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Read the case study on McMillan Sugar Limited below and answer Questions 1 to 5. McMillan Sugar Limited is a supplier of sugar and other derivatives. The company was established in 1931 in Eastern Europe and has since expanded to other parts of Europe, Asia and America. The company has been growing steadily. From 1940 to 1985, the company registered 1.5 Trillion US dollars in revenues. These revenues were mainly generated through the genius design of its supply chain. The company managed to secure a constant supply of sugar cane by co-opting major sugar cane producers (farmers) to become shareholders in the company. This enabled the company to control the inflation of sugar cane price. Indeed, the major farmers were not willing to increase the price of sugar cane, which would have an adverse effect on the company in which they were shareholders. McMillan Sugar Limited became a leading brand in the sugar industry and in 2003 it was listed as the best performing company in the Eastern Europe. This success came as result of various strategic decisions. Firstly, the company instituted aggressive advertising strategies. By the end of 2010, the company had spent 850 Trillion in advertisement mainly through TV and Billboard adverts. In addition, the company instituted innovative distribution channels. In this case, the company introduced the IT (Just in Time) production process. This process entailed linking the production system to the major distributors systems. Hence, the company was only producing what their clients needed at a specific time. This reduced the inventory and distribution costs. In addition, the company embarked on social media advertising which posed to generate an extra 1 billion income by the end of 2019. The company also relies on its managerial competencies and management style. Over the years, the company managed to attract best engineers to look after the manufacturing plants. In addition, it has adopted an agile management style to enable the company to respond to the market needs. However, the current global call to increase the tax on products that contain sugar content is seen as a major hindrance to the company’s growth. There has been may calls from interest groups lobbying governments to ban the activities of companies involved in sugar production. Currently, the company does not have an established corporate relations department neither has it been engaged in any activities related to Corporate Social Responsibility. Moreover, the company has been focusing on major retailers in the sugar industry and ignoring small farmers who have a significant influence in the communities and in the government through various lobbying groups. There is also an increase in groups and associations of small farmers who are eager to have market share and hence threaten the sustainability of the company. McMillan Sugar Page 2 of 5 ONLINE ASSESSMENT 3: BAYO2A1 2021 Limited however remains positive that all these challenges will pass. The company is founded on 3 principles; of Authority and Responsibility, Continuity as well as efficiency. QUESTION 1: (21 MARKS) McMillan Sugar Limited is exploring the possibility of using IT as one of its strategic tools to gain a competitive advantage in its industry. Specifically, the company would like most of the processes to be automated including its supply chain and customer relationship management Based on the McKinsey 7S framework, explain in details with specific case related examples the Seven areas that the company must consider before implementing the IT driven strategy Mark allocation for this question is as follows: 1 mark for McKinsey 7S framework element identified with its explanation 2 marks for case study related examples of the specific 78 framework element. QUESTION 2: (9 MARKS) Explain in details with specific examples the 5-step process that McMillan Sugar Limited must