. Soft Drink Industry Five Forces Analysis:

Kool-Aid, a brand that offers flavored drink mix owned by Kraft Foods is part of the soft drink industry. Three main players control the soft drink industry and they are Coke (42.8%), Pepsi (31.1%), and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group (15%). First of all, a soft drink is defined as any drink that contains water, but not alcohol. This includes soda, juice/punch, energy drink, tea, sports drink, and water. There are more than a thousand different soft drinks in the U.S. market, and among the one thousand variety of drinks, the three main players offer about 400 of them (40%). Since the three dominant brands pretty much control the market, most of the small players compete by offering inexpensive drinks that are often only sold in particular retail chain such as Sam’s Choice and Shasta Beverages. They also compete in the newer category of soft drinks such as tea and energy

As we analyze Figure 2, we have determined from a costs perspective that basing production manager’s bonuses off of a percentage of sales is unethical because he is not being based off of his “performance.” For starters, in 2008, CBI expanded and began producing Gera beer, which unlike other exported beer, does not collect an eight dollar deposit fee. Next, from 2008 to 2009, CBI was hit with a $6,128,000 bottling

The soft-drink industry capitalizing on creating the best product. Each product has a different taste, formula, and color to entice the consumer. It is important for the product to remain innovative in order to keep the consumers interested. The suppliers can easily differ, because they do not hold much value or put

The soft drink industry is one of the most highly profitable industries in the USA. Also, the competitive market is a very large market. Americans consumed about 53 gallons of soft drinks per person a year in 2000 by $ 60.3 billion!! Comparing with the market in 1990, since it was 47 gallons. In recent years, the market growth has slowed.

The existing concentrate business is largely controlled by Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) and PepsiCo (Pepsi), together claiming a combined 72% of the U.S. carbonated soft drink (CSD) market sales volume in 2009. Refer to Exhibit 1 for an illustration of the CSD industry value chain. For more than a century, Coca-Cola and Pepsi have maintained growth and large market shares through mastering five competitive forces, shown in Exhibit 2, that drive profitability and shape the industry structure.

Compare the economics of the concentrate business to that of the bottling business: Why is the profitability so different?

Customers have bargain power in the market since soft drink is an elastic product which is not necessary for daily life.

Porter’s (2008) competitive forces play a significant role in the success of the concentrate producers (CPs) in this industry. The forces are "threat of new entrants, rivalry among existing competitors, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitute products or services, and bargaining power of suppliers" (p. 27). Concentrate producers usually produce carbonated soft drink (CSD). Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cora are known as two big CPs in the world.

and Pepsi Co dominate the industry with their strong brand name and great distribution channels. In addition, the soft-drink industry is fully saturated and growth is small. This makes it very difficult for new, unknown entrants to start competing against the existing firms. Another barrier to entry is the high fixed costs for warehouses, trucks, and labor, and economies of scale. New entrants cannot compete in price without economies of scale. These high capital requirements and market saturation make it extremely difficult for companies to enter the soft drink industry; therefore new entrants are not a strong competitive force.

Defining the industry: Both concentrate producers (CP) and bottlers are profitable. These two parts of the

The economics of the concentrate business and bottling is different from each other in terms of number and size of rivals and cost structure etc. Concentrate business has few buyers and through its value chain compare to bottling business has many buyer and mid-way player in the soft drink industry. The concentrate manufacturing process involved a little capital investment in machinery, overhead, or labour to reduce the risks whereas bottlers involving high capital investment. Franchise agreements with soft drink industry allowed bottlers to handle the non-cola brand of other concentrate producers. It also allowed bottlers to choose whether to market new beverages introduced by a concentrate producer. Concentrate producers product cost structure is mostly based on variable costs such as advertising, promotion, market research, and bottler support however, bottler products cost constitution is mostly based on fixed costs and have higher cost leverage. Concentrate producers also took charge of negotiating customer development agreements with nationwide retailers such as Wal-Mart. Concentrate producers collaborated to make more profitable control with bottlers, for example, raw material negotiation with suppliers and sales price

Coca-Cola is the number one non-alcoholic beverage in the world and is also the golden standard in the beverage industry. Over the pass decade carbonated beverage sales has decrease which has lead Coca-Cola to seek for new opportunity and investor. Contribution of US soda sales in Coca-Cola’s revenue could decline to less than 15% by 2020. By the end of 2017 Coca-Cola is looking to refranchise two-thirds of its bottling territories in North America. The outcome of Coca-Cola refranchise two-third of its bottling territories will reduce the revenue to Coca-Cola sales of its products, however the operating margin will increase. Also, this could reduce the percentage contribution by the U.S to Coca-Cola overall revenue.

The industry of Carbonated Soft Drinks (CSD) is highly concentrated. The three major companies, Coca Cola, PepsiCo, and Cadbury Schweppes accounted in 1998 for more than 90% of market share by case volume –Exhibit 1-.

The last two topics within Porter’s Five Force Analysis are the threats of substitutes and new entries. The threat of substitutes for PepsiCo and Pepsi products could be considered quite high. In recent years, Americans have been cutting back soda consumption, approximately 1.2% in 2015, and 0.9% in 2014 (Taylor, 2016). Customers have been replacing soft drinks, in particular, with water, coffees, and all natural juices. This also leads the way for the threat of new entries. As people are tending to lean away from traditional soft drinks, the threat of new entrants could be considered moderate. This is because the cost of entry is relatively low as it is not a technology driven industry. Most of the cost of entry would be related to branding and marketing of the new product (Thompson, 1996). In recent years many competitors have entered the market with desirable ingredients and non-soft-drink beverages.

The global beverages industry is currently a low-growth market, with an expected compound annual growth rate of 5.7% between 2017 and 2025 (Grand View Research 2017). Additionally, the industry is quite saturated with firms that offer increasingly differentiated products. However, due to this low growth rate, companies have been engaging in price competition to gain competitive advantage and increase their market share. Nevertheless, Coca Cola is a dominant force in this market, controlling 40% of the industry, and is therefore at a low risk of losing its position.