Coca-Cola SWOT Analysis: Assessing Market Position and Growth Factors

This document presents a SWOT analysis of Coca-Cola, evaluating the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths include a diverse product range, significant market share, strong brand valuation, effective marketing strategies, customer loyalty, and a robust distribution network. Weaknesses encompass the limited availability of healthy beverage options, concerns regarding water management practices, intense competition from brands like Pepsi, indirect competition from local brands and changing consumer preferences, and a relatively low presence in supermarket chains. Opportunities involve diversification into healthier products, expansion in developing nations, improvements in supply chain management, increased marketing of packaged drinking water, and increasing market share in supermarket chains. Threats include raw material sourcing challenges, the presence of Pepsi, indirect competitors, increased costs of labor and raw materials, and overall market competition. The analysis concludes that while Coca-Cola benefits from its product diversity, it must innovate with healthier options to address changing consumer preferences and mitigate competitive pressures.

SWOT ANALYSIS

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................2
SWOT ANALYSIS...........................................................................................................................................2
STRENGTHS..............................................................................................................................................2
WEAKNESSES...........................................................................................................................................3
OPPORTUNITIES.......................................................................................................................................4
THREATS..................................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................6
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INTRODUCTION
In any business, there are some strengths that help in driving towards the goals and objectives
while there are some weaknesses also on which a company has to focus on and implement
better techniques to overcome from those shortcomings. These two are the major factors that
create opportunities and threats for the business operations and the overall company. For
understanding this more clearly, SWOT analysis of Coca Cola company is performed below.
SWOT ANALYSIS
This is one of the best strategic management tools that help in analysing the strengths and
weaknesses of an organization with its market threats and opportunities for the business.
Figure 1: SWOT Analysis
Source: [https://lencred.com/blog/swot-analysis/]
STRENGTHS
 A diverse range of products and market share - Being one of the most popular
organizations with a diverse range of products makes its biggest strength to successfully
operate the business in the markets. Company has one of the biggest shares of the
beverage market all over the world with the products like Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite,
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Schweppes, Simply, Smart water, etc. which are very popular among all the sectors of
the community
 Valuation of the organization – one of the top business organization in the world with
the gross value of around 79 billion US dollars. This includes the assets of the company,
factories, operations cost and profit of the last financial year
 Marketing strategies – company always focused on winning the hearts of people with
their advertisement and marketing strategies. Since the company have the target
people of all the ages, they use many platforms to reach their people effectively
 Customer loyalty – this is one of the most important advantages of the organization
which is possible due the strong product range, effectively planned strategies,
relationships with people etc. Since the organization is operating from around 130
years, the management knows the power of this aspect for their business
 Distribution network – company has a very strong production and distribution supply
chain which enables it to reach all the locations of the globe. For this, the organization
implements many strategies and latest technology which gave it a competitive
advantage.
WEAKNESSES
 Absence of healthy beverages – at present if the eating and drinking habits of people,
they are more focused on only healthy food and with this perception of people one of
the major weakness of Coca-Cola emerges because of the absence of these type of
products
 Water management – currently company is facing some major issues with the use of
water and there are many lawsuits filed on the organization on using access water for
their production which should be distributed to the local people first. For this, the
company is retreating water and using it again which is beneficial for the company.
 Competition from brands like Pepsi – this comes in the major weakness of the
organization, because of this company has to invest huge amounts on marketing and
promotional activities to retain its customers which should be implemented on
strategies to expand the business in new places
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 Indirect competition – from the local brands, fast food chains, desire of people to have
something new creates shortcomings for the organization, generally on which Coca-cola
is not much focused.
 Low presence in the supermarket chains – today, the market share of the company is
quite low in comparison to its biggest competitor Pepsi.
OPPORTUNITIES
 Diversification – in the world of changing demands regular, Coca-Cola has the
opportunity to build a new market for healthier products and services. This practice will
eliminate its one of the major weakness and create more opportunities for future
 Developing nations – with the emergence of the healthy drinks in the daily drinking
habits, the company have an opportunity to develop countries with its new products
range. Wider the range of products more the opportunities
 Improvement in the supply chain management – for creating more opportunities in the
present and new markets improvement in distribution networks and the overall
management is one of the basic need for the company
 Packaged drinking water - people of the developing countries like India, China, and
many middle eastern countries the need of safe hygienic water is one of the major need
and for which the company can marketize its packaged drinking water and new
technologies to make it safer
 Increasing the market share in supermarket chains – removing the weakness of the
organization creates new opportunities and this is one of the fields that is included in
this. Creating more share in the markets will definitely help in reaching more people
which eventually generate more revenue for the company
THREATS
 Raw material sourcing – one of the major threat to the company is the sourcing of its
major raw material; water. In many countries the company faces problem in the access
of water, because it is limited and for the production processes governments impose
lots of taxes
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 Presence of Pepsi – for Coca-Cola, its major competitor is Pepsi which is present in
almost all the business environments where Coca-cola operates. Due to this, there are
many cases of decrease in the sales and revenue of the company
 Indirect competitors – small business in the local markets, other fast food chains like
Pizza Hut, Star Bucks, etc. account for a big proportion of challenges in the markets.
 Increased cost of labours and raw material – movement of people from carbonated
drinks to healthier drinks is a major challenging threat to the company which is
increasing constantly
 Competition in the markets – in the business markets the Coca-Cola faces very tough
competition from its competitors in many business operations which are almost same in
all companies. Whenever some other company implements any new strategy, discount,
etc. Coca-Cola also has to implement some new strategy to win the attraction of people.
CONCLUSION
After analysing the factors involved in the SWOT analysis, it can be concluded that the company
is working well with its diverse range of products but because of the change of perception of
people towards the carbonated drinks, increase in the costings of labour and biggest threat in
the market i.e., Pepsi, company has to discover some new and healthier products and again win
the hearts of people all over the world.
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REFERENCES
https://www.statista.com/statistics/326065/coca-cola-brand-value/
https://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/coca-cola-swot-analysis.html
http://www.valueline.com/Stocks/Highlights/The_Coca-
Cola_Company__A_Short_SWOT_Analysis.aspx#.Wl3yXaiWZPZ
https://businessteacher.org.uk/swot/coca-cola.php
O’Connor, A. (2015). Coca-Cola funds scientists who shift blame for obesity away from bad diets. New
York Times, 9.
http://www.coca-cola.com/global/
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