Coca-Cola India Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Coca-Cola India - Case Study ExampleThe companys re-entry into the Indian market was through and through a strategic alliance with Parle Exports which was have by Ramesh Chauhan (ICFAI Center for Management Research (ICMR)). Parle Exports entered the soft drinks market in late 1970s and this was the time when the government activity pressures forced Coca-Cola to exit the Indian market. Through the strategic alliance, Coca-Cola India gained the ownership of 5 popular brands of Parle Exports namely Thums Up, Limca, Maaza, Citra and Gold Spot with a market share of approximately 60%, and a well established network of 56 bottlers. All these five brands were the leading and most popular soft drink brands which were initially owned by Parle and later take over by CCI.Coca-Cola India wanted to tap the vast rural market of India. The company did so by creating a cut through line which almost every common man of India is well versed with - Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola. As part of this initiati ve to tap rural India, in the year 2002, Coca-Cola India launched a new advertising campaign featuring leading Bollywood star Aamir Khan with the above mentioned tag line. The advertisement was targeted at rural and semi-urban consumers. According the sources from inside the company, the idea was to place Coca-Cola as a generic brand for cool drinks and at the same time also to support CCIs rural marketing initiatives. The company seriously started instruction on the rural market in the early 2000s with an aim to increase sales volumes. This decision was nothing to get surprised about if the huge untapped rural Indian market was looked at. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the real market in India is in the rural areas and if any company can tap it in the right way, there is a tremendous potential (Carratu). The companys strategy to tap the rural market was based on three As - Availability, Affordability and Acceptability. The first A - Availability emphasised on the availability o f the product to the customer the second A - Affordability focused on the pricing of the product, and third A - Acceptability focused on convincing the customer to bargain for the product (Research) (ICFAI Center for Management Research). After entering the rural market in India, CCI focused on strengthening its diffusion network there. The company cognise that the centralized distribution system used by the company in the urban areas would not be suitable for rural areas. In the centralized distribution system, the product was transported directly from the bottling plants to retailers, but the company realized that this kind of distribution system would not be effective in rural markets as the merchant marine of stocks directly from bottling plants to retail stores would be very costly due to the long distances that need to be covered. The other alternative that the company looked at was a hub and rundle distribution system. Under this kind of system, stock used to get transpo rted from the bottling plants to hubs and then from hubs, the stock was transported to spokes which were situated in small towns. These spokes in turn fed the retailers provide to the demand in rural areas. Apart from changing the distribution model, the company also