1.0 Introduction

Hellofresh SE is a leading online meal-kit company which has revolutionized the food supply chain and traditional grocery operation. It is a global direct to customer, subscription based online meal kit provider, founded 2011 in Germany and now operates in thirteen countries across three continents. This assignment concludes with measures of success of the company, reasons for success, strategic analysis including adapted value chain (AVC) and VRIN evaluation, leadership contribution, business strategy and strategic recommendations. The main recommendations are that selectively increase the global reach and diversified the operation through adjacent, and backward, forward vertical integration.

2.0 Measures of success

Traditionally, success of the business is measured based on only financial performances and the main objective of any profit motive company is that maximizing shareholders’ wealth (Diasz, 2017). Now, true success of a firm is measured by ability to achieving objective of creating value (Mauboussin, 2012). Companies that focus on nonfinancial measures have better chance of achieving objective of value creation (Mauboussin, 2012). Chirag Kulkarni (2016) has identified key factors which reflects true success of a firm such as profitability, number of customers, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and level of learning and knowledge. The main difficulties that firms face when measuring success through nonfinancial performances is that difficulty of consider nonfinancial measures’ predictive value and persistence (Mauboussin, 2012). Thus, the benchmarking provides better insights.
The mission of HelloFresh is that to give every household the opportunity to enjoy fresh, healthy and delicious meals without the associated hassle of having to find a recipe and shop for all the necessary ingredients. Company try to achieve this mission in environmentally sustainable manner while reducing food waste and CO2 emission compared to traditional grocery supply chain (Hellofresh annual report, 2019). True success of Hellofresh can be measured based on the progress of achieving these objectives. Here, success of the firm is measured based on different matrices and benchmarked with its direct competitor; blue apron. Balance scorecard is used to benchmark two companies.