Soft Drinks
consumer, who was generally limited on thirst quenching alternatives.
The final channel to consider is convenience stores and gas stations. If Mobil or Seven-Eleven were to negotiate on behalf of its stations, it would be able to exert significant buyer power in transactions with Coke and Pepsi. Apparently, though, this was not the nature of the relationship between soft drink producers and this channel, where bottlers’ profits were relatively high, at .40 per case, in 1993. With this high profitability, it seems likely that Coke and Pepsi bottlers negotiated directly with convenience store and gas station owners. So the only buyers with dominant power were fast food outlets. Although these outlets captured most of the soft drink profitability in their channel, they accounted for less than 20% of total soft drink sales.
Barriers to Entry:
It would be nearly impossible for either a new CP or a new bottler to enter the industry. New CPs would need to overcome the tremendous marketing muscle and market presence of Coke, Pepsi, and a few others, who had established brand names that were as much as a century old. Through their DSD practices, these companies had intimate relationships with their retail channels and would be able to defend their positions effectively through discounting or other tactics. So, although the CP industry is not very capital intensive, other barriers would prevent entry. Entering bottling, meanwhile, would require substantial capital investment, which would deter entry.
Further complicating entry into this market, existing bottlers had exclusive territories in which to distribute their products. Regulatory approval of intra brand exclusive territories, via the Soft Drink Inter brand Competition Act of 1980, ratified this strategy, making it impossible for new bottlers to get started in any region where an existing bottler operated, which included every significant market in the US. In conclusion, an industry analysis by Porter’s Five Forces reveals that the soft drink industry in 1994 was favorable for positive economic profitability, as evidenced in companies’ financial outcomes.
Compare the economics of the concentrate business to the bottling business
In some ways, the economics of the concentrate business and the bottling business should be inextricably linked. The CPs negotiate on behalf of their suppliers, and they are ultimately dependent on the same customers. Even in the case of materials, such as aspartame, that are incorporated directly into concentrates, CPs pass along any negotiated savings directly to their bottlers. Yet the industries are quite different in terms of profitability.
The fundamental difference between CPs and bottlers is added value. The biggest source of added value for CPs is their proprietary, branded products. Coke has protected its recipe for over a hundred years as a trade secret, and has gone to great lengths to prevent others from learning its cola formula. The company even left a billion-person market (India) to avoid revealing this information. As a result of extended histories and successful advertising efforts, Coke and Pepsi are respected household names, giving their products an aura of value that cannot be easily replicated. Also hard to replicate are Coke and Pepsi’s sophisticated strategic and operational management practices, another source of added value.
Bottlers have significantly less added value. Unlike their CP counterparts, they do not have branded products or unique formulas. Their added value stems from their relationships with CPs and with their customers. They have repeatedly negotiated contracts with their customers, with whom they work on an ongoing basis, and whose idiosyncratic needs are familiar to them. Through long-term, in depth relationships with their customers, they are able to serve customers effectively. Through DSD programs, they lower their customers’ costs, making it possible for their customers to purchase and sell more product. In this way, bottlers are able to grow the pie of the soft drink market. Their other source of profitability is their contract relationships with CPs, which grant them exclusive territories and share some cost savings. Exclusive territories prevent intrabrand competition, creating oligopolies at the bottler level, which reduce rivalry and allow profits. To further build “glass houses,” as described by Nalebuff and Brand enterer (Co-petition, p. 88), for their bottlers, CPs pass along some of their negotiated supply savings to their bottlers. Coke gives 2/3 of negotiated aspartame savings to its bottlers by contract, and Pepsi does this in practice. This practice keeps bottlers comfortable enough, so that they are unlikely to challenge their contracts. Bottlers’ principal ability is to use their capital resources effectively. Suchoperational effectiveness is not a