Using the "25 Step" outline to strategic analysis, apply Steps 5-11 to Coca Cola to study for this project.

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[Type the company name] Strategic Management Coca Cola Company Author [Pick the date]

Introduction

Coca-cola company is one of the largest beverage companies in the world that primarily produces refreshing products to its broad category of consumers across the globe. The company trades at the New York Stock Exchange and has been one of the highly recognizable and valuable brands. Established in the 1880's, Coca-Cola has grown into a tremendous company that produces low-calorie soft drinks as a way of ensuring that its customers are served with products that take care of their health after continuous consumption over the years.

Through product innovations such as the Diet Coke that became the world's top-selling diet cola, many more successful flavor extensions have been innovated extending the brand into a giant company which large volume of sales. Coca-Cola success is heavily attributed to its secret formula for producing the world's best recipe for an outstanding beverage (Pitta & Prevel, 1995).

Specific industry and its competition

Operating in the beverage industry of fast moving consumer goods, Coca-Cola has been able to make a vast brand portfolio of more than five hundred brands. Apart from selling the various extensions in different flavors, the brand also produces energy drinks and bottled water which makes it face stiff competition from many players in the industry that deal with the same product category of consumer goods.

Its closest competitor is beverage making company Pepsi that became a strong brand after merging the original Pepsi brand with the Frito brand (Venkataraman et al., 2017). With the US being the largest market for both Pepsi and Coca-Cola, the rivalry between the two brands has led to fierce competition for both companies against each other. Other companies that pose as competitors in the soft drinks processing industry include Dr. Pepper Snapple, Parte, and Red Bull.

Who has succeeded and failed in the industry?

The industry for soft drinks such as sodas, bottled water, and energy drinks has seen some companies be able to claim a portion of the market share while still saw the terrible decline of individual companies that failed to attract a good number of sales thereby going out of business. Among the companies that have been able to successfully competing with Pepsi and Coca-Cola who claim a larger market share are Dr. Pepper Snapple and Red Bull.

A good number of companies also shut down completely within a short period of operation after failing to offer customers welcome drinks that satisfied their needs. One of the companies that failed was Josta an energy drink brand that bet on the intense Coke versus Pepsi war to make a market entrance. Josta was unable to make an impact on the industry thus had to close down.

Another company that failed was Orbitz, a drink that had floating lumps of solid food. A few customers were delighted with the soft drink leading to its closure after just a year of being in the soft drinks business.

Potential profitability of the industry

The industry has a high potential of profitability for Coca-Cola, Pepsi and some of the smaller brands that have managed to steal a pie of the market share in the soft drinks business. The potential for profitability comes as a result of the threat of new entrants’ face as they try to establish new companies in the industry. Coca-Cola and its main competitor Pepsi continue to enjoy high profitability because of strong brand loyalty that has been possible because of their long history and dominance (Slater, 2002).

The industry also has a low bargaining power for buyers because of the low number of suppliers that work with the leading companies. This offers a small room for negotiation making the industry more profitable since buyers have to buy the products at the set prices.

References

Pitta, D. A., & Prevel Katsanis, L. (1995). Understanding brand equity for successful brand extension. Journal of consumer marketing, 12(4), 51-64.

Venkataraman, S., Summers, M., & Venkataraman, S. (2017). PepsiCo: The Challenge of Growth through Innovation. Darden Business Publishing Cases, 1-22.

Slater, J. S. (2000). Collecting the real thing: A case study exploration of brand loyalty enhancement among Coca-Cola brand collectors. ACR North American Advances.