United Cereal: Lora Brill's Eurobrand Challenge

Product Management

Professor Twillman

30 October 2012

United Cereal: Lora Brill's Eurobrand Challenge

In my opinion, Lora Bill should authorize Michel's request to lunch Healthy Berry Crunch in France. My decision was based on the following reasons:

a) A 64% intention to repurchase of the healthy Berry Cruncy is very promising taking into consideration that will be a new product implementation.

b) "Although Kellogg's Special K with Strawberries had been launched in France in 2006, to date it was alone in this new segment" (Case). Besides the fact that the company would not be the first in the market lunching this type of product, still competitive advantage could be obtained because this would be the second product of that type lunched in the market.

c) The PodCafé debacle case is another indicator that the company should move fast in order to gain competitive advantage. The company should learn from their past mistakes because that is part of their company culture.

d) Lunching the product in France would permit maintain the organizational structure as it is and would also be in line with the innovation culture the company has.

I totally disagree with the Euroband propasals base on the following reasons:

a) The last intent in lunching a product without considering cultural differences was a total disaster. The company culture is all about listen the customer, thus taking into consideration cultural differences should be a priority while considering a lunch. I consider that lunching the Berry Crunch as a European product would not comply with the organizational philosophy.

b) The launch of the product as a European product will increase costs significantly.

c) The company would need to make significantly organizational changes that would lead to organizational discontent and friction among coworkers.

d) Lunching the product as a European product will take too much time.

In conclusion, my implementation plan would be to lunch the product in France, however, If the company would like to continue to promote the Euroband concept, I would highly recommend lunching the product in France first to gain competitive advantage in that market, and then taking into consideration the results of the France Lunch, continue to lunch the product in the whole European Union.