Swot Analysis Of Coca Cola

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QA about Coca-Cola Company

Company overview

The Coca-Cola Company is a beverage company that manufactures and distributes various nonalcoholic beverages worldwide. Coca-Cola's red and white trademark is probably the best-known brand symbol in the world. The company also operates one of the world's most pervasive distribution systems, offering its nearly 400 beverage products in more than 200 countries worldwide.

The Coca-Cola is the #1 nonalcoholic beverage company, as well as one of the world's most recognizable brands. The Coca-Cola Company is home to 20 billion-dollar-brands, including four of the top five soft drinks: Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Fanta, and Sprite. All told, the company owns or licenses and markets more than 500 beverage brands, mainly sparkling drinks but also waters, juice drinks, energy and sports drinks, and ready-to-drink teas and coffees. The Coca-Cola Company sells its products primarily under the Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola Light, Coca-Cola Zero, Sprite, Fanta, Minute Maid, Powerade, Aquarius, Dasani, Glacéau Vitaminwater, Georgia, Simply, Minute Maid Pulpy, Del Valle, Ayataka, Bonaqua/Bonaqa, and Schweppes brand names. With the world's largest beverage distribution system, The Coca-Cola Company reaches thirsty consumers in more than 200 countries.

Let’s use SWOT analysis to consider the strategy of a hypothetical prominent soft drinks manufacturer called Coca-Cola. Coke is currently the market leader in the manufacture and sale of sugary carbonated drinks and has a strong brand image. Sugary carbonated drinks are currently an extremely profitable line of business. The company’s goal is to develop strategies to achieve sustained profit growth into the future.

Strengths

The most important strength of Coca-Cola is its brand image and the high brand awareness. The Coca-Cola Company is one of the most widely recognized brands across the globe. The brand is present in nearly every part of the world and enjoys a very high degree of popularity. There are two key players in this sector of the beverage business, one being Coca-Cola, while the other remains PepsiCo, Inc.

A key reason behind its impressive international presence is its robust distribution network. Coca-Cola utilizes unique marketing and advertising strategies. It has continued to make major investments in marketing and advertising as well as customer engagement. From time to time viral marketing videos to social media campaigns, Coca-Cola has used all of them to attract customers.

Coca-Cola products are distributed via large distributors and many manual distribution centers around the world. Coca-Cola manual distribution program allows independent entrepreneurs to set up distribution centers in behalf of the company.

Weaknesses

Weaknesses for any business need to be both minimized and monitored in order to effectively achieve productivity and efficiency in their business’s activities. The Coca-Cola Co faces a challenging situation, in which economic recovery is fragile in developed markets, while the major emerging markets of China, Russia and Brazil are seeing a slowdown in growth. Despite economic difficulties, consumers continue to desire diverse and healthy beverages, which is a challenge but also an opportunity. The negative publicity regarding sugared drinks and the potential introduction of sugar taxes is a further challenge. Also read about hypothetical company

Coca-Cola brand image is closely associated with high sugar carbonates and this does not resonate well with growing obesity and health concerns among increasing number of a population around the globe. Also, the company has developed low and zero calorie drinks, it may take a considerable amount of time and effort to disassociate Coca-Cola Company from high-sugar carbonated drinks. Coca-Cola, as a major carbonated drink manufacturer, can contribute to the obesity epidemic. They haven’t addressed or found a healthier solution yet.

Coca-Cola’s major competitor is Pepsi. But unlike Pepsi, which has branched away from the Soda-only model of revenue, Coca-Cola has yet to develop a food or snack. This puts them behind Pepsi in terms of competition since Pepsi has Lay’s chips and other foods under their belt.

Since the early 2000s, the criticisms over the use of Coca-Cola products as well as the company itself escalated with concerns over health effects, environmental issues, animal testing, economic business practices and employee issues. The Coca-Cola Company has been faced with multiple lawsuits concerning the various criticisms.

Opportunities

Coca-Cola has a couple of opportunities in its business. It has many successful brands that it should continue to exploit and pursue. Coca-Cola also has the opportunity to advertise its less popular products. With a large income, it has the available money to put some of these other beverages on the market. Coca-Cola can create new products and diversifies their current offerings. They have the brand identify, customers, manufacturing, and evaluation to back this up. It’s possible to find niches untouched by Pepsi to develop products, especially in the health food spaces. This way they branch out from soft drinks.

Bottled water, both still and sparkling, offers an attractive growth opportunity. Consumers across the world are becoming more aware of the health benefits of drinking water. Coca-Cola has a strong bottled water portfolio. It includes Glaceau Smartwater, Glaceau Vitamin Water, and Dasani. The company is keen on expanding its portfolio to capture the rapid growth in this category. This could be very beneficial to the company if they could start selling these other products to the same extent that they do with their main products.

Threats

Even though Coca-Cola and Pepsi control nearly 40% of the entire beverage market, the changing health-consciousness attitude of the market could have a serious effect on Coca-Cola. This definitely needs to be viewed as a dominant threat. In today’s world, people are constantly trying to change their eating and drinking habits. This could directly affect the sale of Coca-Cola’s products. Coca-Cola Company has been compared to cigarette companies in recent times for projecting an image that it is okay to consume their products when their products not only have no real nutritional value but could be hazardous to health in regards to weight, teeth and even may cause osteoporosis from the Phosphoric Acid.

Another possible issue is the legal side of things. There are always issues with a company of such supreme wealth and popularity. Somebody is always trying to find fault with the best and take them down. Coca-Cola has to be careful with lawsuits.

The threat of competition against Coca-Cola has kept rising. Apart from Pepsi, competitive pressure from other brands like Dr. Pepper Snapple Inc., Monster Beverage Corp., and Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd has also increased. The resources are getting costlier including water.

Conclusion

It is no doubt that Coca-Cola Company is a powerful, globally recognized corporation. Coca-Cola is much more than just a recognized logo or brand name. It has achieved to develop a notion about universal refreshment. Moreover, Coca-Cola’s success mainly results from its proactive management, innovative marketing and global distribution. However, the unhealthy stereotyped image of Coca-Cola is hard to reverse. In addition, the entry barriers and competitors from other brands may hinder the development of Coca-Cola. Therefore, the company is raising its awareness to create sustainable communities for social responsibility. In the next decade, the company and its partners are likely to invest in further development of manufacturing capacity, consumer marketing and brand building, expansion of distribution and innovation. Coca-Cola seems to make every effort to raise its brand image by marketing strategies.

References

• The Coca-Cola Company [http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/economics-business-and-labor/businesses-and-occupations/coca-cola-company]
• The Coca-Cola Company - Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background Information on The Coca-Cola Company [http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/89/The-Coca-Cola-Company.html]
• SWOT Analysis of Coca Cola [http://pestleanalysis.com/swot-analysis-coca-cola/]

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