Problem: Strategic Management
Keurig/Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR)
Final Exam Paper
1. Provide an executive summary to your paper that indicates your analysis of the major issues presented in the case concerning GMCR and the highlights of your Strategic Plan (see question #9).
2. What are the vision and mission of GMCR? According to Porter's model (Exhibit 5.1), what is Keurig's business-level strategy? And has this strategy yielded a sustainable competitive advantage? Consider "Focused Differentiation" and "Focused Cost Leadership" as separate options here, along with "Overall Differentiation" and "Overall Cost Leadership."
3. Evaluate the recent acquisitions made by GMCR. What are the primary objectives? Apply Exhibits 6.2, 6.3, and 6.8 in framing your response here. Overall, has GMCR's acquisition strategy been sound/successful?
4. Evaluate the strategic alliance/licensing agreements that GMCR has entered into (e.g. with Dunkin' Brands and Starbucks). What are the advantages and disadvantages?
5. Evaluate GMCR's organizational design/structure. Is their design/structure optimal, and is the evolution of that design/structure sensible? Apply exhibits 10.1 and 10.5 in framing your answer here.
6. Develop a Strategic Group Map (see Exhibit 2.7) for the coffee industry, using Breadth of Distribution as the horizontal axis and Price/Quality Perception as the vertical axis. Who does GMCR mostly compete with now? Should that change? If so, how?
7. Evaluate GMCR's (including its early history as "Keurig" prior to the GMCR acquisition) strategic innovation since its founding up to the time of the case. What radical and incremental innovations has the company produced (Exhibit 12.1)? Is GMCR on the right track in terms of innovation?
8. What stage is the single-serve brewing/coffee product and industry in at the time of the case (apply Exhibit 5.7 here)? What are the top 2 or 3 strategic implications?
9. Present your strategic plan for GMCR by delineating 3 specific strategic recommendations for GMCR to follow. Be as creative and specific (yet concise) as possible.