Busines Plan for Charles Chocolates
Business Plan for Charles Chocolates
Charles Chocolates (CC) is a privately held premium chocolate producer based in Portland, Maine with a history dating back to 1885. The selling channel is primarily retail and wholesale. The mission of CC is to remain committed to high quality, increase company size by two or three times and improve band integrity while maintaining strong community ties with existing loyal stakeholders. CC’s current strategy involves selling high quality products, maintaining traditional old fashioned values and practices to appease repeat consumers, attracting more loyal customers, and providing good customer service. A new president has been hired to double or triple the size of CC, which is the objective. A plethora of issues regarding marketing, manufacturing, human resource, financial and strategic positioning all need to be considered in this for this venture to continue to grow, which encompasses manufacturing, retailing, wholesaling and Internet operations. For CC to transition into more growth one needs to assess who are the people? What is the opportunity? The context? And what deal of risk and reward is involved? As such the first critical issue CC does not have the right people for growth and transition the company into a mature and serious player in the premium chocolate market. The fact is Steve Parkland (President), Mary Bird (VP of marketing), and Sven Amundsen (VP of finance) are not suitable to grow the organization especially because their plans are not conducive to transition into growth and success. Additionally, they are not suitable to endorse a growth strategy that would mitigate the risk profile of the company such as losing market share, lack of contingency planning, not understanding the market and how to grow within it. The company should first terminate and fire Steve Parkland. While the CEO meets the requirements in the job ad, being VP of operations for a meat
Charles Chocolates (CC) is a privately held premium chocolate producer based in Portland, Maine with a history dating back to 1885. The selling channel is primarily retail and wholesale. The mission of CC is to remain committed to high quality, increase company size by two or three times and improve band integrity while maintaining strong community ties with existing loyal stakeholders. CC’s current strategy involves selling high quality products, maintaining traditional old fashioned values and practices to appease repeat consumers, attracting more loyal customers, and providing good customer service. A new president has been hired to double or triple the size of CC, which is the objective. A plethora of issues regarding marketing, manufacturing, human resource, financial and strategic positioning all need to be considered in this for this venture to continue to grow, which encompasses manufacturing, retailing, wholesaling and Internet operations. For CC to transition into more growth one needs to assess who are the people? What is the opportunity? The context? And what deal of risk and reward is involved? As such the first critical issue CC does not have the right people for growth and transition the company into a mature and serious player in the premium chocolate market. The fact is Steve Parkland (President), Mary Bird (VP of marketing), and Sven Amundsen (VP of finance) are not suitable to grow the organization especially because their plans are not conducive to transition into growth and success. Additionally, they are not suitable to endorse a growth strategy that would mitigate the risk profile of the company such as losing market share, lack of contingency planning, not understanding the market and how to grow within it. The company should first terminate and fire Steve Parkland. While the CEO meets the requirements in the job ad, being VP of operations for a meat