The establishment of the GrainCorp as a grain Elevators Board during the time of change a bulk grain terminal that had been proposed to Sydney at the turn of the century when the workers were bagging grain manually. GrainCorp became into existence as the main Grain Elevator board during the period of time when the changes on the heavy grain end had been decided on for Sydney at the beginning of the century when the employees were believed to bag the grains. This was proved by the New South Wales Government department of Agriculture. The export of bulk grain became a tremendous growth station in Australia and people hugely invested in this sector (Pink, 2006).
One of the world’s largest commercial malt is GrainCorp, that produces over one million tons of high quality and specialty malts every year that are sold to some of the world’s leading brewers and distillers, as well as the craft market for the brewers. Having been established in Australia in the 1939 the Australian Wheat Board has had a dominance and monopoly power in the wheat production and exporting for a period of time now. This has been so despite the period of oversupply globally that led to reduced wheat prices. However, the wheat monopoly has been realized for over 60 years (Valarie, 2007)
However, in 1980s the name changed from Grain Elevators to Grain Handling Authority and the passing of NSW Grain Corporation Act, the company became one of the first government organizations to be privatized in Australia. After being sold in 1992 for about $100 million, the company was later rekindled as GrainCorp. In 2002 GrainCorp entered into a joint venture with US agribusiness Cargill to purchase Allied Mills expanding its presence along the grain chain, including production and processing. This saw the start of our bakery products and milling businesses (Neff, 2009).
The marketing business established in the late 1996 and majority of the companies worked hard to become the pioneer bulk handlers, a situation that never worked for most of the companies. GrainCorp therefore gave a shot to the situation and became the first bulk handler that traded grain within Australia trying to move away from the price discrimination and monopoly power that existed between the government entities. This situation continued for over two years when the GrainCorp was later became visible in the stock Exchange of Australia.
It was at this point when GrinCorp identified the need to understand the business by trying to understand their immediate environment and how they could be useful and of value addition to them. They have a variety of customers, both in Australia and globally by offering a wide range of services and products. They have an expanding network of business across Europe, North America and Asia. Through this, they are able to engage with more growers and suppliers in more regions. Majority of the clients are mainly primarily multinational corporations of brewers and distillers who brew the Malta at home or have local brewing stations that sells distilled Malta in their vending shops.
Being the first grain terminal that handled bulk grain, Sydney was the first bulk grain terminal to be completed in the early 2920s with a furnished complete 140 round with inter space bins that were incurred at a huge cost of over 1 million Euro each or about $55 million if compared to the current exchange rate. This was something spent on the GrainCorp building and other infrastructural development. It however gave the company advantage over other companies in terms of grain handling networks in today’s specialized needs.
The German Schill Malz that was acquired in 2011 helped a great deal to place the GrainCorp in a position to serve the European and other export customers. This was in addition to the acquisition of the malt plant that became established in Western Australia in the late 2000, a situation that led to the expansion of the Australian operations to the West Coast (Lorenz, 1996)
Majority of the competitors are those trading on similar products and selling to similar customers. As such, the company focuses on the prices and quality of their products to attract more customers. The GrainCorp thus thrive on competitive market, a market situation composed of many sellers and buyers that the companies have to create a differentiation to thrive in the market.
In this firm, labor is an explicit cost due to the intensive type of work done. This resulted into the shortage of cheap labor increasing the average cost hence resulting into loss of economic profit among other firms who tried to enter the market. Due to low firms turn out, the supply reduced in the malt industry which in effect resulting into increased demand and increased prices hence the economic profit in the long run (Kotto, 2002).
During the period of the new are, there have been new acquisitions that led into serious agreements on the GrainCorps position as Australia’s leading Grain handler. It was in this period when Victoria a.k.a Vicgrain was brought into the industry in the early years of 2000, a purchase that was followed by Grainco in 2003 and finally the Hunter Grain that was availed in 2007.
Lucky enough in 1917, there was an architect that was contracted to design the terminal in the suburbs of Glebe, Sydney. J.S. Metcalf when contracted completed the building in the shortest period, constrcting a 50 km north of Parkes, a construction that was designed with elevators and enhanced the efficiency of the company (Schein, 2009).
There was a full deregulation in the late 2000, a situation that influenced the wheat market in the Australian markets. This situation was initiated by the deregulation of the wheat markets by an individual wheat market. GrainCorp that was affected now do business internationally with other business mind groups outside their borders creating a wide marketing field in the business that operates in the UK, North America Europe and Australia among other well established business ventures (Weinstein, & Johnson, 1999).
The other acquisition plan was realized in 2009 when the company acquired the United Malt Holdings to merge into GrainCorp Malt. This process expanded the company’s business beyond its borders thereby increasing the diversity in the company to further improve the grain processing business that expanded the company’s scope. Also the improvement and reception of the German Schill Malz in earlier years of the 2000 enabled the company to serve broader markets and serve better their customers. Likewise, the company acquired more malt plant in other regions of Australia to increase its operations in the west coast of Australia. The expansion of the operation increased the company’s customer base thereby enhancing its move to incur and command larger markets hence ensuring its success and profitability in the region (Fred, 2001).
As of current moment the company, GrainCorp is acclaimed worldwide with over 270 country dispatching zones in Australia. It brags of its expansion of total grain store capability of up to 20 million tones spread across more than 2800 km to Portland (Victoria) from Mackay (Queensland). It also operates several bulk grain export elevators, serviced by 20 contracted trains with the capability of transporting over 5 million tones of the finished grain every year. This is a huge operational plan that really improves the company’s profitability and ensures the client’s are adequately served hence ensuring the customer loyalty (Forster, 1994).
The average customer has a low income. However the company has capitalized on the need to understand the fundamental concept in marketing being mainly marketing mix composed of the four P’s; product, place, price and promotion. In order to realize any business success, every firm’s strategies must ensure decisions relating to these four P’s. In a case like this, the four P’s require some modifications in their applications as services are usually produced and consumed simultaneously; customers are present in service firm and part of service production process. In addition, because services are intangible, customers seek any tangible indication to help the customers understand the nature of service experience. They have made the customer experience worthwhile.
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