Competitive Strategy for Carbonated Drink Industry -myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theCompetitive Strategy for Carbonated Drink Industry. Answer: The importance of business strategy in conducting successful business can never be overstated. In fact, it is the business strategy alone that highlights the strategic plan adopted by an organization to achieve its goals. Founded back in the year of 1886, Coca Cola has evolved itself to become the most recognized brand operating in the soft carbonated drink industry and yet the company has been facing throat-cut competition from brands like Pepsi. Hence, it is important to see how Coca Cola has employed an effective strategy in order to maintain competitive edge in the market and ensure long-term sustainability. Before analyzing the strategy of Coca Cola, it is important to understand why has it become imperative for the company to adopt a strategy (Kryscynski 2017). As it is a well-known fact, despite the strong brand reputation of the company, the company has been facing intense competition from other rival giants such as Pepsi and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. Hence, the immediate objective of the company has become to attract larger customer base than before and thereby boost its sales growth and annual revenue. However, this organizational goal needed to be accompanied by a strong organizational strategy. Hence, the company formulated a strategy that would aid in its product differentiation and enable it to attract larger customer base. Accordingly, the company has launched its Roo Juice, a joint venture between Coca-Cola and Disney that is expected to boost the competitive growth of the company. In fact, the company has previously launched a variety of beverages such as Diet Coke to ensure that it is able to tap the attention of a specific customer base. However, since its competitors were also producing similar group of products attracting the youth customer base, the company re-formulated its strategy to produce family beverages (Gant 2016). As a result, following the Mickey Mouse milk brand of last year, the company has launched Roo Juice. The strategic priority of the company has shifted whereby it does not wish to achieve competitive advantage by selling products at low cost, but by offering new products promoted by valuable brands such as Disney to attract the attention of the kids. A strategy can be successful only when it is backed up by an innovative plan, and hence the strategic plan of Coca Cola to tie up with a popular brand like Disney and attract the attention of the kids through the launch of a new product is no less innovative. As it is a well-known fact, for the successful implementation of an effective strategy, it is highly important to ensure that the strategic action taken by an organization aims to target a specific customer base. Hence, Coca Cola has adopted a strategic plan that targets the children and especially the family members, and this will provide the company a strategic advantage as the parents of the children may wish to buy kid-friendly products to their children. In this way, Coca Cola managed to create competitive advantage by product differentiation that will help the company increase its sales. The CAGE framework is an important business framework that determines how far a business organization will be able to achieve success in a foreign market. As it is a self-evident fact, in a globalized era, any company willing to sustain itself needs to expand in other countries. Yet if it overlooks the cultural, administrative, geographical and economic differences or similarities, its venture might just turn out unsuccessful (Carlson School of Management 2017). As far as KFC is concerned, the company, funded in the year of 1930, has emerged to be a successful company selling fried chicken and other fast food items in USA and abroad. The company has been chosen as it has so far successfully operated in more than 100 countries, and has also expanded the companys operation in the Eastern countries such as India. Hence, it is important to see how the company has faced and managed difficulty in operating in a country that has various cultural and economic differences. As it is an evident fact, KFC had difficulty in sustaining its business in India. A major reason behind this is that the company has huge cultural difference with India, especially because the US culture is dominantly individualistic while the culture in the East, especially in India has always been collectivist. Hence, the marketing strategies undertaken in the US for promoting the products could not be used. This is the reason why the company had to re-formulate its marketing strategy, whereby it did not offer large meals to the Indian consumers, but started introducing group meal offers. Because of the collectivist society of the nation, most of the consumers usually eat out with friends and family members, and hence unlike the US consumers, the Indian consumers preferred larger meals. Since KFC was having problems initially in adjusting to the Indian market, it soon launched the large meal offer in India, such as the Wednesday Meal that could help in serving the at least four or five people at Rs. 400 (Kutty and Kutty 2014). Besides, as per the CAGE framework, a company must expand in a country where it can form economically meaningful relation, or else it will require adopting innovative marketing strategies. Since the economic condition of a developing nation like India is not as strong as the US, the company also introduced its low price strategy whereby it introduced burgers at just Rs 25/- that instantly attracted the attention of the buyers (Sharma 2013). As far as the administrative distance is concerned, USA does not have any form of hostility with India, and owing to the economic liberalization policy of 1991, it has become easier for KFC to enter the Indian market. Often political differences prevent a country open up outlets in a rival country, however, in case of KFC, it has become easier to open up fast food outlets in India. Reference List: Carlson School of Management. 2017.Pankaj Ghemawat: CAGE Framework for International Trade - Global Matters. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FpUJaG7uMk [Accessed 23 Aug. 2017]. Grant, R.M., 2016.Contemporary Strategy Analysis Text Only. John Wiley Sons. Kryscynski, D. 2017.What is Strategy?. [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD7WSLeQtVw [Accessed 22 Aug. 2017]. Kutty, N.M. and Kutty, N.M., 2014. Role of cultural adaptation in international retailing.South Asian Journal of Marketing Management Research,4(10), pp.1-9. Sharma, A., 2013. KFC's big India plans.Wall Street Journal.