case sudy with specifc insturctions
General Mills Team Case
Case 3 is a team case. The case will build on previous work in the course so your report will include:
1) Analyzing the internal environment (Chapter 3)
2) Analyzing the external environment (Chapter 4) and a few more considerations from the later chapters.
3) More comprehensive examination of the financial situation of the company (Chapter 4)
4) Consideration of other strategy choices (Chapter 6), or competing internationally (Chapter 7) or adding a diversification strategy (Chapter 8).
With your knowledge of these later chapters, your strategic recommendation for General Mills can be more sophisticated than the basic five generic business strategies. Use the material in Chapters 6 -10 to develop strategic solutions that can involve global expansion, mergers and acquisitions, alliances, backward or forward integration.
For the financial analysis:
Present one or more ratios to represent each of the four areas of financial analysis:
Profitability
Liquidity
Leverage (what I call Risk)
Activity (what I call Efficiency)
Then, present a minimum ½ page discussion of the company’s financial situation, using ratios to evaluate the company’s profitability, liquidity, leverage and activity.
Of course, most of these ratios are meaningless by themselves; they only have meaning as a comparison. You must therefore compare the General Mills ratios to one of three choices:
Where the company is now versus where it has been over time (last two years), or
The industry averages for the ratios, or
A significant rival’s ratios
The ratios and financial information should be in the Appendix, so you have all the five pages of the report for your analysis and recommendation. The financial analysis should be a significant part of your internal analysis – What could be more important about a company’s strengths and weaknesses?
You are a consultant hired by the executive leadership of General Mills.
Based on your analysis, you recommend to General Mills’ leadership what they should do strategically? And support your strategic recommendation. Why is it the best solution to the significant problem you have identified? Your recommendation should have as foundation at least 1-2 internal factors and at least 1 -2 external factors. You can mix and match - what strengths should General Mills (GIS) use to take advantage of an opportunity; or what opportunity should GIS take to solve one of its weaknesses. What strengths could the company use to mitigate a threat; or what weaknesses must the company address so they do not fall victim to the treats facing the industry?
Yes - this is a SWOT analysis. And the true payoff of SWOT analysis is learning enough to develop a strong strategic approach to gaining competitive advantage.
Please see the files for instructions regarding Case Studies in this class. Remember: your report is based on where the company and the industry are now!
The attached article from the Wall Street Journal is a good start. The online article has links and related material; you all have access to the WSJ through the NSU library.
Use the same instructions as with previous cases - attached below.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/general-mills-posts-sales-growth-but-north-america-underperforms-1537273131
