Jamba Juice Case Analysis

Jamba Juice Case Analysis

Wesley Duncan

Davenport University

Abstract

        Jamba Juice is the leading fruit and smoothie company that has enjoyed a rapid growth and expansion, but needs to look at new ways to continue to see the organization grow.  Jamba Juice needs to perform several analyses of their organization so that they know what they are doing right and where they need to improve their organization.  The first thing that Jamba Juice needs to do is use the Five Forces Model to determine where their strengths and weaknesses are so they can see areas that they need to improve upon.  Next they need to perform a value chain analysis to see where they can reduce their costs in order to better meet the demands of their customers.  The last form of analysis that Jamba Juice needs to carry out is a portfolio analysis of their products so that they can see how their products stack up against those of their competitors.  Once all of those forms of analysis have been evaluated, Jamba Juice can take the list of recommendations that they will receive and begin to act upon them so that they can keep their current market share, as well as expand their market share to levels that they have previously not achieved.

Introduction

        One of the most interesting things that a company can do to improve the overall financial health of that organization is to stop and take a good look at the entire organization from where it has been, where it is, and where it hopes to go in the future.  One company that has begun that process is Jamba Juice, a leader in the fruit and smoothie industry.  In order to be able to understand what progress an organization has made is by looking at the recent background of the company.  Once they have a full understanding of where they have been, they can then utilize Porter’s Five Forces to determine where the power lies within their organization.  The next step that Jamba Juice needs to carry out is a value chain analysis, because that will enable them to understand where they create value for their customers with their products and service.  The third area that will need to be investigated is a portfolio analysis, which will look at the various products and services that Jamba Juice offers their customers and how they compare to their competitors.  After all of that information has been compiled, the last step is to determine solutions and recommendations for their current business situation and how they can look to continue to grow beyond where they are at.  However, before Jamba Juice can look at where they need to go, they have to understand where they have been.

Background

        When looking at where a company has been it is best to start out at the beginning and then quickly move to where they have been recently.  Jamba Juice, like so many other companies, had humble beginnings when it was created by Kirk Perron in California, in April of 1990.  Kirk Perron opened his business with the idea of offering customers who wanted healthy beverages something more than just the usual carrot juice with one or two vitamin or protein powders.  His idea was to offer those customers healthy fruit smoothies with numerous healthy boosts that could be added to meet the needs of their customers.  His business concept was well received as it began to grow and expand across the United States, and they even started to merge with other companies that were previously competitors.  However, the period of rapid growth was dramatically stopped during the Great Recession at the end of the first decade of the 21st century.  Jamba Juice realized that they needed to make some changes and in 2009, under the leadership of their new CEO, James White, they began a new set of corporate goals.  The five new goals that Jamba Juice had are:  change the company by refranchising existing stores, initiate international growth, build a retail presence with branded consumer packaged goods and licensing, bring more food offerings to the menus across all parts of the day, and implement a strict reduction in expenses while increasing comparable sales (Dess, Lumpkin, Eisner, & McNamara, 2014).  After implementing those changes there were improvements tot eh organization, but they did experience several quarters of financial losses.