MGT 599 SLP 3

[Name of the institute]

Introduction

Kraft , the holder of the world's favorite food and beverage brands, markets in five product sectors namely the beverages, snacks, cheese, grocery and convenient meals. It was started by James L. Kraft in 1903 with a horse drawn wagon delivering wholesale cheese he manufactured in Chicago, Illinois. Through the years the company has been built on a strong sense of innovation and quality.

In 1909, J.L. Kraft & Brothers is incorporated and extensive public relations began. Using innovative marketing, advertisements were placed on Chicago's elevated trains and on billboards en route to the city. Being one of the first in colored advertising, circulars were mailed to retail grocers and placed in the top national magazines of the time. In 1933, Mr. Kraft also sponsored a radio show “Kraft Musical Review”.

2001 was a year of firsts for the company. Kraft appointed its first women CEO, Betsy Holden to head up one of its two main units formed from Kraft Foods at that time; Kraft Foods North America and Kraft Foods International. At that time there were 5 women CEOs running Fortune 500 companies. Also in 2001, Kraft began trading on the NYSE making it the biggest IPO (Initial Public Offering) at that time only to be surpassed by Google who is presently has the largest IPO in history. At 8.68 billion, it weighs as the 2nd-largest IPO in the United States history behind Google. Kraft sold 280 million shares @ 31.00 each on the day of its initial public offering.

Discussion

Any company can easily be evaluated from the internal affairs of that company. It is true that the performance of the company can also be evaluated from external factors as well but the internal factors, or in other words, SWOT analysis is a much better method for the company's evaluation. SWOT analysis can be defined as an important method of strategic planning that is used by many organisations to analyze as well as evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (Hitt et al., 2012). In fact, strength and weaknesses are mostly related to any present situation of the business or any project. Whereas opportunities and threats are identified as external factors and used to assess or evaluate the external environment of the business (Hitt et al., 2012). In addition, opportunities and threats are usually related to the environmental changes that may affect the business or project. Structuring the SWOT for the company helps in making of the strategic decision that could help the organization in the long run (Henry, 2008).

Tangible Resources

Physical Resources

Physical resources for kraft foods are all those resources that are physical in nature and are touchable which includes land, building and machinery. The advantage of having physical resources is this that in times, these physical resources could be used as a method of generating cash that could help in overcoming any short term liability that the company has to face.

Financial Resources

A resource is a half , of any kind, giving something that ...