Case study

Nestle’s: From Falling to Rising

Swiss – based Nestle’s is the world’s leading producer of cerelac and a leading producer of
convenience foods, including chocolates, cookies, crackers, toaster, cereal bars, frozen waffles,
meat alternatives, pie crusts, and cones, with 2016 annual sales of about $12,736 billion and a
market share of more than 42 percent. Ulf Mark Schneider, CEO of Nestle’s, takes pride in being
a part of the Nestle’s company to promote the long-term growth of the business, as well as serve
the needs of their people and communities.
With such a large market share, one would think that Nestle’s is untouchable. However, Nestle’s
faced a slump in the market. Its cerelac sales were declining, and it had to face the challenge of
getting out of its slump. Nestle’s therefore, turned to market research to identify the problem and
develop several solutions to increase cerelac sales Nestle’s used several tasks to identify the
problem. The researchers spoke to decision makers within the company, interviewed industry
experts, conducted analysis of available data, and performed some qualitative research. Several
important issues came out of this preliminary research. Cerelac was favored as a breakfast food
for babies. High prices were turning consumers to competing brands. Some other information
also came to light during the research. The flavours of cerelac were limited.

Required:
1- What do you think is the management decision problem facing Nestle’s?

2- Define an appropriate marketing research problem that Nestle’s needs to address.

Explain.

3- What is the type of the marketing research problem (identification OR solving) you have
identified. Why?

4- What are the tasks involved in order to define the problem?

5- What factors in the environmental context should Nestle’s consider? EXPLAIN YOUR
SUGGESTIONS