Strategic Case Analysis: Whittaker's Chocolate Company - MGMT101

This report provides a strategic case analysis of J.H. Whittaker & Sons Ltd., a confectionery manufacturer based in New Zealand. The analysis examines Whittaker's current strategies, including its focus on chocolate production, brand loyalty, and customer satisfaction. The report delves into Whitt...Read More

Running head: STRATEGIC CASE ANALYSIS
Strategic Case Analysis
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1STRATEGIC CASE ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Section 1: Whittaker’s Current Strategy....................................................................................2
Section 2: Whittaker’s Key Activities........................................................................................2
Section 3: Analysing Whittaker’s Likelihood of Success..........................................................2
Section 4: Strategic Advice........................................................................................................2
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................2
Reference List............................................................................................................................3

2STRATEGIC CASE ANALYSIS
Introduction
J.H. Whittaker & Sons Ltd. is basically a confectionery manufacturer that usually specializes
in manufacturing of chocolates, its headquarter is usually based in Porirua in the country of
New Zealand. It has one of the second largest brand factories in New Zealand and it is
estimated that it holds more 41% of entire local market (Matthews, Cottee‐Jones &
Whittaker, 2015). This is also known by the name of Kiwi Chocolate Factory and it firstly
opened its headquarters at the International Airport at Auckland. Jasmine Currie plays the
role of marketing manager at Whittaker and she took certain initiatives that would render
interests towards Kiwi chocolates. This particular discussion talks about various strategies
adopted by the Company Whittaker that would help it to achieve likelihood associated with
success. Various strategic advices have been provided so as Whittaker would be achieving
various profits in the coming 5-10 consecutive years. Whittaker is going to pursue certain
strategies that would help it overcome various challenges in light of various concepts as well
as frameworks.
Section 1: Whittaker’s Current Strategy
Kiwi Chocolate

3STRATEGIC CASE ANALYSIS
Source:
The Company involved advanced 5 roller refiner to enhance the smoothness of the chocolate
and also underwent several collaborations like 100s, L& P, Jelly Tip as well as All Blacks.
Currently they are trying to adopt certain strategies as these would help the Company to
expand as well as grow in the market that comprises of renowned manufacturers of
chocolates.
 The Company is trying to render services towards production of chocolate bars at much
ease costs and these usually involve very little regulations that would be able to satisfy
growth in the economy.
 The Company is also trying to maintain a brand image associated with loyalty of
producing various chocolate products in the market.
 The Company also tries to align various activities associated with functional areas HR
practices as well as operations that are very specific and these help to look after various
functions while appearing to be successful in the industry.
 Cocoa is usually obtained from cities like Ghana as well as Madagascar, with the help of
skilled resources those are converted to tasty chocolates and some of the raw materials
from various countries like Milk powder, honey pokey that increase availability of
different flavours in the market.
 According to the demands of customers, understanding their satisfaction towards various
products, the Company has now offered 70 different types of chocolate products in the
market. The Company also take care of Vegan as well as customers who cannot tolerate
lactose and for them they produce dark chocolates.
 The Company also conduct various groups on consumer research and this platform help
the customers to put forward their interests, their likes as well as their dislikes towards the

4STRATEGIC CASE ANALYSIS
product. They have adopted the processes to keep a database according to the suggestions
made by the customers and they modify their services according to it.
Section 2: Whittaker’s Key Activities
In order to prove their strategies successful in the market, they have adopted certain activities
in order to bring them into action, they are:
 The hierarchies and the managers think that ‘Motivation’ would act as the key factor that
inculcate forces within an individual that directs that person and teaches him importance
of persistence associated with work and those energies can be expended into work, to
achieve fruitful results (Whittaker, Fath & Fiedler, 2016).
 When employees work under a renowned Company like Whittaker, they are always in
need of certain psychological necessities like autonomy, competency as well as
relatedness. According to the theories proposed by Edward Deci as well as Richard Ryan
on Self- Determination, people need to perceive intrinsically instead of extrinsically for
rewarding the particular activity and therefore people would receive motivation to
achieve the required objectives within an organization. Intrinsic rewards comprise of
senses associated with deep feelings, happiness and a feeling of belonging that would
increase productivity of labour.
 Certain extrinsic rewards were provided by the Company like awards for extra work and
free tickets for enjoying a movie or food and this actually help in sustaining employees in
the organization. Intrinsic as well as extrinsic rewards have the power to inculcate
motivational power within the employees (Copetti et al., 2014).
 Implication of various resources that usually deal with various human, financial as well
as material things that helps in attracting a large part of market segment in entire market.

5STRATEGIC CASE ANALYSIS
 The Company has adopted certain theories associated with Reinforcement, Process as
well as Content as these help to motivate behaviour of individuals and this also helps
manipulation of various consequences.
 The Company has also taken the initiatives in collecting resources as well as they focused
on establishing good relations with supply chains who would supply good quality of raw
materials for manufacturing various flavours with cocoa.
Section 3: Analysing Whittaker’s Likelihood of Success
Various industry factors as well as factors towards broader environmental perspectives,
various extent that would help the Company to turn into a profitable organization over
coming 5- 10 years:
 Reinforcement theories that has been described in the lectures of week 7 and week 8, help
to explain the behaviour of persons by the help of external factors in the environment and
this actually help to shape the attitude of persons towards the organization where they are
working.
 Through proper facilities of training in the Company Whittaker regarding ways in which
machineries to be handled and this increases the effectiveness of individuals working for
the organization (Hampton & Doostan, 2015).
 Facilitation of cross- culture communication among employees in the organization would
render opportunities to exchange ideas as well as technological processes regarding
extraction and processing of cocoa seeds and implementation of new ideas would help the
Company to acquire large amount of profits in coming next 5-10 years.
 According to Maslow Hierarchy of Needs as mentioned in the articles, it is required for
an organization to ensure safety working conditions for employees, understanding the

6STRATEGIC CASE ANALYSIS
responsibilities associated with the job would help the person to take part in the decision
making processes in the Company.
 Expectancy beliefs associated with self- efficacy efforts, help the Company to meet the
standards of expectation on products that are posed by the customers. The Company must
realize the self- efficacy of its own standards to produce the best in the market.
Section 4: Strategic Advice
Since the Company would mostly be facing various challenges if it continues to pursue
various strategies:
 Participation from the side of labour force will be declining in New Zealand since there
had been rise in proportion of current population who have age above 65 years. Therefore
will be lack of young employees in the sector who would show the urge to join these
industries and work hard to increase productivity (Trullemans & Signer, 2014,
September).. Therefore it can be suggested that the Company must adopt certain less
time-consuming methods as well as machineries that would prevent people from putting
extreme efforts, so that people from all ages can work in the Company.
 It is necessary to involve productivity of young women through proper education and
knowledge then they would be able to undertake certain challenges that are faced by the
organization. This would help to improve economic conditions of women workers who
earn near about 13% less than their male counterparts.
 Management of various diversities that exist within the organization most of the
employees generally take part in management of various characteristics of employees that
would assist in posing an impact on organization’s achievement of sustained objectives as
well as goals.

7STRATEGIC CASE ANALYSIS
 It can be recommended that top insurers asking for recruitment of staff of approximate
16,000 staff members including technology on robotics as it would help to minimize
various decisions at strategic level.
Conclusion
Therefore from the above discussion, value chain associated with products in an organization
may help to grow the resources as well as several materials that would help in creation of
various strategies towards achievement of quality products and standards associated within an
organization. On understanding the necessities of various customers who are buying
chocolate products Whittaker, would help the Company to build certain standards in the
organization. Prices of products need to be set at optimized level as this would increase sale
of these products in the market. Value associated with those products is usually splitted into
various activities as well as sub- activities and it is necessary on part of the organization to
establish quality relations with various departments in the industry. These would help to
create standard products in the market and achievement of sustainable methods to actually
help to acquire more number of sales in the market. Product differentiation methods based on
green techniques would help the Company to attract large part of market share of consumers
as this would prove to be helpful for health as well as beneficial for the environmental
standards.

8STRATEGIC CASE ANALYSIS
Reference List
Matthews, T. J., Cottee‐Jones, H. E. W., & Whittaker, R. J. (2015). Quantifying and
interpreting nestedness in habitat islands: a synthetic analysis of multiple datasets.
Diversity and Distributions, 21(4), 392-404.
Whittaker, D. H., Fath, B. P., & Fiedler, A. (2016). Assembling capabilities for innovation:
Evidence from new zealand SMEs. International small business journal, 34(1), 123-
143.
Trullemans, S., & Signer, B. (2014, September). From user needs to opportunities in
personal information management: a case study on organisational strategies in cross-
media information spaces. In IEEE/ACM Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (pp.
87-96). IEEE.
Hampton, J., & Doostan, A. (2015). Compressive sampling of polynomial chaos expansions:
Convergence analysis and sampling strategies. Journal of Computational Physics,
280, 363-386.
Copetti, M. V., Iamanaka, B. T., Pitt, J. I., & Taniwaki, M. H. (2014). Fungi and mycotoxins
in cocoa: From farm to chocolate. International Journal of Food Microbiology, 178,
13-20.
Inside Whittaker’s New Zealand chocolate factory (via Newshub)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XYBjbxx0ak

9STRATEGIC CASE ANALYSIS
Whittaker’s chocolate price to rise from Monday (via Stuff)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/food-news/111620280/whittakers-chocolate-
price-torise-
from-Monday
Whittaker’s opens first chocolate store (via Otago Daily Times)
https://www.odt.co.nz/business/whittakers-opens-first-chocolate-store
The achocalypse: What’s at stake in the global chocolate crisis (via Newshub)
https://bit.ly/2NEcOfO
Whittaker’s official website
https://www.whittakers.co.nz
How one small creamery sparked a chocolate milk craze in New Zealand (via Quartz)
https://qz.com/289507/how-one-small-creamery-sparked-a-chocolate-milk-craze-in-new-
zealand/
Sarriá, B., Martínez-López, S., Sierra-Cinos, J. L., Garcia-Diz, L., Goya, L., Mateos, R., &
Bravo, L. (2015). Effects of bioactive constituents in functional cocoa products on
cardiovascular health in humans. Food Chemistry, 174, 214-218.