An Analysis On

United Cereal: Lora Brills Eurabrand Challeenge

Submitted to: Mr. Gaurav Thapar 12/34)

Submitted by: Vishal Jagetia (CBS/2010-

Situation Analysis
This case study is focusing on European organization of a giant multinational breakfast food company, describes a launch decision for a new cereal product. As the case evolves, the decision has major strategic and organizational implications for Lora Brill, European VP. Lora Brill has been saddled with the decision of whether to make some big changes to a long-term successful company in order to push the growth potential of the company to a whole new level. She has been presented much of the information she needs to make a decision of this magnitude, but with mixed results in past trials of a similar nature, Lora is not sure what to do.

SWOT Analysis
One of the best ways to organize this data into an easy-to-analyze format is to make a SWOT chart. This chart will list given information in four categories: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

1. Strengths:

The company has been survived 100 years in business and even built themselves to be a global competitor in a multi-billion dollar industry. The company is built on three core values that have always driven by the company. The UC Way slogan represents the companies drive to Listen to the customer, Spot the trend, make the market, and Honouring the past while embracing the future.

UC would be their ability to adapt and be risk takers in the past. The company has made an effort to be a leading competitor around the curve of innovation and international integration. As a company originally rooted in Americas heartland, they have made some big jumps to become the 2nd leading seller of breakfast products in all of Europe. UCs willingness to put people with fresh ideas in leadership positions. Not every decision made by a young aggressive leader is a good one, but knowing they are actively pursuing opportunities that others may not have taken advantage of can be a huge benefit.

2. Weaknesses:

As stated previously, it can be a huge benefit to a company to have people in charge who are willing to push the envelope. However, this can, at times, become a problem if not handled correctly.

UC would be the way their chain of command is set up. The case tells us that vertical communication in the company is great and upper level managers and well informed of all on-goings in every division of the company.

Another weakness for UC is their lack of agreement on a managerial level. It seems everyone has a differing opinion on which direction the company should be moving in. Some people believe that a more organized central leadership should take over and push for a continent-wide Euro brand, while other protest that each individual European country should be treated as its own entity and power should be left with
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the country manager, who is already educated on some the best ways to profit from breakfast products in his/her respective country. Having such heated debate between the internal forces of a company can only lead to the self-destruction of the company. 3. Opportunities:

Lora Brill is on the verge of making a decision that will change the face of the whole company. She is considering the possibility of transforming the individual sectors of UC into one mass Euro brand. Another opportunity that moving to a Euro brand would present is the ability to reorganize the structure of the of the managers. Making a large change like this would obviously affect the job of country managers, who would likely see a large cut back in their job responsibilities. Another one of the big opportunities that United Cereal is facing is the opportunity to keep pace with their leading competitor, Kellogg. Kellogg has already launched a cereal with fruit in it in order to meet growing demand for healthy food. They basically run the market as of right now for this specific niche. If United Cereal wants to secure a piece of the market share pie and enjoy some benefits of being a second-mover then they must act quickly. Kellogg already owns a larger share of the overall cereal market so UC is playing catch up. By making a move like this and implementing a Euro brand they would provide themselves a chance to really fight back against Kellogg.

4. Threats:

United Cereal is faced with lots of competition, with the increasing competitive cereal market in Europe. Competitors include Kellogg's and Cereal Partners. Competitors are also ahead of United Cereal in coordinating European strategy which is a huge risk for UC The high costs related to the developing and launching of a new product for a single countries market, the release of new products has slowed. Country managers now want product extensions rather than new product. The launch of Healthy Berry Crunch in France will cost an enormous amount of money which is above the approval of the Division VP. Other country subsidiaries may not be able to launch the Healthy Berry Crunch brand because they are still in the mode of recovery from the recession or they might not be able to get shelf space in stores. If the strategy to create Euro brand Teams is implemented, the country managers might see this as a challenge to their local authority levels. The team members might also not function properly together.

Action/Implementation Plan:

Convince Country managers that their input will be considered in the Euro brand teams and that this not a challenge to their authority. This is especially important because the failure of the previous standardized European product launches appeared to be a result of the lack of support provided by the CMs.
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Launch the Healthy Berry Crunch product in France as a test market for the Euro brand approach as well as to compete with Cheerios Berry Burst in this country. If the product and approach appears to be successful, launch the Healthy Berry Crunch in other European markets with the Euro brand approach.