Marketing Management in the Bama Companies

The Bama Companies began as the Bama Pie Company in the kitchen of its founder, Cornelia Alabama Marshall, in year 1927. Bama Pie has been the single source supplier of pies to McDonald’s U.S. operations. Bama had been able to expand its core pie business by landing 50 percent of McDonald’s oven-ready, prebaked frozen biscuit needs. Bama Pie produced more than 1 million pies per day from facilities in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for McDonald’s. Other major customers included Pizza Hut (for which Bama was producing approximately 25 percent of its bread stick requirements), TCBY, and Braum’s. The History of Bama Pie dates to 1927 when Henry C. Marshall decided to utilize the pie-baking talents of his wife, Cornelia Alabama Marshall, to provide employment for himself after a lengthy period of being out of work. The company s CEO now was Paula Marshall-Chapman, who succeeded her father in 1985 as a chief executive officer of the company.

Main Body

1.) What impress you most about Bama Pie?

About Bama Pie, the most thing impress me is the mission of the company. The word most often heard around Bama Pie headquarters in Tulsa was quality. Marshall-Chapman had attended numerous quality conferences and had spoken to international groups about commitment to quality. The company had dropped the traditional mission statement for “Bama’s Quality Circle.” The company also had a values statement that reinforced “quality as a way of life” at Bama Pie. The company’s quality statement was read before every meeting held in the company.

Bama Pie shall continue to operate as a privately held and fiscally responsible company, and shall be oriented to serving our customer’s needs. Our mission is to consistently strive to improve all process, through continuous improvement, to ensure total customer satisfaction. We are committed to:

Being flexible and responsive to our customers

Ensuring that product requirements are adhered to throughout our processes.

Maintaining a high degree of employee motivation by providing an environment of equal opportunity, fair treatment, and growth opportunities. This includes fair and equitable compensation, involvement, recognition, and rewards.

Operating and establishing “partnership relationships” with our suppliers.

Providing management with information and controls which empowers the planning and decision-making process.

Being a “Corporate Good Citizen” by active and responsible involvement in our community.

One of the major contributions of the acquisition was an understanding of quality. The slogan of Bama Pie is “Keep your eye on the key to success, QUALITY.”

2.) Do a SWOT analysis of Bama Pie.

Strengths

Quality has always been the company’s top priority. By providing top-quality pie products and “never missing an order.” The company had instilled a total quality management discipline in their employees through extensive training and educational programs offered through the in-house Bama Pie Institute.

Long-term relationship with McDonald’s has allowed Bama Pie to grow along with McDonald’s as one of its key suppliers. Its new role as a supplier of McDonald’s breakfast biscuit requirements was expected to allow Bama Pie to increase total sales to approximately $100 million in 1992.

Paula reshaped the management team significantly and assembled a highly professional staff with an average age under 40. The team members are all well-educated, experienced and young.

Weaknesses

Bama Pie is the single-source supplier of pies to McDonald’s U.S. operations.

Less than 10 percent of the company’s revenues came from products carrying the Bama Pie brand.

The company is so depend on McDonald’s.

Opportunities

Bama had been able to expand its core pie business by landing 50 percent of McDonald’s oven-ready, prebaked frozen biscuit needs.

The company’s core product lines are hand-held pies, biscuits, buns, pie shells, and pizza crust.

Bama Pie focus is on business-to-business relationships in the Quick Service Restaurants, Fast Casual, and Broadline Channels of the Foodservice Industry.

Bama Pie also got many major customers such as Pizza Hut, TCBY, and Braum’s.

Threats

The economy can be considered a threat to the company because, no matter how hard a company works or how good its products are, economic conditions dictate a business’s profit and success. Economic downturns can decrease the demand for goods or services on the market.

Some company can copy the idea from Bama Pie and open another company similar to Bama Pie.

3.) What kind of jobs are Ms Paula Marshall-Chapman doing that contributed to Bama Pie’s success?

Paula Marshall-Chapman succeeded her father in 1985 as chief executive officer of the company and immediately made quality her top priority. As Bama’s Chief Executive Officer, Paula provides strategic leadership and direction to the entire organization. Her vision stands as a beacon for Bama team members, inspiring the organization to achieve the Bama mission. She was the person trained to run the new computer system, and in that capacity she learned the value of training people and helping people solve problems. She was known as the Bama’s problem.

Paula assumed responsibility as CEO of the Bama Companies in 1984, which now includes Bama Pie, Bama Foods, Bama Frozen Dough, Base, Inc., and Beijing Bama. Under her leadership Bama has expanded to provide a wide variety of frozen desserts and baked goods to fast food chains and casual and family dining restaurants.

Bama decided to computerize, and Paula was selected to make the purchase. As a result, she was the person trained to run the new system, and in that capacity she learned the value of training people and helping people solve problems. Since she also had to set up the company’s systems on the computer, she learned about costs, payables, and invoicing, and again expanded her knowledge about the company.

She also reshaped the management team significantly after she took control of the company and assembled a highly professional staff with an average age under 40.

4.) Identify Bama Pie’s competitive advantages and how are these competitive advantages sustainable?

Bama Pie has a lot of competitive advantages, by providing top-quality pie products and “never missing an order.” The company had instilled a total quality management discipline in their employees through extensive training and educational programs offered through the in-house Bama Pie Institute. Bama had been able to expand its core pie business by landing 50 percent of McDonald’s oven-ready, prebaked frozen biscuit needs.

Its new role as a supplier of McDonald’s breakfast biscuit requirements was expected to allow Bama Pie to increase total sales to approximately $100 million in 1992. The customers of the Bama Pie also can be the competitive advantages, Bama Pie’s other major customers included Pizza Hut (for which Bama was producing approximately 25 percent of its bread stick requirements), TCBY, and Braum’s. Paula reshaped the management team significantly and assembled a highly professional staff with an average age under 40. The team members are all well-educated, experienced and young.

Competitive advantages denote a firm’s ability to achieve market superiority over its competitors. A firm has many options in defining its long-term goals and objectives, the customers it want to serve, the products and services it produces and delivers, and the design of the production and service system to meet these objectives. Creating a sustainable competitive advantage depends on developing and executing a good strategy.

5.) If you were asked by Ms Paula Marshall-Chapman to recommend specific marketing strategies for a marketing plan, what marketing strategic options would you examine and what options would you recommend?

If I were asked by Ms Paula Marshall-Chapman to recommend specific marketing strategies for a marketing plan, I would examine some marketing strategic options. However, while financial returns from the possession of a better strategic focus and the availability of detailed performance feedback ultimately may be enormous, large integrating frameworks such as business scorecards are very difficult to quantify from a return-on-investment perspective.

Communicate the strategic direction of the company. Link individuals, business units, functional areas, and departments across the organization. Focus measures on key drivers of performance to ensure the organization is working toward the same goals.

Probably some mix of these alternative modes of education will be in order. An important consideration, however, is to select and stage educational venues so that a consistent point of view is presented. A scattershot approach might confuse people more than it will enlighten them.

Central to the company’s War Room is the strategy map, which includes five strategic outcomes that will help the company attain its Future Picture. These outcomes include people, learning and innovation, business improvement, customers and financial. The company’s vision is to “Create and deliver loyalty, prosperity and fun for all, while becoming a billion dollar company.” As part of the Baldrige Award application process, a feedback report is given to all applicants. This report serves as a continuous improvement tool and helps Bama address all of its problems instead of sweeping them under the rug.

The company also need uses a Balanced Scorecard System (BSS) to measure performance at four levels: company, facility, department or team, and process. The BSS allows every employee to review the company’s performance, which promotes accountability, the company says. And also employs a Data Warehouse System (DWS) to integrate information from BSS and other performance databases. This integrated system allows the company to track operations and overall organizational performance on a daily basis. DWS also enables the company to understand the relationship between its actions and their results.