The Coca-Cola is one of the best-known beverages in the world and is manufactured and marketed by ‘The Coca-Cola Company’, one of the largest beverage companies in the world. Coke, one of the products of Coca-Cola company is outstandingly popular and is the most preferred soft drink in the world and has to get hold of a majority share in the beverage market in India, the United States, Canada, Brazil, and most of the European countries. According to Forbes, the beverage company has been deemed as the most valuable non-technological brand in the world. This behemoth has managed to maintain its position as a market leader for over a hundred years and is still going strong. Coca-Cola was a private company but was shortly turned into a publicly traded company. Coca-Cola, one of the largest listed companies in Dow Jones Index, has been currently managed by a number of BODs, headed by the Chairman as well as CEO Muhtar Kent.
Coke has been one of the most desired soft drink in Nepal. The Khetan Group is the sole importer and distributor of Coca-Cola Products in Nepal. Bottlers Nepal Limited (BNL), the manufacturing plant owned and operated by Khetan Group, is the only bottler of Coca-Cola products in Nepal and has two bottling plants; namely Kathmandu, and Bharatpur. The coke power, which is manufactured by the head manufacturing plant in the US, was made available to Bottlers Nepal Ltd in 1979 since then the local production of Coca-Cola has begun. In the global scenario, Coca-Cola is the favourite drink and a reigning brand in the realm of soft drink. Moreover, Coca-Cola has been one of the preferred refreshment drink amongst Nepalese people. The Coca-Cola production in Nepal has continuously proliferated since its introduction and has been the lifestyle of many Nepalese people. Today, Coke has the great market share in Nepal; every shop in Nepal offers Coca-Cola products for sale. Coca-Cola has also planned to run a vending machine in Nepal nearby supermarkets and had nearly published to establish a vending machine at Bhatbhateni, Koteshwor, but the program was duly cancelled as Nepal felt a severe jolt.
The Coca-Cola Company managed to touch sky-limit and adapt swift development and growth shortly after its commencement. The prodigious Coca-Cola Company was granted a trademark for the name “coke” in 1945. The Coca-Cola Company practices tall organizational structure, which is marked with complexity. Coca-Cola is controlled through a vertical hierarchy, with decision-making authority residing with the company’s upper management. Daily and routine decisions are made by the line managers at the middle level. The lower level Managers are responsible for supervision of blue-collar employees. The giant company has sub-division in each of the continents except Antarctica, and each of these divisions is well organized and has a marketing manager, public affair director, finance director, purchase director and others. The information regarding planning to do something must to delivered to the head office, and the tall hierarchy has made the transformation of information tedious and time-consuming. Executive Committee has the final decision making power for activities the divisions have proposed. For instance: If Blotters Nepal wants to advertise Coca-Cola products, it must take consent from the head office and must present the details of information regarding brief, Media plan, the medium of advertisement, advertisement frequency, anticipated threshold effects, targeted customers, and budget.
The superior policies backed by opulent planning have been deemed as the secret of Coca-Cola’s success. In most of the companies, the strategic goals are made for long-term but Coca-Cola Company’s goals are set for only three years, they change their strategies after every three years. Some of the inalienable goals in strategic planning include: Selecting and retaining the professional people for the organization, projecting an outstanding corporate image, satisfying customer through extraordinary service and an excellent service, and providing a quality product to the valuable customers. In contrary to Coca-Cola Company, Bottlers Nepal Ltd has been guided by long-term of the strategic goals. The marketing, sales and distribution strategy for Bottlers Nepal Limited is entitled “Refresh the Marketplace. The strategic goal encompasses some core aspects that include: A robust Consumer Response System to address any consumer/customer concerns, ideas, suggestions – either on product and its quality or on stock supply – maintenance of equipment etc. All consumer concerns are dealt with in a fair, timely and friendly manner, so as to satisfy them and resolve their concerns. Marketing and advertising communications are focused on POS (point-of-sale), Radio, TV, hoardings, truck backs, etc. Emphasis is also placed on Consumer Price to enforce Price Compliance. Marketing and advertising communications are customized to suit to local sentiments – social, religious, ethnic. Innovative packages and pack sizes are offered to give better value to consumers and ease of storage to retailers. Prices and packs are introduced in a format that is affordable to all segments of society. However, Coca-Cola Company and Bottlers Nepal Ltd are inclined towards holistic marketing concept intensively focusing on internal marketing, relationship management marketing, integrated marketing and social responsibility marketing.
Coca-Cola is the favourite refreshment drink in Nepal and occupies lion’s share in Nepalese local market. However, Coca-Cola is severely challenged by Pepsi, the product of Pepsico. The fierce rivalry between these two products has been a popular culture. The rivalry is so intense that their cross elasticity of demand is often very high, which indicates that they are close substitutes for each other. Nevertheless, Coca-Cola has managed to make stringent effort to be number one in Nepalese market through identifying and managing the strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats.
| Environment | Outcomes | |
| Internal Environment | Strength · Coca-Cola is the branded product, so it is inherent potent of it to capture the probable market and retain existing market. · The full automation and use of advance technology is the greatest strength of this behemoth. · Growing number of hard-core loyal, and employee trustworthiness is the striking strength that the company has maintained. | Weakness · The improper management within bottlers Nepal Ltd. · Lack of good customer response system, and dearth of proper supply chain management system. · Obscuring quality of product backed by heft rise in prices. · Significant focus on carbonated drinks |
| External Environment | Opportunities · Supply chain Improvement: Improvement in supply chain can make Coke prodigiously outstanding brand. · Growing brand loyalty: Many companies entered to the market but failed to get acceptance of customer. · Increasing demand for healthy food and beverage · Growing beverages consumption in emerging markets. · Lessening of governmental regulations | Threats · Changes in consumer preferences · Water scarcity · Legal requirements to disclose negative information on product labels · Competition from PepsiCo · Saturated carbonated drinks market · Negative publicity by prominent figure Ram Dev Baba might have a deleterious impact on sales of Coke in near future |
Coca-Cola Company has been successfully engaged in societal concerns and has seamlessly integrated to cultural diversity through divisionalization. The behemoth is currently running on the most advanced technology and Bottlers Nepal is also currently running on full automatic technologies. Khetan Group has a significant role in Nepalese market and has been conducting Coca-Cola Cup in Nepal. Coca-Cola has been persistently been participating in sponsorship of sports, public display, and other cultural programs. However, the company has been bounded by many legal regulations, environmental and health concerns, externalities, and many another economic factor.
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