Strategic Evaluation: The Coca Cola Company
Table of Contents
The Coca Cola Company is a leading manufacturer and distributor of over three thousand beverage products under five hundred different brand names all over the world. The multinational organization produces and distributes various beverages such as soft drinks, mineral water, energy and sports drinks, tea, coffee, yoghurt and soy-based drinks. The venture is famous for more than four hundred beverage products under different brand names such as Coca-Cola, Minute Maid, and Dasani (Puravankara, 2007). For an establishment in any field to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors, it has to formulate and implement the approaches that will increase its marketability. Therefore, the Coca Cola Company has to evaluate its potential business, corporate and global strategies to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage over its counterparts in the beverage industry.
Business Level Strategies
The core competencies of an organization should incorporate satisfaction of consumer needs as well as increasing profits of the firm by adopting effective business strategies. According to Baroto, Abdullah and Wan (2012), business level strategies include cost leadership, product distinction and focus approach. The cost leadership strategy presupposes ensuring internal efficiency to produce low priced products with above-average profit margin returns to get a competitive advantage in the market. The differentiation strategy implies manufacturing of high value and unique products in the market to gain a competitive edge. The focus strategies use low cost or differentiation to develop products for a particular market segment. Thus, every organization should evaluate and implement a combination of strategies to maintain competitiveness over its counterparts in the industry.
Calculate the cost of essay
The Coca Cola Company has implemented various business strategies to help it hold a competitive position. The corporation employs the product differentiation strategy to provide unique and high value products in order to gain a competitive edge over other firms. The venture differentiates its products by means of various bottle shapes and labeling, unique marketing campaigns as well as advanced manufacturing plants and machinery to produce high quality beverages. Moreover, the corporation established the Coca Cola free style machine that allows customers to mix and match their Coca Cola beverages with numerous flavors. The business could also use the alcohol drinking culture of people to develop a partnership with the best alcohol brands and to sell the liquors with Coca Cola drinks. Therefore, increasing its market share and profit margins in the beverage industry, Coca Cola should employ the product differentiation strategy to introduce new beverage brands and to maintain the ` loyalty of their consumers.
The product differentiation business strategy has enabled the Coca Cola products to be recognized for their great taste and value. As a result, the company should work hard to preserve a delicious taste of their beverages and create more innovative ways of developing unique products in order to meet the changing customer needs and to achieve long-term product differentiation. Furthermore, Coca Cola should use the experience curve to reduce its costs, enhance its management strategies and production processes. It is vital for the organization to establish excellent partnership networks with the suppliers to obtain discounts when purchasing in bulk due to its considerable bargaining power. Hence, this will enable the firm to devise an effective business strategy that will substantially decrease the number of new entrants in the beverage industry and provide a competitive advantage over rival corporations.
Corporate Level Strategies
Corporate level strategies refer to the selection of business units and processes that an organization should engage in to gain a competitive advantage over other firms in the industry. According to Daniel (2015), a successful corporate level strategy enables an establishment to diversify its performance and develop high value products for its consumers as well as to maximize the profits. The Coca Cola Company operates in more than two hundred countries that demonstrates its focus on the expansion of its business. The corporation uses a horizontal growth strategy when launching new products, targeting new customers and venturing into new geographical markets. On the other hand, the company employs a vertical growth strategy when investing in its supply chain. In addition, the venture has implemented diversification strategies to increase its portfolio and competitiveness. Therefore, Coca Cola has adopted vertical and horizontal growth as well as diversification corporate level strategies to improve its competitiveness in the beverage industry.
Benefit from Our Service: Save 25% Along with the first order offer - 15% discount, you save extra 10% since we provide 300 words/page instead of 275 words/page
Furthermore, the organization pursues stability and retrenchment corporate level strategies. Stability strategies are aimed at reviewing the quality standards, managing the marketing and advertisement costs, controlling the supply and distribution systems along with enhancing its research and development projects while retrenchment strategies are responsible for administering business units that are stagnant. Thus, it is easier and faster for the venture to launch new products in the market by using the existing distribution channels and suppliers. The formulation and implementation of excellent growth strategies are essential for Coca Cola in maintaining its leadership and market share globally since the company can assume considerable bargaining power over its suppliers by promoting collaboration of different business units. Therefore, the firm should focus on enhancing its growth strategies to strengthen its market share as well as to achieve its strategic objectives.
Global Strategies
Global strategies cover the international, multinational and global policies designed to enable an establishment to attain the goal of international expansion. According to Puravankara (2007), there has been a decline in trade barriers, which has allowed ventures to implement global strategies to gain a competitive advantage. To formulate effective global strategies, corporations are to understand the nature of world organizations and the dynamics of global competitions. Having adopted global strategies, Coca Cola may increase its global competitiveness by raising value in the international market. Thus, the firm should take advantage of the reduction in trade restrictions in the international market to penetrate into more markets with its products and enhance its marketability.
The organization can improve its global strategies by outsourcing and utilizing the inexpensive labor globally to lower its operation costs significantly. Moreover, this will enable the organization to cut its research and development expenses by approaching numerous experts from various regions around the globe. The implementation of effective global strategies will contribute to the expansion of the corporation’s market share by launching its products in new markets. In addition, the company will be able to optimally utilize resources from any parts of the world to improve the quality of its manufactured items and gain a competitive edge. Consequently, this will facilitate the adaptation of the firm’s products to the market conditions hence providing for easier identification of great opportunities for finding an attractive niche in the market and enhancing its competitiveness.
Recommendations
It is recommended for the Coca Cola Company to concentrate on improving its global and business strategies. Effective global strategies will create favorable opportunities for marketing of the organization’s products in the emerging markets. In addition, the firm will benefit from the economies of scale obtained from expanding its market share worldwide. The corporation can outsource for cheap resources and labor from other geographical regions thus substantially reducing its expenses, which will increase the profit margins. Coca Cola can also use the focus strategy in both low cost and differentiation dimensions because this approach will target new markets and satisfy specific consumer needs while at the same cutting its manufacturing costs by establishing efficient production processes. Hence, the implementation of successful global and business strategies will give the business a competitive edge over its counterparts in the market.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Coca Cola Company has to evaluate its business, corporate and global strategies to maintain a competitive advantage over other corporations in this industry. The business level strategies embrace the cost leadership strategy, the product distinction strategy and the focus approach. The corporate level strategies include business expansion, security and abatement strategies. The global strategies encompass international, multinational and global strategies. In addition, the organization should develop its global strategy to enter new geographical markets and achieve economies of scale. Therefore, the establishment should concentrate on evaluating its business strategies as well as enhance product differentiation and focus strategy in order to meet the dynamic consumer needs and increase its profit margins.
