Strategic Fit Analysis

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In the next section, the four factors are used to analyse the strategic fit of the partnership between Plastic Change and Naturli’.

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packaging as it was with Naturli’ Hakket. It can be argued that this supports the claim that the partnership does not equally create shared value, as it can be deduced that Naturli’ benefits more from the partnership, as Naturli’ has used the knowledge gained in the partnership to create a similar product without having to donate 0.20 DKK to Plastic Change.

From the outside, it seems one of the strategic objectives of the partnership between Plastic Change and Naturli’ was to increase capital. Another strategic objective was to create a change in consumer behaviour by providing consumers with the option to buy a product that is more eco-friendly, as reflected in both parties’ values. It can be questioned if a change has been made in consumers consumption patterns, but it can be argued that the foundation for a potential shift in consumer consumption has been made by giving consumers the option to purchase Naturli’ Hakket. This argument is supported by SSK in the interview as he, after attaining knowledge of Naturli’ Hakket, would be more likely to purchase similar sustainable products (Appendix 4). Whether the shift will happen and thereby affect the circle of actors is up to the consumers, food producers and governmental institutions as all changes Plastic Change aims to make in one part of the circle affects the others.

Partner selection

The second part of the strategic fit is more concerned with the actual partner selection. This part investigates how workable the partnership is in regard to capabilities and a strategic fit.

This part gives the parties the chance to discover and avoid possible issues that might arise if not dealt with early in the partnership’s progress. This part is related to the factors personal connections and relationships. From an outside view, it seems that the partnership with regard to a strategic fit is a positive match. This is possible to deduce as Naturli’ states that it completely agrees with Plastic Change’s vision and therefore supports the NGO’s work as it contributes to recreating the balance between humans and nature in accordance with Naturli’s own values and goals (Naturli’ Foods A/S, 2018). It can be argued that this supports Plastic Change’s claim about the parties having a well-established relationship.

With regards to capabilities in the partnership, it can be argued that the parties have been able to create a new product through co-creation by sharing resources and their core competencies, providing the capabilities needed to succeed in the market. As LLG said in the interview, Plastic

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Change’s contribution to the partnership is its core competency, which is a wide knowledge of plastic and solutions on how to recycle it (Appendix 5). Naturli’s contribution was the knowledge about plant-meat and Naturli’ had the resources to produce the plastic container designed in collaboration with Plastic Change. Even though sharing core competencies and resources is an important part of strategic partnership, there can also be downsides to sharing capabilities. Once Plastic Change has provided Naturli’ with the knowledge and innovative solutions on how to recycle plastic, it can be argued that Naturli’ keeps the upper hand in the partnership. Since the product portfolio only contains one product it seems hard for Plastic Change to impact the partnership in other ways at the moment. Another perspective is also that once Naturli’ has gained the knowledge from Plastic Change it has no more use for the NGO.

This is because the knowledge necessary to complete the product is already in hand and could be used in other products as well, which Naturli’ have already done with Naturli’ Hakkedrenge.

If the partnership where to be expanded with new products, e.g. coffee cups/bottles it could then be argued that Plastic Change could bring new perspectives and innovative solutions in relation to the packaging. Plastic Change mentioned that the parties where still in the process of discussing other opportunities to expand the strategic partnership into other product categories. From this, it can be deduced that the strategic fit seems to match since both parties are willing to discuss other collaboration opportunities.

Another point that indicates strategic alignment between Plastic Change and Naturli’ is the fact that both parties agree that the co-creation of Naturli’ Hakket might be a small step in the right direction to create a change. Both parties still consider it important to take the step as one small step can lead to a large change in future perspective (Naturli’ Foods A/S, 2018; Appendix 5).

This can be seen as a strategic alignment, enhancing the strategic fit of the partnership.

Negotiation and design

The third part of the strategic fit is concerned with negotiation and design, looking into how the agreement is managed and organised and how the parties can achieve their goals and value creation. As the researchers have an outside view on the partnership and even though an interview with Plastic Change was conducted, it does not provide the necessary information to properly analyse how the partnership is organised and managed. LLG and HHH explained the

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partnership from an overall perspective without details of who is handling what (Appendix 5).

Hence, it is argued that a thorough analysis cannot be conducted regarding this part of the strategic fit. With that said, it is possible from the information gathered about the partnership in relation to resource sharing and what has been found on social media, e.g. ads about Naturli’

Hakket etc., to deduce a few perspectives on the partnership. As mentioned Plastic Change’s main contribution to the partnership was knowledge about plastic and the recycling thereof.

After the final design of the packaging, it seems that Naturli’ has had the main responsibility to promote the product, which means Naturli’ chose the channels to use in this matter. It can be argued that Plastic Change could perhaps have created more individual value for the organisation if it has had more impact on these decisions. Maybe this cannot be said to have an impact on the strategic fit as such, but it should be considered a valid point for Plastic Change to bring to future projects with Naturli’ and to new partnerships with commercial companies.

Implementation, continual learning and evaluation

The last part of strategic fit analysis is connected to the factors, continual learning and evaluation. This part looks at the agreement set on how the parties should achieve the shared goals and provides the opportunity to evaluate if the goals set and value creation have been achieved. If not, it enables the parties to discover what should be changed or if the partnership could continue or not. To further investigate this part of the strategic fit, the section below will analyse if value creation has been made from the marketing perspective of the partnership.

After the marketing analysis, a section dedicated to analysing the value creation gained on both an individual and shared level will be investigated.

To round up the strategic fit analysis so far, it can be argued that the partnership is a positive strategic fit. This can be deduced as Plastic Change and Naturli’ share both goals and values, of course with differences between the individual organisations but nothing which could be considered to be in contradiction with the individual goals or values of the other party. It could be argued that the strategic fit can be adjusted in some aspect to divide the shared value creation more equally. It seems Naturli’ has gained more value from the partnership than Plastic Change, but not to the degree that the strategic fit should be considered negative.

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