Marketing Plan For A Business Level Strategy - 1089 Words

As a rising star, The WhiteWave Foods Company has grown significantly in its short history. Today it is made up of four different groups of business, plus a joint venture in China (2013 Annual Review, 2014): Plant Based Foods (including the brands Silk ®, So Delicious ® and Alpro ® brands), Coffee Creamers Beverages (International Delight and Land O Lakes Half Half and Mini Moo’s), Premium Dairy (Horizon Organic), Organic Greens Produce (Earthbound Farm), and the joint venture with China Mengniu Dairy. WhiteWave has pursued a variety of strategies to support its unprecedented growth. Business-level Strategy Across its various business groups and within each of its brand, WhiteWave tends to follow a focused differentiation strategy to†¦show more content†¦With a low level of diversity, not venturing out of the larger food and beverage industry, WhiteWave could take advantage of operational relatedness, allowing it to share operations if it is opportune. In addition, it has competitive advantages throughout its value chain that it can transfer across the company. According to its website, it has core competencies in identifying trends, developing products with staying power, introducing new categories and developing line extensions, and scaling up quickly, both in manufacturing and marketing (WhiteWave Foods, 2015). Even in its short history as an independent firm, this claim has borne out: Earthbound Farms was acquired in 2013 and WhiteWave Foods was able to see a positive return the following year (Chen, 2014). Likewise, its investments in research and development in the United States and Europe have paid off, with the successful launches of Silk line extensions such as Almond Milk and refrigerated iced coffees (The Whitewave Foods Company, 2014). WhiteWave touts its strong portfolio of products, with its brands enjoying either #1 or #2 market share, all in high-growth markets (2013 Annual Review, 2014). It would most certainly rank as a star on the Boston Consulting Group portfolio analysis matrix. Merger Acquisition Strategy WhiteWave follows a horizontal acquisition strategy to increase market power at the corporate level, with the