Wagner Foods Solution
Company history
Wagner Corporation is a big multinational and multidivisional company; the company started in 1898 as a specialty foods manufacturer and as a private company until the corporation went public and enlisted in the stock exchange in 1925. The company has grown due to the high quality and reasonable prices of their cereals especially during the great depression when the company was able to win consumer confidence and the company has also enjoyed a very long period of monopoly.
After the depression the company diversified and ventured in other divisions; the company created other product lines to deal with other consumer oriented grain based product with divisions to cater for the restaurant and industrial market, later the company ventured in non food related businesses like plastic packaging and real estate. The international marketplace was entered through partnerships, affiliations and acquisitions. By 1990 Wagner had grown into a multinational, multidivisional corporation with sales of nearly $600 million per year the growth progress continues but at a much slower rate.
Wagner deals with its divisions and subsidiaries on the principle autonomy as long as they meet their goals the corporation leaves them to run themselves as they most fee appropriate, as a result the administrative corporate staff is rather small for a corporation of its size. The divisions and subsidiaries are loosely structured groups for reporting and administrative purposes.
The company set an annual goal in the past five years of 5 percent growth in both sales and profit. The goals were met in both 1999 and 2000 where Wagner net sales were almost $790 million. Although the corporation is diversified, the original Cereal Products Group (CPG) continues as the largest contributor to total sales with 1999 sales of $444 million. CPG also achieved its 2000 sales goal of $475 million.
In the late 1970s, Wagner Foods, Inc. decided to establish a new...