Thesis (Master in Management) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, June 2016.

Calixtra's Foods Products (CFP) is a family-run business in Davao City that produces processed meats namely: pork chorizo, tocino, longanisa, pork barbecue-on-stick, and beef chorizo. They supply to supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, and private dealers in Davao Region, especially in Davao City. Despite having existed for more than 30 years, CFP has remained a humble micro-scale business. They have been struggling to continuously increase their sales over the past years chiefly because of their limited production capacity. However, the current market absorbs all their products. CFP still has a huge opportunity for growth because the Davao Region market is not yet fully tapped and at the same time they can also expand their market in other areas in Mindanao and the rest of the country. This paper aims to formulate a strategic plan that will help boost the competitiveness of Calixtra's Food products. The framework used to develop the strategic plan an adaption of Fred David's model. Using this framework, the strategy formulation was divided into seven chapters. Chapter one highlights the overview of the company and its key issues and problems. Chapter two analyses the external threats and opportunities. The main external factors that affect CFP are growing demand for processed meat and the financial assistance offered by the government to SMEs. It was found that CFP responds poorly to the external environment. The chapter three analyses the internal strengths and weaknesses. The chief strength of CFP is in its financial health and the fact that all the volume of products are absorbed by the market. However, the biggest weakness of CFP lies in their productivity which is limited by their manual process in packaging that has become the bottleneck of the operation. Given the current the external and internal environment, long-term objectives were created, namely: (1) increase productivity 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, a number of strategies were identified in chapter five. These are grouped into two main strategic options: (1). Size expansion, and (2) market expansion. After weighing the options. It was found that CFP should take the size expansion strategy. In addition, market expansion is still recommended as a secondary strategy in order to translate the increased volume of goods into revenue. In chapter six, the implementation program of the strategies is presented. This includes hiring additional personnel, construction of facility, acquisition of equipment, purchase of vehicle, establishment of food safety programs, and increased marketing efforts. Sourcing of funding is also emphasized. Financial projections reveal that this strategy will deliver the long-term objectives. Finally, chapter seven describes the control systems to be established in order to monitor and evaluate the performance of the company relative to its strategy.