CASE 01 - MYSTIC MONK COFFEE
1. Has Father Daniel Mary established a future direction for the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming? What is his vision for the monastery? What is his vision for Mystic Monk Coffee? What is the mission of the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming?

Father Daniel Mary Has Established a future direction for the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming. His vision for the monastery is to transform their small brotherhood of 13 living in a small home used as a makeshift rectory into a 500-acre monastery. His vision to acquire the Irma Lake Ranch for them to provide accommodations for 30 monks, have a retreat center for lay visitors, build a Gothic church, have a convent for Carmelite Nuns, and a hermitage. Father Daniel Mary’s vision for Mystic Monk Coffee is to minimize the effect of cloistered monastic constraints and for it to be a stronger source of income for the monks to acquire the Irma Lake Ranch. The Mission of the Carmelite monks of Wyoming is to be able to increase the number of monks to 30 who will live out their lives in the monastery who understands the reality of the vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty and the sacrifices associated with living a cloistered religious life.

2. Does it appear that Father Daniel Mary has set definite objectives and performance targets for achieving his vision?

Father Daniel Mary has not set definite objectives and performance targets to achieve his vision. He and the monks have only made steps widening the reach of Mystic Monk Coffee but it is not enough to support the vision of acquiring Irma Lake Ranch. They have to establish specific programs to really widen the reach of Mystic Monk Coffee to have more consumers, thus increasing profit. Through this, they become more closer in achieving their vision of transforming their existing home to the “New Mount Carmel”.

3. What is Father Prior’s strategy for achieving his vision? What competitive advantage might Mystic Monk Coffee’s strategy produce?

In achieving his vision, Father Prior seek the help of Carmelite Supporters in aiming to build a community for God. In doing so, his competitive advantage is having his Catholic supporters his target market thorough word of the mouth and through their website. With its appeal to its supporters in using “use their Catholic coffee dollar for Christ and his catholic church”, it encourages their supporter to not just support the cause but make them see it as a way of giving to Christ.

4. Is Mystic Monk Coffee’s strategy a money-maker? What is MMC’s business model? What is your assessment of Mystic Monk Coffee’s customer value proposition? its profit formula? its resources that enable it to create and deliver value to customers?

Mystic Monk’s Coffee strategy is a money-maker. With the given overview of the coffee industry more than 150 million people consume coffee in the United States alone. Since 89% prefer to brew their coffees rather than purchase ready-to-drink coffee. With an 11% net profit rate the coffee business will surely increase over time. Mystic Monk Coffee business model is to increase their production by purchasing a larger roaster for their growing demand and selling wholesale coffee to local churches and coffee shops. Mystic Monks Coffee has good products that enable them to have a successful customer value proposition. Offering high-quality fair trade Arabica beans that produces a variety of flavors to their customers, they give their customers better options and an opportunity to their secular website operators commissions on its sales through its Mystic Monk Coffee Affiliate Program that placed web banner ads and text ads on participating websites and give them 18% commission. In conclusion their resources and plans not only enable them to create and deliver the value that their customers deserve but it is also a means for the Carmelites to support their community and their causes from the outside world.

5. Does the strategy qualify as a winning strategy? Why or why not?

The strategy cannot be considered as a winning strategy. The coffee industry has been growing for the past seven years, and with Mystic Monk’s comparable prices of coffee bags to the retail prices, Mystic Monk’s coffee can take advantage of this scenario to earn more profits to be able to expand their market and ultimately their business and acquire the land. Mystic Monk also made use of a low-cost advertising strategy where their coffees were promoted through word of mouth among their loyal customers and Catholic patrons and the use of their website, however they are only capturing the Catholic population. With their planned acquisition of a roaster with a larger capacity, Mystic Monk will be able to produce more coffee once demand in the future increases, hence the need for a more efficient market penetration.

6. What recommendations would you make to Father Daniel Mary in terms of crafting and executing strategy for the monastery’s coffee operations? Are changed needed in its long-term direction? its objectives? its strategy? its approach to strategy execution? Explain.

We recommend Father Daniel Mary to expand the reach of their product. Apart from their aggressive online, telephone , church and local coffee shop sales, they should take advantage of supplying the coffee to restaurants, malls, supermarkets and bazaars. They could also set up a store in the monastery where people often go and can readily purchase the coffee. Considering that the Catholic population is the largest in the US, they can establish a group of people who are willing to volunteer and sell the coffee across the US. Through this, their belief is shared to the volunteers. Moreover, since it was mentioned that most of their time is spent on prayer or morning and Vesper services which limits the production time, they can hire help and also mask for volunteers who can replace them during these times for a more efficient production of coffee.