EZ-Pleeze Food Company: Strategic Decision-Making Case Study Analysis

This case study examines EZ-Pleeze Food Company, a US-based producer of corn and potato products, focusing on its organizational culture, strategic decision-making processes, and strategic planning. The analysis covers the company's mission and vision statements, the structure of its strategi...Read More

CASE STUDY

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Company description.................................................................................................................3
A. Description of the organizational culture..........................................................................3
The structure of strategic decision-making................................................................................4
B. Description of the strategic team structure.......................................................................4
C. External and Internal influence..........................................................................................4
Present strategic plan..................................................................................................................5
D. Benefits and drawbacks.....................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
Reference list..............................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Proper strategic planning and organizational culture help a firm to gain a competitive
advantage. Improper planning and lack of resources create barriers in the planning process.
This impacts in future growth of the organization. EZ-pleeze is a well-established firm whose
necessary components for strategic planning are discussed in this essay.
Company description
A. Description of the organizational culture
EZ-Pleeze has successfully developed a good organizational culture that supports
innovation and creativity. The leaders of this company believe that employees are valuable
for this company. Due to this reason, this organization provides opportunities of development
and growth to employees through training, employee credit unions and promotions. They
look after wellbeing and safety of their employees. Employees get motivation from the
leaders about respecting others and working collaboratively. As per the case study, it has
been found that organizational culture of this company provides values to the needs of
customers through relying on innovation and creativity.
1. Appropriateness of mission statement
The mission statement of this company is postulating that they want to deliver the best
quality products and services to customers. This organization believes that they need to invest
in ensuring wellbeing and safety of their employees. Additionally, EZ-pleeze is dedicated to
being creative and innovative for developing consistent profitability for the benefit of its
shareholders. As mentioned by West (3), the mission statement must represent the values of
the company along with its business intention. This mission statement is appropriate as it is
displaying that EZ-pleeze is paying value to the needs of all of its stakeholders.
2. Appropriateness of vision statement

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EZ-pleeze has the vision to achieve a position among the top three potato and corn
producers in the US and across the world. At present, this company is holding the fifth
position as the largest potato and corn producer in the United State. According to Feringa
(268), the vision statement of a company postulates about the long-term goal of the business.
Hence, it can be stated that the EZ-pleeze ‘s vision is appropriate as it is mentioning the long
term goal of this company to enter into the top three potatoes and corn producers in the US
and throughout the world. This vision statement is mentioning two desires of EZ-pleeze
including becoming the third-largest producer of potato and corn and extending their business
globally.
The structure of strategic decision-making
B. Description of the strategic team structure
The decision-making structure of EZ-pleeze has a strategic team, which comprises
divisional heads those work under the CEO of the firm. As opined by Garner (16), this kind
of decision-making structure can have specific mandates. Hence, the decisions made will be
innovative and specific to that department. Different business operations of this organization
are taken care of by the divisional managers. Essential decisions about marketing, production
and research and development are taken by the divisional managers and reports to the CEO.
According to the organizational structure, the CEO then reports the decisions to the board of
directors and essential shareholders. The board of directors and leaders plays the role of
audience in the strategic team. Leaders can provide essential guidance and inputs to the
decision-makers. For example, Karen Haley, the chief financial officer conducts audits with
his team and provides financial help to the strategic team, which facilitates decision making.
As said by Stancu et al. (80), advice from leaders helps to increase the strength of decisions
and mitigate gaps in the decisions. Research and development division helps employees to
make creative and innovative decisions. Director of R&D Mary Miller leads the team in

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making innovative decisions. Moreover, she reports to chief of operations MR Brian Jansen
about decisions taken by the team. In addition, strategic marketing decisions are taken by the
marketing team, which is guided by the director of marketing, Mr. John Kerrington. This can
help the company to gain success in the future and become the leader of the industry in
relation to technology. They follow hierarchical organizational structure, which motivates
employees to improve their skills and make proper decisions to gain promotion.
C. External and Internal influence
1. Internal impacts on strategic decision-making
For taking effective decisions, and plans EZ-pleeze has to depend upon different
influential factors. Different internal factors impact the strategic decision making of this
company. The research and development team is one of them that enables this organization to
implement innovative and modern technologies for conducting operations. As opined by
Calabrese et al. (160), innovative technologies help to increase competitiveness of a
company. Different creative ideas can be generated inside the company and information
about current and future trends in the market can be gathered. On the other hand, financial
capability is another internal influence that facilitates the implementation of strategies taken.
2. External impacts on strategic decision-making
Market trends are the major external influences that impact on strategic decision-
making processes. This includes the needs of customers and their preferences. Moreover,
government regulations on the food industry are another essential external factor. EZ-pleeze
needs to follow the guidelines properly during the process of decision making that can help
them to avoid any complications. Industrial trends and decisions of competitors also impact
on the strategies of this company. A firm needs to follow industry trends and keep a close
watch on competitors' decisions for strategic planning (Kubota et al. 355).
Present strategic plan

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D. Benefits and drawbacks
1. Benefits
This company has realized that consumers of this modern era prefer to have healthy
and tasty food products. Due to this reason, they have a strategy of investing in advanced
technologies that can be used to produce healthy and tasty potato and corn products. This is
the first benefit of the present strategic plan of EZ-pleeze. As mentioned by De Winne et al.
(3050), considering advanced technologies for food production can help organizations to
survive in this competitive marketplace. On the other hand, the second advantage of the
current strategy is that EZ-pleeze has decided to sell its products on the food market instead
of selling in supermarkets. Most of its rivals sell their products in supermarkets and EZ-
pleeze is facing difficulties to have shelf space for many years. This problem can be solved
by this strategy and EZ-pleeze may be able to attract more customers from the food market.
2. Drawbacks
The current strategic plan of EZ-pleeze has drawbacks as well and these areas need to
be reviewed before developing the new strategic plan. This company has tried to reduce its
operational cost by laying off its 10% of employees, which is disadvantageous for this
company. According to Garner (16), terminating or suspending mass employees make rivals
understand the critical condition of organizations. This decision has hampered their market
reputation and they may face difficulties in hiring a talented workforce in the future. The
strategy of selling products at a lower cost is another drawback of the present strategic plan of
EZ-pleeze. Demand for their products is increasing and this is the high time for them to
produce value-oriented products to increase the profit margin.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that it is essential for EZ-pleeze to
mitigate gaps in making proper strategic decisions. Its decision regarding the production of

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value-based products is beneficial for providing a long-term advantage to the company.
Moreover, essential resources like human resources and finance need to be used through
proper planning.

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Reference list
Calabrese, Armando, et al. "Integrating sustainability into strategic decision-making: A fuzzy
AHP method for the selection of relevant sustainability issues." Technological
Forecasting and Social Change 139 (2019): 155-168.
De Winne, Sophie, et al. "The impact of employee turnover and turnover volatility on labor
productivity: a flexible non-linear approach." The International Journal of Human
Resource Management 30.21 (2019): 3049-3079.
Feringa, Ben L. "Vision Statement: Materials in Motion." Advanced Materials (2020):
1906416.
Garner, Randy. "LEADERSHIP AS A POLICE CHIEF: ADVICE FROM THOSE WHO’VE
BEEN THERE." Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice 14.2 (2018). 12-18.
Joseph, John, and Vibha Gaba. "Organizational Structure, Information Processing, and
Decision-Making: A Retrospective and Road Map for Research." Academy of
Management Annals 14.1 (2020): 267-302.
Kubota, Chieri, et al. "Advanced Technologies for Large-Scale Plant Factories—Integration
of Industrial and Systems Engineering Approach in Controlled Environment Crop
Production." Plant Factory Using Artificial Light. Elsevier, 2019. 353-362.
Stancu, Stelian, et al. "Use of New Innovative Technologies in Business by All Age Groups."
Digital Entrepreneurship and Global Innovation. IGI Global, 2017. 79-103.
West, Jonathan David. "The Effects of Mission Statement Design on Behavioral Intention."
(2016).