Ben & Jerry Auquisition Case with Unilever

Executive Summary

In the past three decades, Ben & Jerry's has made a transition from a local ice cream maker into a large multinational corporation. The unique history and culture has made Ben & Jerry's brand into a social icon. The core values and mission of the company have been defined as three interrelated parts in Ben & Jerry's mission statement. The ever changing market has posed constant challenges to Ben & Jerry's, which calls for a comprehensive strategy that addresses the competitive difficulties, while allowing Ben & Jerry's to remain consistent with its mission and background.

This report analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of Ben & Jerry's organizational design during this transitional period in terms of its culture, social mission, marketing, competition, product development, manufacturing and distribution. We recommend that Ben & Jerry's continues to strive in the global business market by taking following actions: protect the brand name while maintaining core cultural values, continue social activism at a local level, while exercising caution in the overtly politically arena, develop products that remain true to their roots, while using the new resources available from Unilever, and adopt a Lean manufacturing and distribution platform.

Analysis

Following the merger with Unilever, Ben & Jerry's faces challenges as it navigates within a larger corporation while maintaining it's identity and making improvements to compete globally. Ben & Jerry's has a strong company culture, aggressive social mission, targeted product development, and inefficient manufacturing and distribution systems. We arrived at these conclusions by analyzing these challenges in terms of culture as normative order, management as a symbolic action, and by examining the company's core values and examples of real world strategy. Our analysis is organized as follows: First, we discuss how the culture has changed and what needs to be maintained. Next, we review Ben & Jerry's social mission and the advantages it provides. Then, we discuss how the marketing, competition, and product development can benefit from the merger and long held methods. Finally, we delve into performance improvements in the manufacturing and distribution system used by Ben & Jerry's.

Ben & Jerry has built an iconoclastic corporate culture. The company environment is unconventional and innovative, and features casual dress, relaxed demeanor, flat hierarchy, open communication and a participatory management philosophy. Unique employee benefits, such as on site day care and free employee assistance program, have created a family-like atmosphere. In the product development, Ben & Jerry's is committed to producing all-natural ice cream with no artificial ingredients or