Al-Maria Almarai Introduction to the Company Almarai

Al-Maria

Almarai

Introduction to the Company

Almarai is the world's largest vertically integrated dairy corporation based in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). It was founded in 1977 as a result of a partnership between Prince Sultan bin Mohammed bin Saudi Al Kabeer (from Saudi Arabia) and an agri-foods pioneer Alastair McGuckian (from Ireland). Almarai is headquartered in Riyadh. The major product categories of the company include dairy liquids (milk, laban, milkshakes, etc.), yoghurts & desserts (custard, caramel, sterilized cream, etc.), foods (butter, creams, cheese, Ghee, etc.), beverages (fruit juices), baked foods (burger bun, crispy sticks, sliced bread, puffs, biscuits, cakes, and wafers), poultry items (meat and eggs), and infant formula. Almarai owns some of the most famous brands of the region; including Alyoum, 7 DAYS, Almarai, L'usine, etc. (Almarai, 2013).

The vision of Almarai is to become the most preferred choice of the consumers and achieve market leadership through premium quality products and operations. Its mission is to enrich its consumers' lives with highly nutritious, delicious, fresh, and top quality foods and beverages. The slogan or brand statement of Almarai is "Quality You Can Trust" which shows its promise and commitment to give a quality that can truly satisfy its consumers. Since its inception in 1977, Almarai has always been recognized as an innovative and competitive dairy corporation that has largely integrated itself across its supply chain. All the corporate, business, and functional level strategies of the company are primarily focused on making it the market leader in cost control, operational efficiency, sales performance, and profitability. The company went public in 2005. At present it has almost 70,000 shareholders (Almarai, 2013).

Part B: Core Process at Almarai

After a modest beginning, Almarai decided to go for large scale restructuring of its operations. In 1990s, it transformed its operational structure from decentralized to completely centralized structure. At present, it has a central processing plant for foods and beverages. Instead of operating a large number of small dairy farms, Almarai operates four large scale farms that support its entire scale of operations. With the help of a centralized structure, it is able to control its unnecessary costs and achieve economies of scale and scope in an effective and efficient way. Recently, it has also installed a new food processing plant and a couple of super-farms (Almarai, 2013).

Almarai is a vertically integrated dairy corporation, i.e. It produces its own raw material that is used in the manufacturing of foods and beverage products. It also has a strong distribution network that consists of almost 3,000 vans and more than 1,000 trailers and tankers that deliver its foods, bakery products, poultry items, and juices to 89 sales warehouses in the region. With the help of a huge scale of production, Almarai is able to fulfill the dairy and beverage product needs of more than 48,000 consumers from six Gulf States (Almarai, 2013).