Guidelines for Submission: 4 pages, APA guidelines for your citations and reference list.

• Heinz Corporation- The parent companies of Heinz and Beech-Nut entered into a merger agreement, which was blocked by the Federal Trade Commission.

Your objective is to analyze the situation with regard to which profit-enhancing tools are being used, what type of demand the company is facing, what its cost structure is, and what constraints and opportunities the market environment poses. Ultimately, these are the questions:

• What led the company to this situation?
• What would you recommend the company do as the next step?

Prompt: Compose a preliminary problem statement in which you identify the company you have selected to research and describe the problem at hand. In this statement, you should:

• Identify and articulate the problem as presented in the case study, describing any relevant contextual factors that may influence it.
• Use your background knowledge in economics and your critical thinking skills to deduce possible root cause(s) of the problem
• Identify the appropriate economic model(s) that should drive the analysis of this problem. Is this a demand-side problem? Or is it a supply-side problem?

References:

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

• Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) This is the database compiled by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
• U.S. Census Bureau This site houses useful business and industry data programs.