Company Description

A- Organizational Culture:
EZ-Pleeze is a United States company that produces chicken and beef products. In Competing
Values Framework there are four different cultures, include Hierarchy, Clan, Market and
Adhocracy (Cameron, 2006). At EZ-Pleeze Company, the organizational culture reflects both
hierarchical and market culture. Hierarchy culture is the most common culture. In this culture
there is a strict chain of command. A leader gives commands to his employees, then they
deliver the orders to their sub-ordinates (Quinn, 1983). This type of culture provides the
opportunity for growth and involves all employees to discuss their innovative ideas but the CEO
is responsible to take the final decisions. EZ-Pleeze is a large company with effective
hierarchical structure as well.

“Market cultures focus on external factors, based on results and competitive behavior of the
competitors” (Quinn, 1983). When a company starts its operations it has to focus on many
factors and large investment, may also suffer loss. So is the case with the EZ-Pleeze company it
has to face many competitors, also to increase its revenue, it focuses on providing both beef
and chicken low prices and also in good quality.

1- Appropriateness of the current mission statement for EZ-Pleeze:

The mission statement of a company, describes purpose of existence and current business
operations in a company (Hitt, 2011). The mission statement of EZ-Pleeze Company is
appropriate as it discuss their services that they are dealing with chicken and beef products
and providing quality goods to customers. They are using technology and innovation also
providing benefits to its employees. They are trying to provide good profits to shareholders
as well. Although it is appropriate mission statement because they know who they are,
what they are doing, where they are, what their goals are and also doing a lot for its
employees and shareholders, but at the same time too lengthy. A mission statement
should be realistic not a commitment and they not mention what they are doing for
community. A realistic but not idealistic and too easy, mission statement should be.
(Eisenhardt & Zbaracki, 1992). To better the statement they can include defining the buyer
needs and targeted market. Overall mission statement is appropriate.

2- Appropriateness of the current vision statement for EZ-Pleeze:

“To become recognized as one of the top three chicken and beef producers in the United
States and the world”, is vision statement of EZ-Pleeze Company and not appropriate
because this statement is so generic that can be used by any of its competitors. It is not
specifically defines EZ-Pleeze directions and ‘why’ this vision is to be selected. It also not
defines the values of the company. No doubt it is straight forward and short but it must be
improved. A vision statement must provide idea of company what company is and what
they want to achieve. EZ-Pleeze vision statement describes what they are doing, what they
want to achieve but ‘how’ this is not defined. So it needs revision to be more appropriate.

Strategic Decision-Making Structure

B- Structure of the Strategic team at EZ-Pleeze:

The strategic team at EZ-Pleeze includes shareholders, Board of Directors and the Board
of Chair, CEO, Executive Assistant, CFO, COO, Director of Marketing, Director of
Manufacturing and Production and Director of R & D.
Shareholders are very important part of any company as they own one or more shares
of a company’s stock and in return they invest money in company, so the operations of
the company carry on. Without shareholders the company cannot operate so they are
very important part of EZ-Pleeze (Hitt, 2011).
Then the Board of Directors and the Board of Chair comes below the shareholders of EZ-
Pleeze. The Board of Directors are the individuals which represent all shareholders and
the Board Chair is elected by the Board of Directors to lead them. Both work together to
run company according to the company’s mission and vision statement, and also take
care of financial matters, company’s operations, employees related matters and making
final decisions (Hitt, 2011).
In the chain of command next position is for Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at the EZ-
Pleeze. He is founder of the company and has rights to make company’s strategies and
policies. In EZ-Pleeze Company Tim Burnes is the CEO, he is responsible to check overall
operations of the company to ensure its proper working wholly. (Chand, n.d)
The people who report CEO are the Chief of Operations (COO) and Chief Financial
Officer (CFO). At EZ-Pleeze Lisa Tye is Executive Assistance who is responsible for
planning and scheduling company’s operations. She is also responsible for making
appointments, can be responsible to do work and memos and make calendars for
strategic team (France, 2012). She also work as bridge between employees and other
management staff.
At EZ-Pleeze, CFO is Karen Haley, who is responsible for all the financial matters related
to company’s financial situation and forecasting the economic situations (Hitt, 2011). He
is also responsible for the audit and Compliance staff, which controls the operations
efficiently and makes financial reports and then ensure that these reports are following
the regulations (Ruppert, 2006). Karen Haley also decides the risks and investment
factors at EZ-Pleeze.
 The person who is responsible for day to day company’s operations is Brain Jansen
(COO) at EZ-Pleeze. He checks all the internal factors and ensures employees working in
accordance to the targeted goals and also in touch with human resource (Hitt, 2011).
Under COO, there comes Director of Marketing, John Kerrignton who develops and
implements marketing strategies at EZ-Pleeze. He also handles marketing and sales
teams and all marketing factors like advertisement, social media presence, digital
marketing and company’s goodwill. Director of Manufacturing and Production is also
answerable to COO, who is Michael Orenson at EZ-Pleeze. He is responsible for
manufacturing matters like product quality, safety of employees, on time deliveries and
achieving deadlines. He checks his office work as well as production area also. Director
of R & D, Mary Miller is responsible for the research and development matters like
market trends and anticipating customer needs and develop policies to meet these
needs, of the EZ-Pleeze company and answerable to COO.

C- Internal and External Influences

1- Internal Influences on the Strategic Decision-Making Process at EZ-

Pleeze:
The internal influences at EZ-Pleeze in strategic decision-making process are its
employees. The biggest assets of any company are its employees. So company
focuses on providing health and wellness benefits which increase their performance.
In this regard R & D department provide support to employees to share their ideas
and give best productivity. The company also has innovation influence as they can
provide customize new products in chicken and beef rather than diversified
products. The company also has social influence for providing good corporate citizen
with sustainable business practices.

2- External Influences on the Strategic Decision-Making Process at EZ-

Pleeze:
External influences of any company are considered to be threats and opportunity for
that company. So is the case with EZ-Pleeze Company, it has an opportunity to
compete for grocery store retail chains. They provide diversified products to the 50%
fast food chains of the United States. The beef competitors can acquire the chicken
competitors, so this threat can also be external influence on the strategic decision
making process at EZ-Pleeze. So it can be difficult for EZ-Pleeze Company to retain its
position on list of top three producers of chicken and beef. Another external
influence that is threat to EZ-Pleeze Company is the increase of government
 regulations for the industry. In this condition it can be difficult and costly for
company to work on and important thing to be considered.

Current Strategic Plan

D- Advantages and Disadvantages

1- Advantages of the current strategic plan at EZ-Pleeze:

One of the advantages of EZ-Pleeze is that as compare to its competitors like Yellow
Dawn foods and Beefchix, the prices of processed chicken and beef products have
lowered, also they are investing into advertising and marketing. Another advantage
of the current strategic plan at EZ-Pleeze is that it is investing in preparation of
quality meet products by using technology.

2- Disadvantages of the current strategic plan at EZ-Pleeze:

In investing in preparation of quality meet products by using technology, this cost
over 20 million dollars to EZ-Pleeze and results to force the company to raise their
prices so it is disadvantage of the current strategic plan. Another disadvantage is
that making investment of 7 million dollars in marketing and also in new technology,
results a financial burden to company so much that the company have to file
bankruptcy and lay off 10% of the workforce.

References:
1- Quinn and J. Rohrbaugh (1983), “A Spatail Model of Effectiveness Criteria:
Towards a Competing Values Approach to Organizational Analysis”,
Management Science, Vol 29, No. 3
2- Cameron, K. and R.E Quinn (2006), Diagnosing and Changing Organizational
Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework. Beijing: China Renmin
University Press.
3- Hitt, M. A., R. Ireland, D., & Hoskisson, R. E. (2011). Strategic Management,
Competitiveness and Globalization, South-Western Cengage Learning, Mason, USA
4- Eisenhardt, K. & Zbaracki, M. (1992) “Strategic Decision Making.” Strategic Management
Journal Vol. 13
5- Ruppert, Sandra S. (2006). Critical Evidence: How the Arts Benefit Student Achievement
(2006), Arts Education Partnership. Retrieved at November 24, 2008,
 Work Cited EZ-Pleeze Food Company (n.d). Retrieved December 09, 2016
 Works Cited EZ-Pleeze Food Company (n.d). Retrieved March 27, 2018
 Works Cited EZ-Pleeze Company Case Study
 Chand (n.d)