You have been hired by Sara Lee as a consultant to analyze the current strategic position of the operation. Your contract stipulates that you must provide appropriate recommendations that pertain to the marketplace growth, operations, and decisive strategy against imports. Your firm has been empowered to furnish critical information and data to the corporate decision process.

The following questions need to be addressed as a result of your study:

1.What is Sara Lee's corporate strategy? How has its retrenchment strategy changed the nature of its business lineup?

2.What is your assessment of the long-term attractiveness of the industries represented in Sara Lee Corp.'s business portfolio?

3.What is your assessment of the competitive strength of Sara Lee Corp.'s different business units?

4.What does a 9-cell industry attractiveness/business strength matrix displaying Sara Lee's business units look like?

5.Does Sara Lee's portfolio exhibit good strategic fit? What value-chain match-ups do you see? What opportunities for skills transfer, cost sharing, or brand sharing do you see?

6.What is your assessment of Sara Lee's financial and operating performance in fiscal years 2008-2010, the period following the divestitures that were the core of Sara Lee's retrenchment strategy?

7.What is your overall evaluation of Sara Lee's retrenchment plan? What evidence and/or reasons support a conclusion that Sara Lee's shareholders have or have not benefitted from the company's retrenchment strategy?

8.What actions do you recommend that Sara Lee management take to improve the company's performance and boost shareholder value? Your recommended actions must be supported with convincing, analysis-based arguments.