Review the company's investment in a large number of business areas. Comment on the advantages/disadvantages especially from a financial perspective.

An overview of their business areas:

In the early years, the Far East Company made markets in rice, oil seed, spice, and timber. As the company expand-ed with the turn of the century, FETC opened trade routes to Africa, the Indies, North America, and Australia, eventually making shipping itself a major part of its business.

Due to the immense distances in time and space for the conduct of trade, the firm was a loosely knit collection of independent country units from its very beginnings. The individual business lines conducted by FETC were under the directand active management of thecountry manager assigned from the Swedish home office, andthe decentralized organizational structure produced what many came to call country kingdoms. The individual country-based operating units were inherently entrepreneurial, entering into any area of trading or distribution which offered profit potential. The result was an amazingly diverse set of global businesses

FETC's strengthand future prospects in the eyes of managementwas in three core areas of identified competence: Consumer Products, Foods, and Graphics. These three areas were expected to make up over 70% of FETC's turnover in the coming decade. The company's plan was to organize activities around these business areas across countries, rather than by country as under the historical organizational structure. Each of the core businesses would be managed independently from an identified business center of its activities: Consumer ProductsKuala Lumpur, Malaysia; GraphicsSingapore; FoodsBogot, Colombia.

This consolidation still left the company with six business areas: 1) Consumer Products 2) Foods 3) Graphics 4) Timber/wool trading 5) Shipping 6) Technical and other (classified as one business area)