Word: coking
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Coke's climb in India follows years of turbulence. It was the leading soft-drink brand from 1958 to 1977, when India's business environment turned nationalist. After the government demanded that Coke reveal its formula and become a minority owner, the company bolted. Pepsi jumped into India in 1988 as a joint venture with a state-owned enterprise and Voltas, part of the Tata Group conglomerate. In Coke's absence, the company gradually accumulated market share...
...Coke returned in 1993, after India's liberalization, buying a competitor's bottling network and local soft-drink brands like Thums Up cola and Limca lemon drink. Over the next decade, Coke invested more than $1 billion, turning a profit in India for the first time...
...company hardly had time to celebrate. Two years later, Coke and Pepsi were targeted by a study from an NGO called the Center for Science and Environment (CSE)--a group focused on environmental-sustainability issues--which alleged that samples of the companies' drinks tested high for pesticide residue. Both firms' sales and reputations were hit hard. In a rare moment of solidarity, Pepsi and Coca-Cola held a joint press conference attacking the NGO. The claims were raised again in 2006, and annual sales of carbonated drinks shrank. An expert panel appointed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare...
...phase fast, it was because they were able to demonstrate a certain amount of sincerity and transparency," says Santosh Desai, CEO of New Delhi--based marketing consultants Future Brands. "Sales were affected in the short term, [but] they did a good job of reassuring consumers." Atul Singh, CEO of Coke India since 2005, who once said the company was "continuously challenged" because of its foreign roots, now welcomes that scrutiny. "There's nothing like raising the bar for yourself when you are actually doing well," he says...
After the safety scandal broke, Coke and Pepsi relied on small bottles and cut-rate prices to woo customers. The small packages boosted sales but hurt profitability for the companies and their bottlers. In 2005, Singh increased prices 40% to 60% and later introduced new packaging, like 1.25-liter bottles, which boosted in-home consumption. After a drop in sales in 2006, the Indian market began to grow again in 2007. "I can't complain," says S.B.P. Rammohan, owner of Sri Sarvaraya Sugars Ltd., a southern-India Coke bottler. "It's no longer volume at all costs...