Managing Organization

a. You are employed by a consumer products organization that has been rapidly growing for the past several years. The organization is primarily focused on pre packaged baby food and ready mix formula all made from organic products.
b. The domestic U.S. market has produced stellar growth but is starting to slow down. The CEO has asked you to consider where the organization should expand next and outline the steps the firm should take in determining the direction.
c. Based on what you have learned in the class, where or how would recommend the organization expand? What process would you use in determining the direction? Briefly, what are the risks and upsides of your plan?Make sure to explain the process you will use to make the decision.

In determining the next big market to expand, the firm should do an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the company and also should try to understand the opportunities and threats that the external world would present to the company. This can be accomplished by using a SWOT analysis and by aligning the strengths with the opportunities, the firm can zero down on the potential opportunities.

Next the firm can also do an analysis of the internal culture of the firm and also do a PESTLE analysis of the potential markets so that a mapping of the political, economic, technological and cultural factors can be done and it can studied which market is the closest to the current market across dimensions. Once the closest target market is identified, it can then decide to expand into that market.

As per the analysis, it would be beneficial for the firm to expand into a market where the spending power of the consumer is similar to US and there is a certain degree of cultural similarity. So such a candidate market could be United Kingdom.

The process followed for determining the potential market is:-

1) Determining internal strengths and weakness.

2) Access external market opportunities and threats

3) Determination of potential markets.

4) Undertaking a PESTLE analysis and determining the most suitable market by choosing the market which is most similar in all dimensions to the current market.

The risks of the plan is that there could be unforeseen events or disruption which may make the choice unviable or incorrect. Moreover it is slow and exhaustive process, so go to market may be slow.

The advantages are that all pros and cons are evaluated and so chances of success and risk mitigation is high.