Being in food industry for almost 150 years says a lot about General Mills. Like any other companies in its category, General Mills critically evaluates its Strengths, as well as its Weaknesses necessary for the company to be competitive in the food market industry. General Mills has numerous Strengths than Weaknesses, which explains the company’s continuous business success.
“Strong brand equity” and “Product development skills” are just few of its Strengths that contribute to its success. Its strong brand equity builds trust and loyalty not only to its customers but to the stakeholders as well. This is one of the advantages that makes the shareholders trust General Mills in its ability to be more productive and profitable.
Provide detailed response, comments and thoughts this this students below discussion response to the two listed questions below:
a) Assess what you believe to be the most important aspects of the internal environment at General Mills. Do not try to analyze every aspect of the internal organization -- rather, identify a minimum of two internal strengths and/or weaknesses. Do your best not to repeat the observations made by your peers, although you are encouraged to build on each other's observations (or to disagree).
b) Complete your SWOT by integrating the external environmental analysis you completed in Week 1 with your Week 2 internal analysis. Use your SWOT to conclude whether the organization’s overall outlook is more – or less – favorable
General Mills is known for breakthroughs in food technology (General Mills Homepage). Its product development skills tremendously contribute to this success making it one of its most important Strengths that the company will continue to maintain and develop.
The company’s internal strengths can be effectively used to neutralize some the company’s external environmental threats. For example, as the culture is becoming a more health-conscious society where younger consumers in the society are far more concerned about everything from food ingredients, genetically modified food to organic foods than previous generation (Watson, 2015), this can be construed as a threat to General Mills; however, through its product development skills, the company has developed a way to innovate its products by reducing sodium and sugar contents thereby supporting and answering the call of society--a healthy lifestyle.
By capitalizing on the company’s numerous Strengths—strength in numbers, General Mills can neutralize or eliminate its Weaknesses and environmental Threats making its overall outlook to be favorable.