Campbell's Leadership Strategy example essay topic

In order to build an organization with the competencies, capabilities, and resource strengths to carry out the strategy successfully, a strong leadership must be present. The leadership challenge is twofold: deciding when to make adjustments and deciding what adjustments to make. Then, there comes that time in every company when a manager has to alter the company's direction, revise objectives, modify strategy, or fine-tune the approaches to strategy execution. Enter in Douglas R. Conant, appointed CEO on January 8, 2001 as well as elected a Director of the Campbell's Soup Company. In the past 132 years, there have only been ten leaders of the company, Conant being the 11th.

Conant has a lot of experience, previously working for such companies as Nabisco, Phillip Morris Companies, Inc. (Kraft), and General Mills. It has been previously mentioned that sometimes a company just needs to be completely altered and change courses. That is exactly what Conant did. Some of the changes that he implemented were simple; others took more time, money and energy. Some of these changes are as follows: Creation of a new cold blend process; emblazoning corporate headquarters and the company's annual report with a new slogan: "It's not enough to be a legend".

With this new slogan, Conant was making a bold statement. By saying that "Its not enough to be a legend", he is driving the company in a new direction. It seems that with this slogan, Campbell's will no longer stay in the wings; they are going to be coming up with new ideas and new products; raiding the ranks of competitors such as Kraft Foods Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. while replacing about half of Campbell's top 300 executives. Conant saw potential to almost totally gut the interior of the company and bring in fresh, young blood. This bold move plays hand-in-hand with the new slogan. Because of these brass ideas, we would recommend Although some of these changes were just simply paying more attention to detail, others cost money, and a lot of it.

To get financing for his endeavors, Conant convinced the Campbell's board to slash company dividends in 2001 by 30%, he set aside nearly $200 Million over two years to revamp factories, and spent an additional $200 Million on marketing in the first year that he was there. Campbell's leadership strategy has come a long way, evolving and changing over the years. When current CEO Douglas Conant came to the company, he saw a problem. The problem was that the company was suffocating itself. So, he did what any smart, intelligent CEO would do - he changed things around, and in a big way.

From replacing 150 of the 300 top executives of the company to cutting dividends, Conant took no prisoners. His efforts exemplify what a triumphant, well-executed leadership strike is all about and how effective it can be. When Campbell's was using the defensive strategy they were trying to lower the chances of them getting attacked by competitors, reduce the damage done by those who did attack them, and try to influence their rivals to focus their attention on other competitors. While their defensive strategy did not help with the company's competitive advantage, it helped fortify its competitive position, protected its valuable resources and sustained its competitive advantage (without pushing it forward).

The question is now whether we would buy or recommend the Campbell's stock due to is new leadership strategy. We unanimously agreed that we would because we feel that Conant has the skills and tactics to turn around the company's line of attack. Due to these leadership and technical improvements that Campbell's is undergoing, we would definitely recommend buying the stock.