Business Analysis of Ben and Jerry's

Business Analysis of Ben and Jerry's

Introduction: Overview of the Case

The corporation of Ben and Jerry’s first began on May 5, 1978 in a small town called Burlington located in Virginia. The founders of this ice cream parlor were Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield with only limited funds of $8,000, they produced a famous nationwide parlor that caters to millions of people. Specialty flavors of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Cherry Garcia, Rain Forest Crunch, and frozen yogurt are attractions and symbols to the corporation. Establishing themselves as a top tier competitor in the ice cream industry. The first shop was opened in an abandoned gas station, making their drive and motivation during that time inspiring.

Ben and Jerry’s sold their premium ice cream products to supermarkets, convenience stores, grocery stores, and restaurants. They marketed themselves successfully, in which many consumers held Ben and Jerry’s ice cream as a standard in comparison with other ice cream. From only a few thousand dollars, the business grew to a million dollar corporation. During the 1990’s, they experienced losses like no other, by losing $1.87 million on sales of $148.8 million.

The mission statement consisting of the social mission, product mission, and economic mission dictated the behavior, practices, philosophies, ideologies, and principles of the corporation. Showcasing the ice cream firm as unusual in comparison with the fundamental practices of Corporate America. Their operations consists of globally expanding, improving the quality of a broad community, making, distributing, selling the finest quality ice cream, increasing value for shareholders, and providing employees with rewards and benefits.

Ben and Jerry’s are always looking to improve the quality of ice cream by creating, innovating, and promoting their decisions and integrating them within the mission statement to function in a consistent and repeatable manner.

Problem Statement:

With losses of $1.87 million on sales of a record high in net sales of $148 million, the focus is on the income statement. The income statement shown in Exhibit 1 illustrates the problem of spending too much on expenses. The budget on expenses was not clearly thought out, as in 1994 Ben and Jerry’s lost a significant amount of money. If this type of budgeting continues, the ice cre...

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...option #4, a cheap effective way to create a new opportunity for more consumers and a quick efficient way to boost up profits. The internet is a great way to attract many consumers you could not attract locally. Selling frozen inventory through a website will create more profits to the corporation.

With more money on hand, option #3 would be best to incorporate niches in the market to help expand ideas within the firm of creating a new frozen treats for different categories of the ice cream industry. Finally, option #2 should be used, because with a new product, it would be best to challenge competitors with a few of them experiencing heavy losses as it is. As well as having the same mentality as Ben Cohen And Jerry Greenfield had when their drive and motivation enabled them to become nationwide ice cream giants in the market. Having the same desire will help create a passion that will progress the parlor forward.

The options described are steps that can be used to develop Ben and Jerry’s from a two-men leading to a teamwork environment. My personal opinion in this matter is to reduce costs and introduce a new line of product to help both employees and customers.