Strategy, Structure, and Antitrust in the Carbonated Soft-Drink Industry

Strategy, Structure, and Antitrust in the Carbonated Soft-Drink Industry
Author: Timothy Muris
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1993-05-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0899307884

Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola are widely recognized as being two of the premier marketing companies in the world. They have introduced a great variety of new products and package types. They have raised celebrity advertising to a new level. Coca-Cola even changed the formula for Coke. These and other developments in the carbonated soft drink industry came about from major strategy changes by Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola. Rather than simply reacting to a changing competitive environment, PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company have created and implemented strategies that turned the new environment to their advantage. Although Pepsi-Cola attacked Coca-Cola's dominance and achieved near-parity with Coke in bottled soft drinks, both Coke and Pepsi have benefitted from fighting the Cola Wars. The battle between them has stimulated continuing growth in an industry regularly pronounced by the experts for many years to be on the verge of maturity. One widely ignored aspect of the Cola Wars is the ongoing transformation of the soft drink distribution systems of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola from systems of independent bottlers to captive bottling subsidiaries. Chandler advanced the hypothesis that successful firms develop strategies to take advantage of new opportunities, and that those strategies then determine the organizational structure required for effective implementation. We find that changes in the organization of the two leading carbonated soft drink firms' distribution systems provide support for Chandler's hypothesis. The independent bottling systems were a unique and effective organization for many decades. Changes in the external environment, however, raised the costs of transacting between the parent concentrate manufacturers and their independent bottlers. In particular, the new competitive environment required rapidly changing product and marketing strategies, and the implementation of these strategies required the close cooperation of the distribution systems. In effect, Coke and Pepsi needed to change the organization of their distribution systems to implement effectively the strategies that stimulated the new competitive environment, because the relative transaction costs of the independent bottling systems in the new environment were too high. The book presents a strategic analysis of the history of the industry.

Federal Trade Commission

Federal Trade Commission
Author: Peter C. Ward
Publisher: Law Journal Press
Total Pages: 1040
Release: 2023-10-28
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9781588520401

The book brings you up-to-date on the latest legislative, judicial and administrative actions affecting practice before the Commission.

Healthcare Antitrust, Settlements, and the Federal Trade Commission

Healthcare Antitrust, Settlements, and the Federal Trade Commission
Author: James Langenfeld
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Total Pages: 483
Release: 2018-08-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1787566013

This volume of Research in Law and Economics contains articles that address important legal and economic developments in the areas of healthcare, intellectual property and labor settlements, competitive effects, cartel overcharges, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC)