Question

Financial Analysis (Hershey company)

Strategy

This assignment will teach you about how to conduct research, write a professional report to communicate your findings, and incorporating APA style in your paper.  

Instructions

1. Select the same company you used for your week two (2) individual assignment.
2. Write a paper no more than 1000 words in which you discuss what strategies the selected company should pursue.
3. Go to the company’s website and click on Newsroom.
4. Read through the most recent 10 press releases.
5. Determine two strategies the company is actually pursuing.
6. Give at least two (2) pros and at least two (2) cons of those two new strategies the company is pursuing.
7. What strategy or strategies would you recommend for your chosen company? Explain the rationale for proposing the selected strategy or strategies.
8. Present an outline as to how to achieve the strategy/strategies. For example, you recommend any of the strategies below, then outline the steps the company needs to take in order to achieve it.
   • Strategies: Cooperation among competitors, joint venture/partnering, merger/acquisition, private equity acquisitions, first mover advantage, outsourcing, etc.
9. Would you recommend that the company consider a combination of multiple strategies? Why? Below are strategies that you could propose to management.

Backward integration	Related diversification
Forward integration	Unrelated diversification
Horizontal integration	Retrenchment
Product development	Divestiture
Market development	Liquidation
Product penetration

Answer 1

As per HomeworkLib guidelines i answered last 5,6,7,8,9. questions.

5. Determine two strategies the company is actually pursuing

Answer: Following are the two strategies the Macy's company is pursuing:

• Backstage strategy: In this strategy the company is operating a traditional market where they offer discount and created a environment of treasure hunt which will attract more customers and bring up their sales.
• Stores pickup: This strategy helps you to purchase order online and delivered to you without paying extra charges for shipping as the product brought online will be made available to you in the Macy's store with 15% to 20% discount.

6.

Give at least two (2) pros and at least two (2) cons of those two new strategies the company is pursuing

Answer: Pros and Cons of the two new strategies the company is pursing are:

• Backstage:
  • Pros:
  1. discount offer will make the customer attracted towards this strategy and will eventually increase sales,
  2. customers can feel, touch the products and be specific about their choice n person, etc
  • Cons:
    1. as most of the product are available online they don't feel need to visit the store personally,
    2. it is not possible to provide wider choices as compare to online retail store in a traditional stores, etc

• Store Pick-up:
  • Pros:
    1. do not have to pay high charges for shipping,
    2. can take the products actually from the store without worrying about delivery timing, etc
  • Cons:
    1. trip to stores location is bit inconvenient,
    2. it will lead to increased expense for the company for shipping chargers, etc

7. What strategy or strategies would you recommend for your chosen company? Explain the rationale for proposing the selected strategy or strategies

Answer: Following are the strategies that would help the company in increasing their sales and satisfying customers:

• Accessible: making the store available for every device so that customer can have easy access through every devices.
• Quality photograph: for an online store it is important to maintain the quality of product as customer can view the product only through photograph.
• Customer-Friendly app: the app create must be customer friendly without any complicating features so that customer can access the app freely.
• Store availability: the stores must be available at the location where the target customer are.
• Cooperation among competitors: the company must maintain cooperation with the competitors as it will create synergy for market expansion.
• Customer relationship: efforts must be made to make the product available as per customer need and preference for making stronger customer relationship.

8. Present an outline as to how to achieve the strategy/strategies. For example, you recommend any of the strategies below, then outline the steps the company needs to take in order to achieve it

Answer: Following are the steps are the achieve the strategies:

• Cooperation with competitors:
  • strategies put forth by the company or by competitor must be accepted and cooperated.
  • approaching the competitors with the ideas for new innovation,
  • asking their cooperation for market innovation,
  • coming up with merger/acquisition plan to implement any innovation, etc
• Store availability:
  • examine the location of target customer,
  • coming up with plan for setting up the location in particular area,
  • once set making sure that the demanded products are available,
  • maintaining inventory as per demand of customers,etc
• Improving customer relationship:
  • evaluating latest trends and demand of customers,
  • product as per evaluation must be made available,
  • satisfying customer by making necessary changes, etc.

9. Would you recommend that the company consider a combination of multiple strategies? Why?

Answer: Yes, i would like to recommend a combination of multiple strategy which are

• Forward or Backward integration: in this integration the company will directly aqcuire the products its own owners without without a distributor is known as backward integration whereas the forward integration is selling products directly to the customers.

These strategy will help the company to reduce cost and also to avoid the issues of unavailability of the distributors and serving the customers with utmost care and quality.

• Market development strategy: The company should adopt the market development strategy as it would help the company target the non-buying customers and increase the sales. It makes the company explore the market by segmenting such market and analyzing their needs. Implementing available alternatives to target such customers and make them loyal.

• Product penetration: It will help the company in accessing the product/services that are worth selling by knowing the sales rate and demand. Elimination of such products is the best way to overcome loss from these products allowing the company to introduce new products.

• Retrenchment: The company so closely evaluate the working the company and make the retrenchment decision in case where there is no scope for improvement or leading to unnecessary use of resource of the company.