Carbonated Soft Drink Analysis

The soft-drink industry capitalizing on creating the best product. Each product has a different taste, formula, and color to entice the consumer. It is important for the product to remain innovative in order to keep the consumers interested. The suppliers can easily differ, because they do not hold much value or put

The three major participants in US market: concentrate producers, bottlers, and retail outlets. In the U.S. market, there are about 500 bottlers, and Concentrate producers are either owned or

The existing concentrate business is largely controlled by Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) and PepsiCo (Pepsi), together claiming a combined 72% of the U.S. carbonated soft drink (CSD) market sales volume in 2009. Refer to Exhibit 1 for an illustration of the CSD industry value chain. For more than a century, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have maintained growth and large market shares through mastering five competitive forces, shown in Exhibit 2, that drive profitability and shape the industry structure.

Consequently, this company can expand the fruit nectar production line to attract new consumers. The down-side to utilizing this structure is that the price at retail will be significantly higher than the other modes of distribution. However, since the target consumer is not sensitive to price and have high disposable incomes, this should not pose a systemic problem for this firm.

The competition between Coke and Pepsi reached its peak to become a real war battle by the year 1980. This war had affected the industry profit for both concentrate producers and bottlers, while the effect of bottlers was much higher. After the successful “Pepsi Challenge” (blind taste tests: sales shot up) in 1974, Coke countered with rebates, retail price cuts and significant concentrate price increases. Pepsi followed of a 15% price increase of its own. During the early 1990’s bottlers of Coke and Pepsi employed low price strategies in the supermarket channel in order to compete with store brands. The concentrate producers were always able to increase their profits by increasing the concentrate price, while the bottlers, especially the

The product will appear custom made for the market segment that we have mentioned. The next step will involve carrying out advertisements, with proper marketing, ad’s, local coupons and advertisements everywhere that sells a soda. The advertisements should be mostly in fashion and entertainment magazines, not to mention facebook advertisements and other social outlets that have pop up ad’s. This is because most of our target clients prefer such magazines as opposed to Wall Street Journal. The next step will involve positioning the product in the market. Customers should be able to access the product with ease and convience. The products should be stocked in shopping malls and departmental stores in the market. Better yet lets construct an

Once the inventories of both companies were done there was a coordinating effort by upper management to determine prices of available product as well as the suppliers that were going to deal which each

Porter’s (2008) competitive forces play a significant role in the success of the concentrate producers (CPs) in this industry. The forces are "threat of new entrants, rivalry among existing competitors, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitute products or services, and bargaining power of suppliers" (p. 27). Concentrate producers usually produce carbonated soft drink (CSD). Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cora are known as two big CPs in the world.

Historically there are a relatively small amount of concentrators, a large number of bottlers (around 500), and an even larger number of retail outlets. The concentrators are the typical companies mentioned above like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper/Seven Up; these concentrators are at the top of the supply chain. The concentrators produce the flavor- like the Mountain Dew or Coke flavorings for the bottlers to then add the sugar and carbonated water followed by the actual bottling and distribution to retail outlets. The bottlers, even though a separate part of the process, are typically owned, franchised, or have stake held by the concentrators. For example, Coca-Cola Co. is in charge of producing the flavor, which is then sent to a bottling plant to be finish mixing and be bottled, which is owned by Coca-Cola, and then distributed to retail outlets.

Defining the industry: Both concentrate producers (CP) and bottlers are profitable. These two parts of the

The Concentrate Producer industry can be classified as a Duopoly with Pepsi and Coke as the firms competing. The market share of the rest of the competition is too small to cause any upheaval of pricing or industry structure. Pepsi and Coke mainly over the years competed on differentiation and advertising rather than on pricing except for a period in the 1990’s. This prevented a huge dent in profits. Pricing wars are however a feature in their international expansion strategies.

In an industry dominated by two heavyweight contenders, Coke and Pepsi, in fact, between 1996 and 2004 per capita consumption of carbonated soft drinks (CSD) remained between 52 to 54 gallons per year. Consumption grew by an average of 3% per year over the next three decades. Fueling this growth were the increasing availability of CSD, the introduction of diet and flavored varieties, and brand extensions. There is couple of reasons why the industry is so profitable such as market share, availability and diversity and brand name and world class marketing.

In all of Coca-Cola’s plants, inventories are made up of supplies, concentrates, raw materials and syrups. These are valued at a lower

The pricing technique of Coca-Cola has supported the firm to compete and grow in the soft drink effectively. The volume discount and pricing penetration are the vital aspects to provide the firm generates its sales in the market. For instance, Coca-Cola partners with large supply chains such as Costco, Sam’s Club, and Walmart to provide great discount pricing in order to generate its sales substantially in the U.S and the global market. Equally, the firm also distributes its

Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) is the world’s largest marketer, producer, and distributor of Coca-Cola Company products. These products extend beyond traditional carbonated soft drinks to beverages, e.g., still and sparkling waters, juices, isotonics, teas, and energy, milk-based, and coffee-based drinks. CCE dis- tributes Coca-Cola brands, e.g., Coke, Dasani, Sprite, Barq’s, Fresca, Hi-C, Nestea, Powerade, and Minute Maid, and also beverage brands of several other com- panies. In 2005, CCE distributed two billion phys- ical cases (containing 42 billion bottles and cans), representing 20 percent of the Coca-Cola Company’s worldwide volume. While CCE is a publicly traded company, the Coca-Cola Company owns 36 percent of its stock. Coca-Cola has outsourced its production and dis- tribution to its bottling and