CASE STUDY: General Mills, Inc.,

STRATEGIC "OPTIONS" ASSESSMENT

Be sure you support your conclusions with validated references.
The pattern begins with Chapter 8:
• Picking new industries to enter.
• Leveraging cross-business value chain relationships.
• Synergy between business units.
• Asking when it makes sense to diversify.
• Risks and returns of diversifying and impact on shareholder value.
• Industry attractiveness measures.
• GE's 9-cell attractiveness-competitive strength matrix: How does it work? How is it effective?

Readings
Use your textbook, Read the following:
Thompson, A. A., Peteraf, M. A., Gamble, J. E., & Strickland III, A. J. (2015). Crafting & Executing Strategy. "The Quest for Competitive Advantage". New York, New York, USA: McGraw-Hill Education.
o Chapter 8, "Corporate Strategy: Diversification and the Multibusiness Company."
Bremmer's 2014 article, "The New Rules of Globalization," in Harvard Business Review, volume 92, issue 1/2, pages 103-107.
Kaplan, Norton, and Rugelsjoen's 2010 article, "Managing Alliances with the Balanced Scorecard," in Harvard Business Review, volume 88, issue 1/2, pages 114-120.

TO SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETE THIS DISCUSSION UNIT, YOU WILL BE EXPECTED TO:

Preparation

You may use the same organization you used for the first discussion in this unit.

Discussion

Using your selected MNC, evaluate how the organization manages these approaches:
• Acquisitions.
• Alliances.
• Joint Ventures.
• Partnerships.

Which approach has had the greatest success and/or failure as measured in an alliance scorecard (see Kaplan, Norton, and Rugelsjoen's 2010 article)?

Diversification and synergy include strategic alliances:
o Joint ventures, franchising, and private labeling.
• What markets they want to go into?
• What was the scope for implement that business in that area, or country?
• How broad is the scope they want to go into it?
• What's the timing of doing it?
• How quickly could they get there and establish?
• What kind of partners, that's part of your channels?
• How big will I be?
• What's the timing of being able to enter in?
• Can they service those markets if the go into them?
• What does that look like?
o How synergy between organizations can increase growth by allowing all parties to realize growth goals while sharing resources and profits.
o Benefits from partnerships include collaborative advertising, cross manufacturing, lease service agreements, and technology transfer.
Look closely at the research presented in the Journal of Strategy article:
o What stands out?
o Keys to success and failure?
o Risks and returns involved?

One tool to make alliances work effectively is the balanced scorecard (BSC) for managing alliances. We will use the concept of the BSC. This is a useful tool to manage risk and return in challenging strategy development of growth strategy through alliances.

Your discussion post should be a minimum of 1000 words and incorporate at least one scholarly reference along with citations from one of the required readings.

Sources: Must have three (3)Scholastics Source (last 3 years) out of:

• Business Journals Review, Wall Street Journal, Market Line, Hoovers, 10 K, Annual Reports, 7 A 1, 10 A 1

FORMAT:

• Introduction

• Definition and subject presentation

• BODY

o Perspectives

o Evaluate

• Conclusion Be sure you support your conclusions with validated references.

• References

Your post to this discussion should be a minimum of 1000 words in length and incorporate at least one scholarly reference along with citations from one of the required readings. You may also include additional research you have done. Be sure to list your references in proper APA (Six Edition) format at the end of your post.

Use Tables and graphics BUT explain in a text the dynamics. Gives proper credits for graphics and tables.

REMINDER: Discussions activities are considered scholarly writing; do not use first-person pronouns.