Report on United Biscuits Ltd.: Competitive Analysis and Strategy

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of United Biscuits Ltd., a multinational food manufacturer. It begins with an introduction to the company, its background, and its product offerings, including brands like McVitie's and Jacob's. The core of the report focuses on a competitive analysis using Porter's Five Forces model, examining the intensity of competition, threats of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers and buyers, and the threat of substitutes. The report then justifies this analysis, highlighting the strategic implications for United Biscuits. Further, it delves into the company's inbound, operations, and outbound logistics, as well as support activities within Porter's Value Chain to identify key value-adding activities. Finally, the report summarizes how IT and innovative ideas can be deployed to improve business processes. The report concludes with a list of references.

United Biscuits Ltd.
Report
1

Table of content
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Introduction of the organisation:.................................................................................................3
Background of the company:.......................................................................................................3
Products and services of the organisation:...................................................................................3
Analysis of competitive environment..........................................................................................4
Justify the analysis of the competitive analysis...........................................................................6
Analyse the inbound logistics, operations and outbound logistics..............................................6
Analyse support activities in Porter's Value Chain......................................................................7
Identify key value adding activities.............................................................................................8
Summarise and reflect how the business can deploy IT and use innovative ideas to improve
business processes.......................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
2

TASK
Introduction of the organisation:
United biscuits is a British based multinational food manufacturer. They are maker of
McVitie's Twiglets, Crackers and Jacob's cream. The headquarters are located in London,
England, UK. The company is listed on London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of FTSE
100 Index. United Biscuits is part of Pladis as it was taken over by them in the year 2014 but is
owned by Yildiz Holding. They are operating in 120 countries across Asia, Europe, Africa, the
Middle East and the Americas. The main operations of the company are in United Kingdom
where they produces a wide variety of confectionery products under different brands including
McVitie's biscuits and Jacob's Cream Crackers. They have their manufacturing plan in different
countries and across Europe such as Netherlands, France and Belgium. United Biscuits has
established a manufacturing site in (Pladis, 2020).
Background of the company:
United Biscuits Ltd. was established in the year 1948 with the merger of two Scottish
family businesses that were McVitie's & Price and MacFarlane Lang. In the year 1962, United
biscuits acquired William Crawford & Sons which was best known for their shortbread. Later in
the year 1965 they acquired William MacDonald & Sons which enable them to brought Penguin
brand to their group. Then with the aim of expansion of the business United Biscuits acquired
another company Ross Young's that deals in frozen food in the year 1988. For improving the
operations, the company sold their Southern European business of biscuit to Kraft Foods due to
which the owner was left syndicated. In the year 2012, the business under the name KP Snacks
was sold to Intersnack and at last the entire business of United Biscuits was sold to Yildiz
Holding. Both of them later on were purchased by Pladis Global which is one of the fastest
growing company providing snacks in the world. Pladis came into existence in 2016 when Yildiz
Holding brought United biscuits, Ulker, Godiva Chocolatier and DeMet's Candy company.
Products and services of the organisation:
United Biscuits UK Ltd. manufactures snacks which are sweet and savory that are
backed. The product are made available as packed food through various retail stores. They offers
a wide variety of biscuits, crackers, potato chips, chocolate and fruit biscuits. The brands which
are offered by them are Jacob's under which Biscuits for Cheese, Mini Cheddars, Cornish
3

Wafer,Twiglets, Water biscuits etc. are offered. The another brand is McVitie's which includes
digestive biscuits, iced gems, Jaffa cakes Mini rolls and many more. The products which are
offered by them are generally baked and are made up of flour which can easily attract customers.
Along with this the variant includes biscuits and cookies filled with jam and chocolate that are
available in different flavours (Kam, 2017).
Analysis of competitive environment
Competitive analysis is the strategy with the help of which the organisation can identify
their major competitors and accordingly they can conduct research for their products and
services. For conducting such analysis the business environment must be analysed. This enables
an organisation to identify the gap in the market which will facilitate them developing new
products and services as per the needs and wants of the customers. The United biscuit need to
consider the various models that can help them in analysing the competitive environment. For
this Porter's five force model can be used by United Biscuits. This model facilitate in identifying
and analysing the impact of various forces which exerts competition on the organisation. With
the help of this model strengths and weaknesses of the industry can be identified, also the
structure can be analysed that will help in formulating various corporate strategy (Öz, 2019). The
five force analysis facilitate companies to enhance their profitability as with this they can bring
changes in their strategies. The analysis of the five forces are given below:
 Competition in the industry: This force facilitate the organisation in determining the
number of competitors and their ability to influence their business. If the number of
competitors are large than the influence of this force on the organisation is also more.
For minimising the impact of such force the deal with the suppliers and buyers can be
modified. It can be done by reducing the prices of the material so involved in the process
of production. For the United Biscuits, this force has more influence as there exist
various competitors in the market such as Kraft foods, KP snacks, Keebler company etc.
and all of them have capability to introduce new innovative and healthy products in the
market. With the launch of such products the operations of United Biscuits will get
influenced.
 Threat of new entry: This force helps the organisations to understand the influence of
new entrant on their operation. This force has moderate influence on United Biscuits as
some of the major players such as Cadbury, Nestle, Brooke Bond etc. can easily enter
4

into this market. But such threats can be managed with the help of various regulations
and restrictions on the new entrants such as various laws for ensuring the safety of the
food, taxes and duties can be levied on procurement of various ingredients etc. The
companies who are already operating in the market can enter but the one who are new
may face problem as the preference of the customers are so diverse and they cannot
provide a wide variety. Also various restrictions are imposed to ensure the safety of the
food which restricts other to enter into the market. Due to this the influence of this force
is moderate on the United Biscuits India (Lepore, Sgobbo and Vingelli, 2017)
 Bargaining power of the suppliers: With the help of this force it can be analysed that to
what extend the suppliers can affect the operations of the organisation. United Biscuit is
highly dependent upon their suppliers as they provides them the material which they
utilise in their process of production. The suppliers of the flour, sugar, salt and various
other material are available in large number to the United Biscuits due to which the
bargaining powers of the suppliers are low as they can switch to other suppliers if one
changes the prices of the products. In addition to this the suppliers of the machines are
also easily accessible either in the same country from from outside which reduces the
their bargaining powers. Thus with this it can be analysed that the organisation need not
to pay much attention on their suppliers.
 Bargaining power of the buyers: With the help of this force the ability of the customers
to influence the operations can be analysed. In this it is analysed that how significant the
customer of the organisation are and what cost is added of finding more customers for
the organisation (Tristiarini, Setiawanta and Pratiwi, 2017). This force facilitate United
Biscuits in identifying the ability of the customers or buyers to negotiate for the products
that they offers. As the company is bing operating on large scale they have a strong
customers base and the taste an preference of the customers vary among each other. Due
to this they need to innovate their products frequently with aim of meeting up with their
needs and wants. But the buyers have more bargaining powers due to which this force
has major impact on the operations of United Biscuits.
 Threat of substitute: Substitute goods and services are those which can be used in place
of product of the company. The products and services which are offered by United
Biscuit are quite similar to what other are offerings. But many products that they offer
5

are entirely unique which helps in attracting the customers. The influence of this force on
the organisation is moderate as with some of the product they have advantage which can
not be copied by the competitors while some products which are basic in nature. Such
products can be offered easily by the competitors which has impact on the operations of
the United Biscuits (Harding, 2017).
Justify the analysis of the competitive analysis
On the basis of analysis of the five force it can be analysed that United biscuits need to
adopt various strategies with the help of which they can mange the impact of various forces. By
consistently analysing the market and taste and preference of the consumers the influence of the
buyers can be reduced. Also by innovating products, by introducing new features in the products
the impact can be reduced. The threat of the substitute which is moderate can be managed by
way of increasing the switching cost for the customers. The impact of the suppliers are low but
they need to be managed effectively and for this various suppliers need to be identified which
can supply in case existing suppliers fails. The major threat that is faced by them includes that of
the competitors and this can be managed by creating sustainable differentiation and by way of
collaborating with various existing partners and competitors (Karami, 2016).
Analyse the inbound logistics, operations and outbound logistics
Porter's suggested value chain model which helps in manufacturing process of the
organisation. With the help of value chain model so suggested by the Porters the value to the
customers can be improved by analysing various activities related to the process of production. It
is important for the managers of the United Business to determine those activities in the process
of production that are crucial as all the activities cannot be equally important. The value chain
model facilitates the managers to analyse various primary activities and support activities of the
process of production. The process includes various primary and secondary activities which have
to be evaluated. The primary activities which are to be analysed by the managers of United
Biscuits are:
Inbound Logistics: The inbound activities are related with the building and maintaining
relations with the suppliers. Better relations with them will lead to effectiveness in the operations
as it will ensure timely delivery of the material and it will lead to timely availability of the
materials. With this United biscuits identify all their suppliers so that relations can be maintained
with them. In addition to this it enables them in determining the challenges regarding the issues
6

of storage, the quality of the material so procured etc. This makes them efficient in making their
process of transformation better and effective without any delays.
Operations: This is the activity in which the raw material is converted into finished
goods. As it is related with the process of conversion so it becomes important for the managers to
ensure the utilisation of the raw material in such a manner that wastages can be reduced. The
managers of United biscuits by analysing this activity improves the productivity of the
transformation process as with this they aims to maximise their output. This enables them in
taking competitive advantage and ensuring growth as improved quality and process improves the
cost for the company (Lüttgens and Diener, 2016).
Outbound Logistics: Outbound activities are related with delivering the final products to
the customers which includes various activities such as transportation, handling of the material,
processing of the order of the customers and distributors, scheduling etc. With the help of
analysis of this activity the requirement of the organisation in term of warehouses, distribution
channels etc. can be identified by the managers of the United Biscuits. This facilitates them to
manage their cost effectiveness as with predetermined strategies they can ensuring timely
delivery of the product that make product readily available to the customers.
Analyse support activities in Porter's Value Chain
Various supportive activities are provided by the value chain model of the Porter’s which helps
the production function in transforming raw material into finished goods effectively. They also
facilitate coordination among various primary activities as they provide supports to them. The
supportive activities which are focussed by the United Biscuits while manufacturing biscuits
includes:
Technological development: For the organisation it is important to adopt various
technology which is updated as this helps the organisation to reduces the cost of manufacturing
and improving the quality and delivery time with improved process. Along with this the
organisation can take competitive advantage with this as they facilitate innovation in the
products and services. In United Biscuits the technology plays crucial role as it help them in
adding more values to the products and services so offered by them. The technological
development supports automation in their manufacturing unit which reduces their time of
delivery the material on site. For this they need to undertake various researches in regards to the
changes in the technology and processes as with this the values can be added to the outputs.
7

Procurement: The activity of procuring various resources is so very crucial for the
organisation as they have to determine various resources that they have to procure. Such
resources include the raw material, various equipments, funds etc. that are required in operations.
With this need of all the resources is identified by the managers of the United Biscuits that
facilitate them in managing their inbound and outbound logistics as the suppliers need to be paid
on regular basis. With the availability of the resources overall efficiency of the business can be
improved (Koc and Bozdag, 2017).
Identify key value adding activities
Value adding activities are those activities that add value to the products which are offered
to the customers. For the organisation it becomes important to add on various such activities so
that the customers can be satisfied. They key value added services that the managers of United
Biscuits take into consideration includes:
Expand the product offerings: Expansion of the offering which is healthy and tasty will
provide customers more buying choices. This makes their customers stick to their brand instead
of switching to substitute products.
Managing the cost of transportation: All the cost related to the manufacturing of the
biscuits are in-house as all the activities related to the packaging, warehousing etc. are with them.
But the cost of transportation is managed by developing better relations with service provider
which facilitate them to manage the cost effectively (Prajogo, Oke and Olhager, 2016).
Reduction in the number of suppliers: The operations of United Biscuits are dependent
upon the suppliers as they require material for manufacturing which is provided by them. So for
increasing the values to the customers the process of inbound logistics need to be improved. To
achieve this manager aims to streamline the supply chain by reducing the number of suppliers so
that chances of failure is reduced and limited.
Control labour costs: With the help of various automated technology for the packaging of
the products the requirement of the labour can be eliminated and thus it leads to reduction of the
cost for the organisation. In the manufacturing unit of United Biscuits all the activities related to
packaging is done through machines which reduce their overall cost that facilitated value
addition in the customers (da Silva Guabiroba, and et. al., 2017).
8

Summarise and reflect how the business can deploy IT and use innovative ideas to improve
business processes
In developing and competitive business environment it is important for the businesses to
identify various technologies so that they can compete with the competitors. The adoption of
technology helps them in managing the cost and in improving the quality of the products so
offered by them. Information technology in the processes enables the managers to identify the
area of problems and potential solutions that can be adopted so that the services can be
improved. For overcoming various threats such as that of the competitors, it becomes necessary
to adopt various activities that can add on the value to the services such as automation in
packaging etc. With the use of IT common software that can be used to improve communication
among the suppliers and the production department. This will ensure that the required amount of
material is delivered that reduces the carrying or holding cost. Such value added services are
adopted by the production managers so that level of satisfaction of the customers can be
improved. On the basis of the analysis of the primary and support activities of the United
businesses it is analysed that for taking the competitive advantage and for improving the
businesses processes they need to: streamline and simplify the activities of the businesses which
will help them in making their supply chain effective, small issues need to be resolved on time
and this can be done by developing better communication by allowing one department to interact
with others (Hania and Ahmad, 2017). For this various technological aspects and methodologies
can be imposed such as lean principles which will ensure elimination of the wastage form the
process. Along with this the use of six sigma will ensure the better quality of the products.
Common reporting platform can be developed where all the employees can expresses their
issues, ideas, suggestions etc. so that they can me kept motivated and potential solutions can be
identified. All these factors will help them in taking competitive advantage as it will make their
product innovative and attractive for the customers. The other force is the bargaining powers of
the buyers has major influence and for this they need to undertake the research for analysing
their taste and preference so that products can made accordingly. For this the reviews and
feedbacks can be taken from the customers through various social media platforms and through
surveys. This will enable them to determine the expectations of the customers form the company.
With the analysis of all such factors the better strategies can be developed that can help United
Biscuits in taking competitive advantage by improving processes of the business.
9

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
da Silva Guabiroba, and et. al., 2017. Value chain analysis of waste cooking oil for biodiesel
production: Study case of one oil collection company in Rio de Janeiro-Brazil. Journal
of Cleaner Production, 142, pp.3928-3937.
Hania, B. and Ahmad, A.A., 2017. Strategy Formulation Process in Large Family-based
Businesses. International Journal of Economics and Management Systems, 2.
Harding, S., 2017. MBA management models. Routledge.
Kam, A., 2017. Dynamics of trade in value-added in “Factory Asia”. Journal of Contemporary
Asia. 47(5). pp.704-727.
Karami, A., 2016. Strategy formulation in entrepreneurial firms. Routledge.
Koc, T. and Bozdag, E., 2017. Measuring the degree of novelty of innovation based on Porter's
value chain approach. European Journal of Operational Research. 257(2). pp.559-567.
Lepore, D., Sgobbo, A. and Vingelli, F., 2017. The strategic approach in urban regeneration: the
Hamburg model. UPLanD-Journal of Urban Planning, Landscape & environmental
Design. 2(3). pp.185-218.
Lüttgens, D. and Diener, K., 2016. Business model patterns used as a tool for creating (new)
innovative business models. Journal of Business Models. 4(3).
Öz, Ö., 2019. The Competitive Advantage of Nations: The Case of Turkey: Assessing Porter's
Framework for National Advantage. Routledge.
Prajogo, D., Oke, A. and Olhager, J., 2016. Supply chain processes. International Journal of
Operations & Production Management.
Tristiarini, N., Setiawanta, Y. and Pratiwi, R.D., 2017. Optimization of Monetary Corporate
Social Responsibility Value Added in Reducing Financial Distress in
Indonesia. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues. 7(2), pp.500-506.
Online
Pladis, 2020. [online] Avaliable through: < http://www.unitedbiscuits.com/>
10