HAS COCA-COLA FINALLY MET ITS MATCH?

Self respecting marketers, marketing novices and the public at large know Coca-cola and its secret recipe as a massive marketing success for 'eons', I even dare think- what would we do without good old coke? Remote villages in nameless countries have the familiar shape Coca-cola bottles pregnant with the dark money making liquid perched invitingly on shelves in local village shops and pubs.

Recent activity in the Health sector though seemingly threaten coke's viability in the healthy eating habits persuasion. Will healthy eating habits affect Coca-colas dominance of the fizzy drinks market? Are we witnessing the slow death of a giant as we have known it ? Or will this just lead to healthier Coca-cola spin-offs? the later makes profitable sense.

In the meanwhile Venezuala has gone ahead and banned a version of Coca-cola citing possible health risks (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090611/twl-venezuela-bans-coke-zero-over-health-3fd0ae9.html). A couple of weeks ago I read a health article in a local london paper that stated that cola drinks deplete the body of some essential mineral if my memory serves me right, and this here now could be termed to be a consequential development ; My steadfast companion through the african heat, Coca-cola, what next?

Export pricing strategy

Pricing strategy is a matter of having as much information as possible about costs and the value of a product to various classes of consumers in different markets. The simplest form of pricing is cost- plus which balances the price and resulting sales against production costs, the second alternative is strategic pricing which involves:

• Skimming the market: to make the largest short-run profit possible and retire from the business.
  
• Sliding down the demand curve: In this strategy the company reduces prices faster and further than it would be forced to do. A company doing this has the objective to become established in foreign markets as an efficient producer at optimum volume before foreign or domestic competitors can get entrenched. Primarily used by companies introducing product innovations.
  
• Penetration pricing: This strategy involves establishing a price sufficiently low to rapidly create a mass market. Emphasis is placed on value rather than cost in setting the price. This involves the assumption that if the price is set to bring in a mass market, the effect of this volume will be to lower costs sufficiently to make the price yield a profit.
  
• Pre-emptive pricing: Setting the prices so low as to discourage competition is the objective of pre-emptive pricing. The price will be close to total unit costs for this reason. As lower costs result from increased volume, still lower prices will be quoted to buyers. The assumption is that profits will be made in the long run through market dominance.
  
• Extinction pricing: The purpose of extinction pricing is to eliminate existing competitors from international markets. It may be adopted by large, low-cost producers as a conscious means of driving weaker, marginal producers out of the industry. Since it can be highly demoralizing especially for small firms, it can slow down economic advancement and thus retard development of otherwise potentially substantial markets.
  

Gerald Albaum, Jesper Stransdskov and Edwin Duerr, 2002, International Marketing and Export Management, 4^th ed., Harlow-London: FT Prentice Hall. International pricing, chapter 10.

Marketing Management By Philip Kotler (719 Slides)

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Marketing Management By Philip Kotler (719 Slides)

Parallel Markets

Grey Markets Deloitte Ralf Schwarzendahl Marc Abels

View more presentations from CharlesdC.

Culture , Corruption and Bribery

"Today the US government is the only one in the world which legislates heavy penalties- fines and prison sentences- for any of its citizens caught bribing overseas officials, In contrast, many European countries not only condone such payments, they permit their companies to claim foreign bribes as a tax deduction.

Nevertheless, business people of any nationality have good reasons for avoiding the bribery trap:" ethics, Corporate ethics, expense, Local law.

Richard R. Gesteland, 2001, Cross Cultural Business Behaviour; marketing, negotiating and managing across cultures, 2^nd ed., Copenhagen: Copenhagen Bus. Sch. Press.
p. 91.

INNOVATION

‘An established company which in an age demanding innovation is not capable of innovation is doomed to decline and extinction. And a management which in such a period does not know how to manage innovation is incompetent and unequal to its task. Managing innovation will increasingly become especially top management, and a touchstone of its competence.’ PETER DRUCKER.

'There are costs and risks to a programme of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.’ John F Kennedy.