The Case Model for Amy's Bread

Amy’s Bread is a small successful specialty bakery with a diverse wholesale customer base experiencing decent growth and considering expansion in order to keep up with demand. Highly competitive industry and Amy’s business concentrates on handmade fresh baked goods, which is a labor intensive product and requires human capital which lacks fixed cost structure.

The Case Model

Problems facing the organization are:

* The need to develop and execute a strategy – no strategic planning process

* Absence of strategic alliance, partnership, or networking connections

* Economies of scale

* Lack of automation – hand shaped product requiring physical labor

* Lack of additional management to delegate responsibility

* Cash flow resources

* Decisions surrounding expansion

Executing a strategic plan will help Amy roll out various initiatives in an organized planned manner. It could help her figure out what task she needs to delegate away and reprioritize what she needs to focus on in order to enable the expansion she is considering. Networking can assist with economies of scale that her business could benefit from by utilizing other resources that might not require additional financial burdens. Automating would be able to fix costs and allow for efficiency of operations and allow for more profitability which could be used to hire additional managerial help.

Possible solutions to problems:

* Developing and executing a strategy to guide the company on a charted course with objectives and goals to accomplish.

* Networking, co-oping or some sort of strategic initiative with outside sources to allow Amy some of the growth she aspires to obtain without possibly the overall financial burden of doing it alone, which can potentially help with economies of scale issues.

* Automation consideration to reduce payroll overhead.

* Additional managerial help.