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Corporate Strategy

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Submitted By udi88
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Exam in Corporate Strategy and Organization Design,
Exam number: 300872
Question 1
During Roger Paffard’s time as chief executive, Thorntons’ vertical scope on the entire organization was in general to improve efficiency and to cut down costs. These two focus areas was mainly to be promoted through a structural change of the board of directors, a caretaking process with regards to franchised shops and outlets due to the believe that it was essential to maintain an experience of fresh products, and this was best achieved if Thornton chose and controlled their franchisers with care. Moreover the delivery fleet served the company’s outlets through a 48 hour order delivery cycle.
Thornton had taken into review whether it was better to outsource physical distribution but due to considerations that included the fragility of some of the product ranges, difficulties of access to city centers and night delivery and shop security the physical distribution network was kept retained. The general network expansion of outlets through closure of 126 shops and opening of 216 which took the total number of shops from 269 to 359 helped this decision, because this was also a factor to reduced distribution costs. According to the statistics Roger Paffard succeeded in this, during his time as chief executive the number of own shops has increased and the number of franchisees has declined in addition both the profit after tax and the operating profit has been increased in his time as chief executive
In 1998 the senior management’s view on the corporation was that it was a market-led, retail-driven business selling into a market that could be defined in more than one way. It could be seen as a gift market, where boxed chocolates competed with a wide range of products, promoted by high-specialist retailers such as The Body Shop and KnickerBox. In this market Thorntons also had to

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