¶ … Management Consultant
Coca-Cola Company is the leading soft drink and beverage company across the globe that has constantly achieved tremendous success and profitability throughout its operations. The company's success and profitability throughout the years can be attributed to effective management strategies of its business operations. This has contributed to a strong reputation that has not only attracted a huge customer base but also resulted in enhanced performance. The success and profitability can also be attributed to diversification of its products and provision of excellent customer service. However, the company has experienced significant challenges in the recent past that has forced its former executive to come out of retirement to become the Chief Executive of the firm. The company's troubles started after the death of Roberto C. Goizueta, its revered Chief Executive Officer, in 1997. The firm's situation since then provides a good scenario for analysis of marketing problems and opportunities as well as product innovation strategies towards improved productivity.
Marketing Problems and Opportunities
One of the most important tasks for marketers and researchers is to identify marketing problems and opportunities before developing marketing strategies and objectives. Gibson (1998) states that marketing and marketing research executives have constantly known that marketing strategies and research commence with a definition of marketing problems and identification of marketing opportunities. This process is crucial towards the success of every project since problem definition is considered as solution definition.
Marketing problems can be defined as issues or factors that hinder the success and profitability of a company in relation to advertising strategies and productivity in the market. These problems are sometimes characterized by sub-problems that play a crucial role in the overall issues facing a business organization. In other words, a marketing problem is a gap between what was supposed to take place and what took place. This includes a gap between the organization's business objectives and accomplishments as well as a gap between the marketing plan and performance. On the other hand, marketing opportunities are gaps between what took place and what could have taken place. For instance, marketing opportunities could be the potential for higher sales, improved margins, higher product quality, and stronger market share.
Coca-Cola's Marketing and Innovation Strategy
Upon rejoining Coca-Cola, the Chief Executive Officer, E. Neville Isdell, embarked on a process to identify marketing problems and opportunities. During this process, Isdell stated that the company's system wasn't broken and there was still an opportunity for growth of the firm and other brands. The identification of marketing problems and opportunities was utilized as the framework for developing marketing and innovation strategy transformation towards positioning the company on the cutting edge of consumer brands. In light of the troubles surrounding the firm, all it took to revamp Coca-Cola's business operations and profitability was to see a different reality for growth (Cravens & Piercy, 2008, p.1).
Coca-Cola designed a marketing and innovation strategy to position itself on the cutting edge of consumer trends in light of the changing consumer trends. Consumer tastes and preferences have changed from sodas to a wide range of sports drinks, energy drinks, non-carbonated products, herbal teas, vitamin-fortified waters, and coffee. Moreover, consumer tastes have shifted as they have become increasingly conscious of health and nutrition. The strategy involved more than simply enhancing sales of Coca-Cola Classic and repackaging current beverages in relatively different flavors. The company has explored new products in different fields as far as beauty and health care in order to meet these changing consumer demands, tastes, and preferences.
Through exploring and expanding into new products, Coca-Cola is effectively positioning itself on the cutting edge of consumer trends. The marketing and innovation strategy for transformation is based on consumers' shift towards healthy and nutritious products rather than sodas. Actually, the accomplishment of this objective would be considered as the greatest aspect of creativity in the organization's history. Given the willingness of consumers to invest in alternative beverages than sodas, Coca-Cola's expansion of product range will help ensure that such products are readily available to consumers.
Coca-Cola's Healthy Beverages
One of the most important aspects of Coca-Cola's marketing and innovation strategy transformation in order to position itself on the cutting edge of consumer trends was the shift towards production of healthy beverages. As previously mentioned, Coca-Cola's product strategy of developing healthy beverages is influenced by the need to meet the changing tastes and preferences of consumers towards alternative beverages. As part of its product strategy of developing healthy beverages, Coca-Cola launched 18 clinical trials to examine the health benefits of various new ingredients for future drinks. The...
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