Business Improvement Report: Mondavi Corp. and Strategic Tools

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Robert Mondavi Corporation, examining its business improvement strategies, past successes, and current struggles. The analysis utilizes three key strategic tools: Lewin's Field Theory, Process-Driven Change, and Context-Driven Change to understand the factors that contributed to Mondavi's initial success and subsequent challenges. The report delves into the leadership of Robert Mondavi, the impact of changing leadership, and the shift in corporate strategies. Furthermore, it offers strategic recommendations for the current CEO, focusing on research and development, market diversification, technological integration, and international market expansion to revitalize the company. The report concludes that by refocusing on core competencies, investing in lower-priced products, and embracing diversification, the company can regain its position in the competitive wine market.

Running head: BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT
BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
About the organization and past CEO:...................................................................................2
Rationale behind the success of Mondavi Corporation:........................................................3
Lewin's Field Theory..........................................................................................................3
Process-Driven Change......................................................................................................4
Context-Driven Change.....................................................................................................4
Recommendations for sustaining the company..........................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
The procedure involved in the strategy and facilitation of amending a state, situation
or thing for a better outcome with the intervention of an action or tactics that intends to
stimulate improvement and change in businesses depicts the concept of Business
Improvement. Business Improvements is an important aspect of being updated with changing
marketing conditions and customers’ changing demand. Business Improvement aims at
improving the efficiency, reputation and revenue of an organisation. The purpose of the paper
is to identify the rationale behind the success of Mondavi’s approach for leading the wine
company and also to determine the present struggles based on the three strategic tools such as
Lewin’s Field Theory, Process-driven Change and Context-Driven Change. The paper will
also suggest the strategies for the current CEO with the motive of business improvement.
Discussion
About the organization and past CEO:
The wine company, Robert Mondavi Corp. was founded by Robert Gerald Mondavi,
who was considered to be the leading operator of American Vineyard. The wine company
became successful due to his marketing strategies and technical improvements in the process
and platform of selling wine. The company was aggressively advertised by labelling the
products based on the grapes variants rather than depending on generic categories. The first
wine for sale was manufactured in the year 1968 (Quintanar, Sims & Terry, 2018). The wine
belonged to a rare and unpopular category of Calfornia, the Sauvignon balnc. This wine was
named as Fume Blanc and later was considered synonymous to the wine category Sauvigon
blanc. The Corporation received a huge success due to the amalgamation of authentic
varieties and strategic promotional approaches. The vision of Mondavi was to enable Napa

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Valley on the winery maps by presenting a competition for Europe wine companies
(Robertmondaviwinery.com, 2020).
Rationale behind the success of Mondavi Corporation:
Robert Mondavi Corporation was very successful amongst the wineries of Europe.
The wine company has also been awarded amongst various recognitions for its collection and
establishments such as Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2002), French Legion of
Honour (2005) and California Hall of Fame (2005). The success in the past and struggles of
the present will be presented based on the three strategy tools:
Lewin's Field Theory
The theory of Lewin's Field Theory depicts the interaction and connection between
the environment and an individual. According to the main principles of the Lewin's Field
Theory, Robert’s behaviour and interaction were aligned with the changing trends,
competition and trends of wine businesses, which contributed to the success of the company
in the past. Robert Mondavi’s behaviour was marked by assessing the industry
competitiveness and market opportunities, which led to his aggressive promotional strategies
for a significant position on the map. The ability to recognise the increasing competition in
the market with intense competitive rivalry and the presence of substitutes caused the
behaviour of producing authentic, high-quality wine, which is categorized on the basis of
grapes or fruit variant. The manufacturing of premium wines was developed with the demand
from five-star restaurants and worldwide recognition (Braun, Latham & Porschitz, 2016). The
takeover after Robert was not accompanied by various wrong decisions of the new CEOs,
which led to the acquisition of the company. The title of CEO was passed on to the sons of
the founder, Robert, which violated the aligned interaction between environment and person
as the sons were unaware or not associated with the business that was run based on the
assessment of external environment and by assessing marketing opportunities, which requires

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various improvements. Moreover, the company was transformed into a public company,
which was a risk-driven approach without sufficient information on changing market
conditions. The focus of the company shifted to the objectives and goals of maintaining the
heritage rather than the environment or surroundings causing the reason for the downfall.
Process-Driven Change
The strategy tool of process-driven change allows the focus to be directed on the
processes or operational activities of an organisation. Process-drive change approach of
organisations allows sharpening of the business processes by implying improvements for the
goal of becoming efficient in maintaining value. At the time of Robert Mondavi’s leadership,
the company experienced consistent improvements in the process of manufacturing wine and
reaching the end consumers. Robert Mondavi Corporation was dedicated towards the creation
of finest quality wines by incorporating newer techniques, innovation and experimentations
for responding to the market competitions and substitutes. In the past, the company always
incorporated various changes and innovative alternation in their wine manufacturing process
for quality offerings but with the change of title, position and growing competition, the focus
of the company shifted from the core competencies, which was the process of creating quality
wine, the focus was more on expansion and reach.
Context-Driven Change
Context-driven change approach helps in responding to problems based on the context
of the identified issues. In this approach, solutions are derived based on the changes in
problems. The risks of establishing a public trading company with the risk of potential natural
disasters as well as the risk of allotting the operating position caused the discrepancies in
maintaining the strategic position in the market. The company started losing its worth and
value amongst the investors or analysts as at that time, and only premium brands could
become a publicly-traded company. This decision led to the boundaries for diversifying the

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product offerings. In the past, when Robert Mondavi was the CEO, the whole journey of the
company was marked with the priority on context. The company was started for a significant
position in the map of wine manufacturing companies amongst the European competitors.
The context of increasing competition resulted in Robert Mondavi’s strategy of focussing on
the core competencies such as categories of products and processes. However, after the
takeover of his sons, the focus of deriving solution was changed with the strategy of pushing
lifestyle brand, earning license for brand equity and risky expansion of product range (Sasso
& Solima, 2018). The alignment between the identified problem and solution started shifting.
Recommendations for sustaining the company
In accordance with the identification of various areas of Robert Mondavi Corporation,
the following suggestions can be proposed for newer CEOs.
 Strategic investment of resources and funds towards Research and Development in
regards to the market and competitive factors or competition in the wine industry
 Investing in the new and emerging market for increasing the number of revenue
streams as well as for diversifying growth.
 Integrating agricultural technology in framing grapes that will ensure the prediction of
disaster and will produce organically grown crops to reduce price and gain
competitive advantages over core values, products and processes.
 Investing in the untapped international markets
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that Robert Mondavi Corp. was growing significantly
with the aim of responding to the competition in the wine market. However, after a few years,
with the changing titles of CEO and shifting vision, the wine company started experiencing a
series of concerns that harmed its strategic position and value offerings. The company can

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bring back the life of the company if it concentrates on the core competencies like before,
invests in lower-priced products and diversification strategies. The company should also
invest in Research and Development especially after the authority of the sons of Robert as to
gain comprehensive knowledge regarding the market opportunities and industry trends. The
company needs to revaluate the rationale behind the success of the company in the past for
reconstructing the vision by recognizing the opportunities, such as repositioning the brand in
the global market with variants of organically grown wine products with a diverse range of
expensive and affordable brands.

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References
Braun, M., Latham, S. & Porschitz, E. (2016). All together now: strategy mapping for family
businesses. Journal of Business Strategy.
Quintanar, S., Sims, E. & Terry, A., (2018). A Simple Tactic for Purchasing French Oak
Barrels. Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 20(2).
Robertmondaviwinery.com (2020). Robert Mondavi Winery | Robert Mondavi. [online]
Available at: https://www.robertmondaviwinery.com/
Sasso, P. & Solima, L. (2018). The creative turn of the wine industry. International Journal
of Tourism and Hospitality Management in the Digital Age (IJTHMDA), 2(1), pp.36-
47.