Question

Who might be complementors to the yogurt company Danone North America? What industry position is this company in (fragmented, emerging, mature, or declining)?

Answer 1

Danone North America mostly deals in dairy products, baby foods, health foods and bottled water. Danone yogurt is one of the most relished product by customers.Danone yogurt can be complimented by products like, fresh fruits, honey, nuts, granola, chocolate chips, strawberries etc.

Danone is French-based food and beverage multinational headed by Frank Riboud as CEO, during his 16 years tenure he transformed Danone into an international supplier of dairy products, baby foods, health foods and bottled water. It has distinctive management style which focuses on strong values, decentralisation and entrepreneurial approach for business development. This international approach of the company can be categorized as opportunistic and fragmented.A fragmented industry is one without a dominant player. Many times the business itself is small, but the industry overall can be large. Danone should adopt Differentiation strategy in order to gain competitive advantage.

Following are some of key points which can be adopted by Danone to promote and grow its business:

• It can celebrate Yogurt day as it will help in creating closer relation with the customers. It can organize some baby oriented competition like healthy baby competition to promote its baby products.
• It can promote its iconic brands like nutritional baby products and nutritional products in the developed markets.
• It should conduct strong R&D in its brands like fresh dairy products and water and try its best to be more innovative.
• Effective cost management techniques and supply chain management techniques will help it to reduce its overhead and production cost and gain more profits.