Cabelin, Raven

Cruz, Efraime
Kone, Souleymane
Rocafort, Andrea Nicole

A Business Case Study on SuperJuice

INTRODUCTION

After many years of successful marketing, the Florida juice manufacturing company

known as SuperJuice has always been faithful into the traditional way of making juices. Because

of this, they started gaining some serious competitors in the market. Among those competitors

were two former workers from the company who have decided to set their own business in a

more modernly adaptive marketing system that respond to the public demands. This company

has also adopted a new way to address the general public need by introducing new flavors that

are in line with the current marketing trends. Surprisingly, these newly presented products are

continually dominating the market, giving SuperJuice a hard time.

Aside from the problems with the competitors, SuperJuice has been facing issues inside

the company with regards to their employees as well. The company has stuck to the traditional

way of management (e.g. 8-hours straight office shift) but some employees have not been

responding positively to this kind of leadership.

With the current issues faced by the company, it has been clear that the problem of the

SuperJuice is its failure to adapt to the changes in the environment leading to the downfall of

the company. With this, what concrete actions can the management implement to be able to

respond to the changes in the internal and external environment?

MACRO/GENERAL ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS

Economical
 Since competitors are rising and given that they are using the same ingredients with that

as SuperJuice, the demand for the ingredients in producing their fruit juice will also rise, leading

to higher bargaining power of supplier. By the same token, customers now have more options to

choose from the pool of juice brand, so they may also possess high bargaining power of buyer.

Both of these will certainly decrease the sale of the company since they need to buy ingredients

at higher cost and sell their product at lower cost.

Socio-cultural

The lifestyle of the youth, the target market of the SuperJuice, is currently changing.

They desire something new and they are tired and fed up by the usual products of the

SuperJuice. Luisas son, in particular, asserted that SuperJuice are just for kids. Given that

these case is already in 21st century, these change in customers preferences can be traced to

their being millennial, which are said to become easily bored of taking same products.

Another socio-cultural aspects in the study is that kids who currently likes SuperJuice

will predictably change their preferences when they become older (age factor). They will realize

their need for variety in having juice products, which the SuperJuice currently fail to address.

Technological

SuperJuices competitors, who before were its employees, are very open in exploring

advanced technology and courageous in experimenting and introducing whatever new product in

the market. Aside from improving the brand, they also employ modern technology in marketing

promotions like lively rock music and television advertisements that cater favorability of

customers.
 Unfortunately, SuperJuice evidently lacks curiosity and technological innovation. They

are known for efficient set of systems and great in following rules but their products will

gradually be outdated if they will not implement strategies in utilizing technology to produce

new products.

INDUSTRY ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS

Competitors

Even though being successful for being the top selling juice brand in its region for the

past decades, SuperJuice began to lose its profits due to the increasing popularity of its new

competitors. These competitors are more innovative, open to create new flavors, accept new

ideas as well as adapt to the changing technology. Competitors experiments new products

together with new approaches to marketing. Specifically, they sell new exotic drinks which are

becoming a trend, which is complimented by setting up of drink carts at outdoor festivals and

advertising with jingles and slogans. SuperJuices main consumer, the youth, is being attracted to

these new and exotic flavors, and interesting advertisements and publication, making SuperJuice

further lose its customers.

Customers

The fast-paced and diverse taste of the new generation changes as well as trends in health

and lifestyle. These consumers prefer the competitors products rather than the old and classic

features of SuperJuice. They crave something new, unique or different than the usual product

that SuperJuice offer. Because of its calm and stagnant nature, the company fails to compete with

its competitors. The company now should first take a step in winning back their buyers taste and
acquire new population of customer or else their company will continue to decline its sales.

Suppliers

The bargaining power of suppliers is heightened by the entry of more competitors, which

is very threatening to the company. As discussed in economic aspect, demands for same

ingredients will be high which eventually leads to high prices of products.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strength

Quoting from the case, SuperJuice management has always prided itself on the

companys efficient set of systems, both in the factory and at headquarters. Managers

concentrated on making a high-quality product as inexpensively as possible. In other words, the

strength of SuperJuice is the proper way of delegating tasks to its employees to be able to have

an efficient system that will help their company be organized.

Another strength that can be deduced from the case is the loyalty and commitment

provided by the employees. Because of that, SuperJuice has to capitalize these traits shown by

their workers by implementing the best leadership style fit for them.

Weakness

The weakness of SuperJuice is its inability to cope up and respond to the changing trends

in the external environment and the changing leadership preference of their new batches of

employees.
Opportunity

With the increasing technological advancement in this time, there are many avenues to

market their market.

They can capitalize on their established name

Threats

The competitors are from SuperJuice so they know the ins and outs of SuperJuice

Increasing number of competitors

WHAT SHOULD LUISA DO?

Internal Decision

As the CEO of SuperJuice, Luisa has to make sure that before making any decision, she

has to recognize first all the problems of the company and assess all of these to come up with the

most suitable solutions to all the collated problems. As stated in the problem statement, the main

dilemma of SuperJuice is the difficulty to adjust to the internal and external forces affecting

them. Because of that, we came up with the different responses they can implement to adapt to

the changes brought by the internal and external environment.

Culture of Organization

As stated in the case, SuperJuice is a company that has a culture that reminds us of the

1950s due to its traditional way of working - from the long standing rules and procedures set up

to the calm and civilized workplace the employees are used to. However, in this fast-paced

modern world, SuperJuice has to take into consideration that the company has to be more
adaptive to catch up with its competitors. Most employees are accustomed to the calm and

composed environment but they have to live up with the rapid changes in this generation.

What the organization can do is to adjust to the unconventional way of working of other

employees. The company must foster innovation and creativity. The company can implement a

flexible time of working as compared to an 8-hour straight working time for an employee as long

as their workers submit all their deliverables excellently and on time. In such a creativity-centric

and learning kind of organization, employees have different ways of keeping their creative juice

flowing, as proven by some of the workers mentioned in the case (i.e. playing rock music,

decorating their offices with brightly colored posters, etc.). For employees not to take advantage

of this kind of rule, managers have to make sure to keep track of the progress of the people under

them on a regular basis.

Product Innovation

A number of young employees left due to the tight management control. The company

failed to realize that these young people are very open to innovation and are not accustomed to

following everything by the book as preferred by the management. Innovation and development

will lead SuperJuice to cope up with the changing behavior of the market and their customers.

Their young employees can be their assets in this department since the younger generation is

more exposed to the trends of their target market which is the youth. In line with this, the

company could use an effective rebranding of their front like the logo to reflect the internal

changes progressing to an innovative and more creative working environment and flexible

company policies.
 SuperJuice should create a Research and Development Department in their company

dedicated only in the experimentation and innovation of their juice products. The company

should be receptive to the different changes in the behavior of its consumers to be able to come

up with the best creative flavors that will suit the tastes of their target market.

Trainings

Employees must also feel that the company is taking care of them. To encourage growth

of the employees, they must be engaged in different training sessions that will enhance their

skills and knowledge with regards to the ins and outs of the company. Some trainings can focus

on the supply chain and production of juice, the different marketing strategies that can be

implemented by the company, technology advancements that can contribute to the efficiency

of SuperJuice and even personal development activities for the personal growth of employees.

Feedback System

Communication from the top management up to the employees must be transparent to be

able to adjust to the evaluation from every entity in the organization. For the company to be able

to be successful, it must be open to feedbacks. Feedbacks can answer the following questions,

but are not limited to these:

What did the company achieve?

What worked from all the adjustments we did?

What can be further improved?

 Feedback can also be done by assessing the performance of the managers and their

employees. The collated individual feedback will make the employees aware of their strengths

and weaknesses and can be of help to further improve and develop themselves. This can

contribute to the growth of the individuals and the company as well.

External Decision

Aside from changing aspects in the firm or generally in internal environment, it is also

important to conduct external decision that will address the companys problem regarding

stagnant sales and rising competitors. The best external decisions are: expanding the target

market, providing samples of new juice to customers and obtain feedback, and launch more

catchy, original and imaginative advertising that will depend on preferences of customers and the

market trends.

Expanding Target Market and Sales Promotion

Once the top managers already taste the new juice formulated by anyone (for instance by

non-managerial employee), they can test it in the market for a limited time and selective places,

then observe and collate the customers opinion concerning the product. Here, they have variety

of customer options not only the high school and youth but even population from different ages

like children, middle aged and senior citizen. This is a great opportunity to gain more customers

and new target market. Nonetheless, it is important to note that their target market is still the

youth since they already gained their loyalty for more than decades. Its just in this case, they are

Launch Trending Advertisements Preferred by Customers

 To attract new customers, as stated before, they need to first introduce the new product

through sales promotion like free-taste. Building awareness on the product is the main objective

of thesestage. Just as their competitors set-up drink carts, jingles and slogans, they must

conduct researches regarding preferences of customers when it comes to what type of

advertisement will captivate them most. For instance, if the youth likes loud and lively pop

music, the companys marketing department may create new pop songs to be played in their

stores and television for effective and catchy advertisements.

Note that comparing the product in this stage must be avoided because customer are still

loyal to their current brand, comparison can be done once their product boomed, which is in

growth stage. After the growth stage, the product will be in maturity stage but this takes sales

consistency and perhaps long time.

In case the companys new product would reach its maturity stage, the company may not

acquire any more sales but they already gained customers so launching new features in the juice

or giving incentives will be beneficial to maintain the product sales.

If they fail for these technique and the new juice did not even reach growth stage for it

already disregarded by customers right after its introduction, the company must not stop but

rather be more motivated to apply their learning in making new products until they introduce

The Product that will soon capture the taste and loyalty of customers.

POTENTIAL PROBLEM ANALYSIS

Some of the potential problem in changes in internal environment is that some employees

make take advantage of flexible time. This is where the top managers must still control the

progress or at least remind the employees for their objective which is 1) to produce their current
juice for sales and 2) think and experiment for new product. Interconnectedly, the company

must not forget the care and feeding of the employee. Aside from their freedom when to conduct

experiments and when to finish their quotas, they must be given time to build friendship

(cultivating their social needs) and right monetary incentives and credit if they introduce a

brilliant idea for a new product so the employee will not think of leaving the company and start

business in his/her own, just like what the previous two employees did.