Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
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Case Study Description of Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition
In November 2017, Coca-Cola India Private Limited (Coca-Cola India) laid out a plan for the next summer-the introduction of a whipped frozen fruit dessert. Minute Maid Perfect Fruit, which Coca-Cola India planned to launch in India's top 10 cities in 2018, was to be an extension of the company's Minute Maid brand. Coca-Cola India also intended to expand Maaza, its fruit drink brand, with two new variants. These extensions were to be part of the company's strategy to launch a line of Beverage Plus products. Although globally, the parent company first began testing Perfect Fruit in Australia, the frozen dessert market in India would be the first to witness its full-scale launch. The company planned to launch the products at high foot-traffic retail outlets and popular locations for young people. If Coca-Cola India chose to make a foray into the frozen desserts segment, what strategic capabilities could it leverage? What possible obstacles to success could arise in the new product categories? What branding strategies could the company use to promote its products in this segment? Which market segments should the company target? What were the pros and cons of entering this segment? Most importantly, was it the right time to enter this market segment? Sandeep Puri is affiliated with Asian Institute of Management. Shreya Gupta is affiliated with Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad.
Swot Analysis of "Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition" written by Sandeep Puri, Shreya Gupta, Archit Kacker includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Coca Cola facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Product development and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Coca Cola, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Coca Cola operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Coca Cola
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Coca Cola
Strengths Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Coca Cola in Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Coca Cola
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Coca Cola does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Coca Cola has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Coca Cola has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Coca Cola has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Coca Cola are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Coca Cola is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Diverse revenue streams
– Coca Cola is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Training and development
– Coca Cola has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Coca Cola is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Coca Cola in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Coca Cola to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Coca Cola to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Coca Cola in the sector have low bargaining power. Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Coca Cola to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Coca Cola has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Coca Cola products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Coca Cola needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition, it seems that the employees of Coca Cola don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Coca Cola is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Coca Cola has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Coca Cola even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Coca Cola has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition, in the dynamic environment Coca Cola has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Coca Cola has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Coca Cola has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Coca Cola has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Coca Cola has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Coca Cola 's lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Opportunities Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition are -
Buying journey improvements
– Coca Cola can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Coca Cola to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Loyalty marketing
– Coca Cola has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Coca Cola can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Coca Cola can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Coca Cola has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Coca Cola to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition case study. Coca Cola can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Coca Cola in the consumer business. Now Coca Cola can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Coca Cola can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Coca Cola can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Coca Cola to increase its market reach. Coca Cola will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Coca Cola can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Coca Cola operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Coca Cola in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Coca Cola can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Sales & Marketing segment.
Threats Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Coca Cola can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition .
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Coca Cola needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Coca Cola in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Coca Cola with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Coca Cola has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Sales & Marketing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Coca Cola needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Sales & Marketing sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Increasing wage structure of Coca Cola
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Coca Cola.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Coca Cola can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Coca Cola demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Coca Cola high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Coca Cola is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition, Coca Cola may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Coca-Cola India's Frozen Dessert Plan Heats Up Competition is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Coca Cola needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.