CLOBusiness Decision-Making Project Part 1
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CLOBusiness Decision-Making Project Part 1
Coca-ColaCompany
TheCoca-Cola Company is one of the largest American multinationalCorporations. It mainly deals with manufacturing, retailing andmarketing of non-alcoholic drinks, concentrates, and syrups. Its headoffice is located in Atlanta, Georgia. The company is famous forproducing Coca-Cola, invented in the year 1886 by John Stith, who wasa pharmacist by profession in Georgia. The soft drink and brandformula was bought in 1889 by Asa Griggs, and in the year 1892, hestarted the Coca-Cola Company[ CITATION Mar13 l 1033 ].The company operates a successful franchised distribution systemdating back to 1892. The company manufactures syrup concentrateswhich are sold and supplied to severalBottlers spread out in all the continents. The company owns andoperates an anchor bottler in North America. The company has beenable to acquire other several businesses and as per the strategiccompany policy, it will continue the same to expand its operations.According to reports, it shows that the firm enjoys a broad market inmore than 200 countries. Also, the reports further indicateapproximately 1.5 billion of coca cola drinks are sold every day.Countries like United States, India, Brazil, China, and Japan formthe largest market share for the company. For almost a century, thecompany has been a publicly traded company. Over the years, thecompany has worked on improving consumer relations and hascontributed campaigns targeting on improving public relations[ CITATION Mar13 l 1033 ].
Emergingmarket performance
Overthe years, Coca-Cola Company has dominated soft drink marketworldwide. Currently even though the company still dominates theemerging markets, it has started experiencing increased competitionfrom both multinational and local companies. Multinationalcorporations such as Pepsi Co. have continued to expand its marketposing a greater challenge to Coca-Cola Company. If the companywants to keep dominating the market, it must look for alternativesecondary markets especially in Asian countries. The Coca-Cola brandis among the oldest soft drinks in the market, and it has been doingwell for more than 100 years. The company works hard in ensuring itcreates brand awareness making it most popular among severalconsumers. The marketing department together with its marketing teamneeds to stop relying on their past performance and start adoptingnew marketing techniques for the company to remain competitive. Theyneed to come up with new strategies, participate in various globalcampaigns and organize events for it to attract more customers andincrease their customer base. The fact that the company is old andpeople are hardly excited when they hear their name. Coca-Cola brandhas become part of people’s culture and on most occasions consumerswill stare past it unless the marketing comes up with creativecampaigns to excite the masses. They constantly need to be remindinguser through various means that their brand is still exciting.
Oneof the research variables in this study is the use of social media asa marketing strategy to increase the firm customer base in emergingmarkets. The company will use social media mainly Facebook andTwitter as a marketing strategy in targeting emerging markets. Thecompany will carry out social media campaigns in one of the targetmarkets for instance Asia. The aim of the research study is todetermine the impact of using social media as a marketing strategy intargeting emerging markets. The result of using social media isexamined by looking at sales volumes before and after theintervention.
Thepurposeful sampling technique is used in this qualitative research. Agroup of marketing managers will be chosen to respond to studyquestions. It involves creating a framework of the survey variableswhich are most likely to affect on the contribution of givenpartaker[ CITATION Ali08 l 1033 ]. The members of research team willbe given a chance at the end of the research study to validate theresults of the survey. The methods of datacollection used include: interviewing and use of questionnaires andanalyzing of sales report. Regional managers, retailers, andconsumers will be interviewed using open-ended questionnaires.Thesales data are retrieved by scrutinizing the sales records fromdifferent retailers in the target market. The aim of usinginterviewing as a technique of data collection is to get anexplanation of the life world of a particular chosen respondent onhis or her understanding of Coca-cola Company. The participant willdeliberate on how the company has been managing to command largermarket share despite stiff competition in the market. Also, he or shewill give their personal experiences of incorporating social media asa marketing tool. The primary objective of using observation as datacollection method will help in clarifying what observer can see[ CITATION Ali08 l 1033 ].The respondent will give his or her personal judgement about usingsocial media as a marketing tool, how it has revolutionised theindustry and how has sales volume change over time with theintroduction of the social media.
Tofind out whether the method used will generate valid and reliablefindings, research reports is given to all the research partakers.Every member will read the report and check for any distortion in allthe recorded data and given a chance to make remarks[ CITATION Rus06 l 1033 ].Their comments will act as validity test of data collection method.The reliability analysis of the data collection process is donethrough restating of the original question when using theinterviewing technique to determine the accuracy. If the respondentcan affirm accuracy and completeness of the collected data and thusthe data, gather can be said to be valid.
References
Belk, R. W. (2006). Handbook of qualitative research methods in marketing. Cheltenham, UK Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
McIntyre, A. (2008). Participatory action research. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, cop.
Pendergrast, M. (2013). For God, country and Coca-Cola : the definitive history of the great American soft drink and the company that makes it. New York: Basic Books.