Management Case Research and Analysis: SPC's Leadership Strategies

This case study analyzes SPC, an Australian food brand, and its response to a food scandal. The analysis examines the leadership style adopted by the CEO, identifying it as transformational, and its impact on employee engagement and product development. It also explores SPC's planning and strategic processes, including stakeholder interaction and value chain development. Furthermore, the case study evaluates SPC's use of digital business, particularly social media marketing, in comparison to its competitors. The reflection section discusses the situational approach used by the management team. The conclusion highlights the importance of leadership in crisis management. The document provides a comprehensive overview of SPC's strategies and their effectiveness in overcoming challenges and achieving market success.

Management case
research analysis
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Contents
INTRODUCTION / BACKGROUND TO THE CASE..................................................................4
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................4
a) What leadership style, company’s CEO has adapted for supporting the employee
engagement practices? How it has contributed towards bringing difference into the company’s
product and services?.............................................................................................................4
b) Looking into the planning and strategy process of the company, how does the company
interact with its stakeholder and build effective value chain.................................................5
c) Comparing with other players in industry how effective you found the company is, in using
the digital business space, by involving social media?..........................................................6
PART 2............................................................................................................................................7
Reflection...............................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
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INTRODUCTION / BACKGROUND TO THE CASE
The project is based upon the case study of SPC which is an Australian food brand. The case
study depicts that this brand inflates its existing level off sales by rapidly responding to one of
the biggest food scandals that hit Australia. This food brand introduced a campaign under the
name “SPC Goulburn Valley: #MyFamilyCan – How a humble can empowered millions of
Australians” and kept the local farming families at the forefront of its campaign in market place.
The case study begins with the discussion of a Hepatitis outbreak within the confines of
Australia owing to a set of contaminated export items. This posed the country to awakening
situation regarding country of origin food labelling (Aluko and Knight, 2017). In response to
this, SPC tool the decision to inflate the influence of country of origin at the time of purchasing,
by featuring the photos of 1000s of real families of farmers in its majority of product labels,
together with the history of product as well as farmer. The brand featured a campaign film which
was introduced at the time of a key sports event and was even played on a number of national
Television network, alongside POS placement, PR initiative, social media, owned & earned
media, word of mouth, content marketing etc. As a result of this, the market share of SPC
reached to around 24%. In addition to this, it was determined that the weekly sales volume got
inflated 26% over and above the predefined objectives.
TASK 1
a) What leadership style, company’s CEO has adapted for supporting the employee engagement
practices? How it has contributed towards bringing difference into the company’s product
and services?
On the basis of the overall case scenario, it has been analysed that the CEO of the company
has adopted transformational leadership style. This is recognised as a leadership style which
provides assistance to a leader in deriving positive outcomes at the time of bringing about a
change within the corporation. The case showed that the outbreak of Hepatitis within the
peripheral boundaries of Australia led to emergence of an alarming situation (ANTREAS, 2017).
To react to this and reduce the negative impact caused to the brand, SPC needed to undertake
immediate action. When a business is acknowledged to encounter a set of unprecedented
political as well as corporate situations, then an unprecedented reaction is required by the
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company in return. It was seen that the entity overhauled a suite of its iconic brands by replacing
locally renowned packages with unknown faces. All of this demanded a great sense of brevity on
the part of leader as well as a feeling of faith within the individuals as well as families who
stories were representing the story of the brand on the labels.
Having the risk taking ability as well as the courage to carry out replacement of brand logo
with the farmers is in itself an example of the characteristics of transformational leader. This
even yielded positive results for the company and drive fruitful outcomes in terms of boost to
financial performance (Bansal and Song, 2017). All of this became possible because the CEO of
SPC undertook the measures to engage the workforce of the organisation within the change
procedure. The change in the overall packaging as well as labelling of products was possible
only because of the effective leadership approach put into action by the CEO of SPC. This
yielded positive results for the firm in terms of gaining support from the employees. The
employment of transformational approach to execute change within the entity also creates a
situation whereby training has to be imparted to the individuals.
When employees get proper knowledge of the changes taking place within the premises,
they tend to feel valued as well as empowered. The entity informs them regarding the impact that
the change would have upon their day to day working patterns. This makes them put their best
foot forward for depicting high productivity and performance levels (Bell, Bryman and Harley,
2018
Brewster, 2017). As a result of all of this, the organisational goals and vision associated with the
introduction of change in labelling and packaging of SPC get fulfilled, thereby giving a boost to
the financial performance of the company in the long run.
b) Looking into the planning and strategy process of the company, how does the company
interact with its stakeholder and build effective value chain
Business planning and strategy making are considered to be two of the most crucial processes for
a corporation. This renders aid to the company in attaining an edge over the competitors
prevailing in market place. By planning and devising an effective strategy, an entity can easily
sustain and survive in the complex corporate scenarios. In this relation, it has been identified that
to deal with the outbreak of Hepatitis within the confines of Australia because of contaminated
imports, the entity introduced a campaign into the market place (Charter and Polonsky, 2017).
The planning and strategy behind the introduction of this campaign into the market was to
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present the local farming families on the packages of the food products and labels so as to instil a
sense of trust and faith within the potential customers towards the products sold by SPC. The
whole of this course of action was aimed at building healthy relations with the wide variety of
stakeholders such as government, local authority, community, customers, investors, suppliers,
employees, management etc. The analysis of the case study reflected that the respective food
organisation reacted to the political as well as commercial turmoil in an effective manner,
thereby sustaining its stake and market positioning across the market place (Habbash, 2017).
Further, post the launch of the campaign in the market to grab the attention of large base of
audience, SPC could easily build effective value chain by smoothly carrying out the primary as
well as the support activities.
c) Comparing with other players in industry how effective you found the company is, in using
the digital business space, by involving social media?
As per the information specified in the case study, it has been acknowledged that the SPC
belongs to food industry which has higher level of competitiveness. It has been seen that main
competitors for SPC are Patties Foods, PEPSI and others. It has also been acknowledged that
businesses are required to take several measures in order to attain competitive edge as it supports
them in improvising their performance within the same sector and attain success as compared to
their competitors (Lockyer, 2018). While evaluating the performance as well as practices of
competitors, it has been analysed that the respective company the makes use of social media
marketing method as its main tool in order to attract maximum number of customers towards
them. It can be said that the company emphasising on making use of digital medium in order to
attract maximum number of potential customers towards them (He and Balmer, 2017). In
addition to this, it has also been determined that at one end other rivalry like Patties Foods it can
be said that after indulging into issues the respective company have faced lots of issues at
marketplace due to contaminant which have been found in their Nanna’s frozen berries. This
have directly spoiled the name of company at marketplace and also developed huge question
mark among the customers that whether the food they are consuming is healthy or not. this have
directly declined the sales performance of this company as well as other rivalry which are
present in the same marketplace (Kaul, 2017). At one end when Patties Foods was dealing with
the issues and finding out best way to keep out them safe from the same situation SPC have
taken advantage of this and introduced their new approach of representing themselves clean in
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front of the customers. Here, CEO of SPC have simply introduced new labelling and proudly
supporting farming families. At every point, the hashtag #MyFamilyCan was designed to be a
two-way interaction that drove our marketing objectives.
PART 2
Reflection
On the basis of the evaluation made on the present case study on SPC, it has been analysed
that the respective manager of the company have made use of situational approach as the
management one in order to deal with the situation of Australia and increasing influence of the
disease. It has been seen that the respective management team of the company have frequently
analyzed the situation of Australia and taken meaningful initiative in the form of situational
approach so that they can handle the situation and boost up their sales performance by simply
developing their positive image among the customers. Here, I have also noticed that initially a
detailed market research was conducted in the Australia by SPC so that they can easily develop
their understanding about its customers concern towards the food products which they are buying
from the marketplace. This detailed study has directly supported company in developing their
core understanding towards the current market and take rightful initiative towards the same. In
order to influence interest of the customers, the respective company focuses on changing its
overall labelling and representing its farmers and other associated people on its labelling so that
the customers of the company could get an idea towards the same. This practice have directly
maintained the transparency in the actual practices of the company and also shown its customers
that they can easily trust the brand as all the products are provided to them are safe and healthy.
Apart from this, it has also been observed that the marketing team of SPC have also made
use of social media marketing campaign so that they can approach maximum number of people
and show them actual initiative taken by the company (Souza-Monteiro and Hooker, N., 2017).
This marketing approach have directly supported SPC in influencing its sales performance at
extensive. The main motive of using this approach is to let customers to know about the healthy
products offered by the company. As a result, it can be said that adoption of these practices has
simply supported SPC in improvising their business performance in rightful manner and attain
success in Australia by simply making remarkable difference in the Australian society. It has
also been determined from the given case study that the hepatitis has initially declined the sales
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performance of the company but later on they have analysed if they bring few changes in their
practices then would easily be able to improvise the current situation in acquire their predefined
goals and objectives (Tench and Topić, 2017). Apart from this, it can be said that the company
have focused on using social media marketing. However, if the company have acquired other
medium in order to attract the customers then they would have grabbed attention of more number
of customers towards them. This would have directly contributed in acquiring more effective
results in better manner.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of the above provided description, it has been analysed that businesses are
required to take range of initiatives in order to improvise their performance within the sector and
grab attention of the customers towards them. It has been later analysed that ..., leadership style
is best suitable as it supports changes and supports managers in handling the workforce at the
time of implementing changes in the company. Here, it can be said that social media marketing is
acknowledged as the best marketing practice which could bring huge hike in the sales
performance of the company as it supports them in interacting with huge number of customers in
rightful manner.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aluko, O. and Knight, H., 2017. From corner store to superstore: a historical analysis of
Sainsbury’s co-evolution. Journal of Management History, 23(4), pp.423-435.
ANTREAS, D., 2017. Ratio and Frontier Analysis for Assessing Corporate Performance:
Evidence from the Grocery Industry in the UK. Decision Science, 44, p.177.
Bansal, P. and Song, H.C., 2017. Similar but not the same: Differentiating corporate
sustainability from corporate responsibility. Academy of Management Annals, 11(1), pp.105-
149.
Bell, E., Bryman, A. and Harley, B., 2018. Business research methods. Oxford university press.
Brewster, C., 2017. The integration of human resource management and corporate strategy.
In Policy and practice in European human resource management (pp. 22-35). Routledge.
Charter, M. and Polonsky, M.J., 2017. Reviewing Corporate Environmental Strategy: Patterns,
Positions and Predicaments for an Uncertain Future. In Greener Marketing (pp. 41-56).
Routledge.
Habbash, M., 2017. Corporate governance and corporate social responsibility disclosure:
evidence from Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Corporate Strategy and Social
Responsibility, 1(2), pp.161-178.
He, H.W. and Balmer, J.M., 2017. Alliance Brands: Building Corporate Brands through Strategic
Alliances?. In Advances in Corporate Branding (pp. 72-90). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Kaul, D., 2017. Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Customer Satisfaction and
Customer Lifetime Value in Retail. Review of Professional Management, 15(2), pp.55-60.
Lockyer, S., 2018. Who is shaping the food choices of the future?. Nutrition bulletin, 43(1),
pp.93-96.
Souza-Monteiro, D. and Hooker, N., 2017. Comparing UK food retailers corporate social
responsibility strategies. British Food Journal, 119(3), pp.658-675.
Tench, R. and Topić, M., 2017. Evaluating CSR, Sustainability, and Sourcing Within the UK
Supermarket Industry. In CSR, Sustainability, and Leadership (Vol. 100, No. 123, pp. 100-
123). ROUTLEDGE in association with GSE Research.
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