Thesis (Master in Management) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, July 2022

J-Agro Trader's Corp. (JAT Corp.) is a family business that is mainly focused on the wholesale and retail of well-milled rice grains. From 1993 to 2019, the company has expanded its business starting from a single trading store to storage and warehouses in Davao City. The absence of measures to control or minimize errors during warehousing and logistics frequently interrupts daily operations. This paper aims to formulate a strategic plan that will help boost the competitiveness of JAT Corp. the framework used to develop the strategic plan was an adaption of Fred David's model with applications of Complex Adaptive System (CAS). Using this framework, the strategy formulation was divided into seven chapters. Chapter one highlights the overview of the company, its general performance, and the key issues and problems affecting the business. Chapter two analyses and presents the opportunities and threats from the macroenvironment of the firm. The main external factors that affect JAT Corp. are competitiveness of local rice over imported ones (due to higher production costs) and numerous competitors that penetrate local market. From Porter's Five Forces analysis the threat of new entrants and the intensity of competitive rivalry for JAT Corp. are high, considering the firm's industry. Despite these, it was found that JAT Corp. responds effectively to its external environment. Chapter three analyzes the firm's internal strengths and weaknesses. The chief strength of JAT Corp. is in its financial health-good in terms of profitability, activity, liquidity, and solvency ratio; and the fact that all the volume of products are absorbed by the market, taking as fast as seven days to dispatch the products stored in their inventory. However, the biggest weakness of JAT Corp. lies in their lack of process efficiency and high operating costs. It was revealed that the entity is slightly strong internally, provided the need to further strengthen its business by addressing the weaknesses. Given the audit of the external and internal environments, long-term objectives were formed in chapter four. Two corporate objectives were created, namely: (1) increase operational efficiency by at least 100% and (2) increase profitability by at least 100%. Having the corporate objectives as the desired target, and the external and internal factors in play, strategies were identified in chapter five. These are grouped into two main strategic options: (1) operational excellence and (2) market expansion. Operational excellence will address the objectives of increasing efficiency, reducing cost, and improving profit margin. With a strong market expansion strategy, JAT Corp. can keep its business growing, capitalizing on the high profitability of the firm. In chapter six, the implementation program of the strategies is presented. This includes process standardization, employee training and development, 5S program implementation, consultation and setting up for Warehouse Management System (WMS) and accounting system, packaging and labelling modification, pricing strategy, and sales and marketing activities. Financial projections reveal that this strategy will deliver the long-term objectives. Finally, chapter seven describes the control systems to be established to monitor and evaluate the performance of the company relative to its strategy.