Leadership And Change

Leadership And Change

Introduction

Hershey Food Corporation which is operating in the US and few selected markets in the world is looking for opportunities to reengineer its Strategic Operational Planning to be adopted in the ongoing business competitions of the global marketing concept of today. The Hershey till 1999 has been performing very well till its competitors introduced them selves more vigorously into the international market and since then the Hershey has shown a down ward trend in its business. (Economist, 2002) Today Hershey faces a number of questions to be answered. These include:

How to improve the business in the current domestic business?

Will it be possible for the Hershey to survive as the domestic product of candy? And

Strategically what planning is needed to be adopted for its future operations and what decisions are needed to make the business effective in its future operations? (Candy Industry, 2001)

Competitive strategy

Within the past few years, Frito-Lay has engaged in a competitive strategy by partnering with different companies to increase promotion of salty snacks during Halloween (typically a sweet snack holiday). Initially, Frito-Lay's four-year partnership with Hershey encouraged consumers to purchase both candy and salty snacks (by offering 50 percent off Cheetos with a Hershey purchase). This agreement increased Frito-Lay's October salty snacks growth rate by 15 percent over the four-year period. However, Frito-Lay turned its back on Hershey in 1996, by partnering with Goosebumps books to promote chips, instead of candy, for Halloween (Fortune, 1996), in a striking example of the competitive approach. (Barrett, 2002) A second example of the competitive approach involving Electronic Data Systems is discussed later in the article as it includes aspects of the command strategy as well.

Analysis

General Environments

The political, economical, technical legal and social components in USA are suitable to continue the production operations by Hershey. (Food Institute Report, 2002)The economic indicators, profits shown, productivity, inflation rates in the Market where operations are ongoing, balance of payments and debts all are favorable for the Hershey's business. The technical and modern equipment with which production is undertaken is advantageous to Hershey.

Environmental Analysis (Internal)

In order to assess the organizational environment of Hershey it is found that the network of the organization is extremely well organized and the structure of the organization has to be re organized only for seeing its suitability for both domestic and international operations. (Barrett, 2002) The marketing is based on superior quality, mass ditribution, best possible consumer ...