and socio?economic factors to assess global vulnerability to wildfire. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 23(2), pp.245-258.

Den Hertog, P., Van der Aa, W. and De Jong, M.W., 2010. Capabilities for managing service innovation: towards a conceptual framework. Journal of service Management, 21(4), pp.490-514.

2014. Dobbs, M., 2014. Guidelines for applying Porter's five forces framework: a set of industry analysis templates. Competitiveness Review, 24(1), pp.32-45.

Fernfortuniversity.2018. Inghams group limited SWOT analysis/Matrix

Financial Review, 2017. Feathers fly at chicken processor Ingham’s.

Helms, M.M. and Nixon, J., 2010. Exploring SWOT analysis–where are we now? A review of academic research from the last decade. Journal of strategy and management, 3(3), pp.215-251.

Inghams.2018. Our history 

Lin, Y. and Wu, L.Y., 2014. Exploring the role of dynamic capabilities in firm performance under the resource-based view framework. Journal of business research, 67(3), pp.407-413.

Nzherald.co.nz, 2017.Ingham’s posts 2.5 per cent gain in FY earnings in NZ.

Owen Raddats, C. and Burton, J., 2014. Creating multi-vendor solutions: the resources and capabilities required. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 29(2), pp.132-142.

Paulraj, A., 2011. Understanding the relationships between internal resources and capabilities, sustainable supply management and organizational sustainability. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 47(1), pp.19-37.

Porter, M.E., 2011. Competitive advantage of nations: creating and sustaining superior performance (Vol. 2). Simon and Schuster.

Poultry World, 2017.Inghams settles in as a publicly listed company.

Pritchard, B. and Tonts, M., 2011. Market efficiency, agriculture and prosperity in rural Australia. Globalisation, agriculture and development: Perspectives from the Asia-Pacific. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd: UK, pp.29-53.

Rothaermel, F.T., 2015. Strategic management. McGraw-Hill Education.

Weerawardena, J. and Mavondo, F.T., 2011. Capabilities, innovation and competitive advantage. Industrial Marketing Management, 40(8), pp.1220-1223.

Zivanovic, A.J. and Luck, G.W., 2016. Social and environmental factors drive variation in plant and bird communities across urban greenspace in Sydney, Australia. Journal of environmental management, 169, pp.210-222.