Comprehensive Business Analysis: Land O'Lakes Performance Report

This report provides a detailed business analysis of Land O'Lakes, an agricultural cooperative company based in the USA. It begins with a brief history, highlighting its ownership structure, and the financial performance, including sales and earnings. The report then examines the company's nature and structure, emphasizing its cooperative model and member-owners. It identifies key stakeholders, including customers, government entities, and farmer-members. The analysis further explores Land O'Lakes' financial performance, including sales, profitability, and sustainability, and discusses its competitiveness within the agricultural industry, including the impact of technology and strategic mergers. Finally, the report concludes with an outlook for the future, considering both opportunities and challenges in the evolving market, emphasizing the company's strategic initiatives and potential for growth. The report references multiple sources to support its findings, providing a comprehensive overview of Land O'Lakes' business operations and performance.

Running head: BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Business Management
Name of the University
Name of the Student
Author Note

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction and brief history of Land O’Lakes..........................................................................2
2. Nature and Structure....................................................................................................................4
3. Stakeholders.................................................................................................................................5
4. Conclusion: Risks and outlook for the future..............................................................................5
A. Sales, profitability and sustainability of the business.............................................................5
B. Competitiveness......................................................................................................................6
References:......................................................................................................................................8
1. Introduction and brief history of Land O’Lakes
Land O’Lakes is an agricultural cooperative company owned by farmers based in
Minnesota, USA and it is not traded publicly thus having no listings under any stock exchange.

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The net earnings garnered by the three businesses of the company in 2016 amounted to
320 million dollars. The Dairy Foods sector witnessed high growth in its share and resulted in
the sales of nearly four billion dollars and seventy million dollars as pretax earnings.
The company owns four businesses namely Land O’Lakes Dairy Foods, WinField United
Crops Inputs and Insights, Purina Animal Nutrition and Land O’Lakes SUSTAIN with Chris
Policinski as the President and Chief Executive Officer ("Search | OPEN Forum", 2017).
Chris earned his management degree from New York University. He joined the company
in the year 1997 and in less than ten years, he was made the CEO in the year 2005. Chris has led
companies like Kraft General Foods, Bristol-Myers Squibb and The Pillsbury Company before
Land O’Lakes ("chris policinski + land o'lakes - Bing", 2017).
Other high ranked members of the company include Beth Ford, the COO and Group
EVP, Matt Carstens, SVP. SUSTAIN, John Ellenberger, SVP for International Development,
Peter Janzen, SVP, General Counsel and CAO, Jerry Kaminski, EVP and COO, International and
others.
The company follows standard recruitment procedures for recruiting people. It has
provided a recruitment link in its website’s career section. Various departments are there in
which the company recruits people. These include –
 Customer service
 Finance and Accounting
 Human resources
 Information technology
 Manufacturing and operations

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 Marketing
 Quality
 Research and Development and
 Sales
The company offers employment in a number of ways. Some of which are –
 Events – Land O’Lakes holds around 150 events throughout the year to recruit
especially students from different universities and schools. One such event is the
ProDay, a career fair event held each year at the University of Minnesota.
 Online application – The Company has provided online resume submission
procedure for interested candidates in its official website.
 Internships – Global Food Challenge program was a great success as half of the
students completing internships in the first year, came back for a second
internship as well. Through this project, students from more than eleven
universities throughout the country have been offered internships at the company
this year as well.
 Advertisements – The Company also advances recruitment opportunities to
aspiring candidates through ads in various job websites like Indeed, Glassdoor
and Mightyrecruiter.
Land O’Lakes does not have a labor or trade union.
The use of technology by companies nowadays is a common occurrence. Every company
aims to promote and expand its business through the platform provided by the internet.

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Land O’Lakes moved a step further in the technological sector when it bought the
satellite-imaging company, Geosys to enhance its business of farm-data. This placed the
company remarkable ahead of other agro-based cooperative companies in the US.
The company has a clear and simple growth strategy – to promote innovation and involve
agro enthusiasts around the world. The company follows both mergers and acquisitions strategy
and organic growth. Apart from that, the company also engages in a number of campaigns and
competition that keeps the consumers engaged and in return, profits the company.
In one of its goals to expand the business, Land O’Lakes merged Ceres, Inc and acquired
all its stocks in the year 2016. One of its business units WinField, merged the United Suppliers
creating WinField United in the same year and also got into an agreement with Southern States
Cooperative Inc to further expand its business. The company also owns numerous subsidiaries as
well.
2. Nature and Structure
The basic nature of Land O’Lakes is that of a privately held member-owned cooperative
company based mainly on food and agriculture. It is not a publicly traded company. It is an
agricultural cooperative owned by farmers. The company’s business is expanded in all the fifty
states of America and in sixty international locations ("Land O’Lakes", 2017).
Land O’Lakes boasts of members that include both farmers and cooperatives. The
member-owners elect the directors for the corporate board, which has 24 members – 12 of whom
are members from the dairy section, and the remaining 12 belong to the agricultural section. The
elected directors hold the position for a period of four years and are elected at the annual meeting
of the company.

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3. Stakeholders
Stakeholder can be an individual, a group or even an organization that has attention in an
organization. They can influence or be influenced by the actions, policies and objectives of the
company (Businessdictionary.com, 2017). Stakeholders include directors, suppliers, the
community, employees and the government amongst others. The main stakeholders of Land
O’Lakes include its customers and consumers, the government officials, and the regulatory
agencies ("Land O'Lakes Inc. - Checking in on Land O’Lakes SUSTAIN", 2017). The farmer-
members nonetheless, are the biggest stakeholders for the cooperative firm.
The premiere customers of Land O’Lakes vary from farmers to dairy workers to
consumers. The company targets wide range of consumers that include Generation Xers, baby
boomers and others ("Bloomberg", 2017).
4. Conclusion: Risks and outlook for the future
A. Sales, profitability and sustainability of the business
The net earnings of Land O’Lakes for the year 2016 were 320 million dollars and 13
billion as net sales. The profit margin however saw a decline of 20% although it was a far
improved performance by the company. Going by the current business climate, the agricultural
industry is witnessing a transformation. With an increased use of technology, the agricultural
industry is expected to flourish in the coming years as well.
The company is applying new methods every year to elevate the growth. In September
this year, one of its business units, WinField United opened a new incubator for agricultural
innovation that is named WinField United Innovation Center (Landolakesinc.com, 2017). It is
targeted towards helping the farmers improve the quality of the crops. This strategy is expected

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to attract more farmers involving with the company. The Dairy Accelerator Program is another
such strategy employed by the company to draw farmer’s attention.
The end of the second quarter for the year 2017 procured net sales of 3.7 billion dollars
whereas the net earnings totaled 113 million dollars. This in comparison to last year’s
performance is not what the company may have expected, as the total earnings at the end of the
second quarter were 134 million dollars ("Land O'Lakes Inc. - Press Room", 2017). In keeping
view of the current market situation, these earnings and sales are expected to remain constant
without much variation by the end of the fourth quarter in 2017.
B. Competitiveness
The rapid growth witnessed by the agricultural industry especially with the introduction
of advanced technology during the past few decades has raised the level of competition in this
sector. Newer companies are emerging with each passing year giving a tough competition to the
old established firms. Land O’Lakes enjoys a strong position despite such stiff competition
owing to its strategic mergers and innovations. However, it does get a stiff competition from big
names like Walmart, Kraft Foods and General Mills in terms of grocery business and space in
the shelves of supermarkets (Gunders, 2012).
To place the products and services of Land O’Lakes in the product life cycle, each
product and service can be placed at the growth and maturity stage especially the butter. It has
been the company’s biggest seller and the oldest product as well.
The future of Land O’Lakes is filled with opportunities as well as challenges. The
industry it belongs to has to go through the economic cycle like every other industry. In the
present day however, the agricultural and food industry is going through the peak phase of the

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cycle in the US. It has reached a position that was never achieved in the past (Boland, Cooper &
White, 2015).
A firm like Land O’Lakes has all the opportunities to keep booming in the market and
enjoy the fruits of technology that has boosted the industry like never before.
References:
Bloomberg. (2017). Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 26 October 2017, from
https://www.bloomberg.com/search?query=chris+policinski
Boland, M., Cooper, B., & White, J. M. (2015). Making Sustainability Tangible: Land O'Lakes
and the Dairy Supply Chain. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 98(2), 648-
657.

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Businessdictionary.com. (2017). What comes after those ellipses?. BusinessDictionary.com.
Retrieved 26 October 2017, from
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/stakeholder.html
Chris policinski + land o'lakes - Bing. (2017). Bing.com. Retrieved 26 October 2017, from
https://www.bing.com/search?q=chris+policinski+%2b+land+o
%27lakes&qs=HS&pq=chris+policinski&sk=HS1&sc=8
Gunders, D. (2012). Wasted: How America is losing up to 40 percent of its food from farm to
fork to landfill. Natural Resources Defense Council, 1-26.
Land O’Lakes. (2017). Fortune. Retrieved 26 October 2017, from
http://fortune.com/fortune500/land-olakes/
Land O'Lakes Inc. - Checking in on Land O’Lakes SUSTAIN. (2017). Landolakesinc.com.
Retrieved 26 October 2017, from https://www.landolakesinc.com/Members/Member-
News/January-2017/Checking-in-on-Land-O-Lakes-SUSTAIN
Land O'Lakes Inc. - Press Room. (2017). Landolakesinc.com. Retrieved 26 October 2017, from
https://www.landolakesinc.com/Press#fndtn-Releases
Landolakesinc.com. (2017). Retrieved 26 October 2017, from
https://www.landolakesinc.com/lolinc/media/Pdf/2016-LOL-Annual_Report.pdf
Search | OPEN Forum. (2017). Americanexpress.com. Retrieved 26 October 2017, from
https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/s//?query=Land%20O
%27Lakes