Word: soft
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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...
...scandal forced the soft-drink giants to defend their products and outline social and environmental initiatives, like conserving water resources. Certainly, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, a native Indian, was not about to be pushed around by an NGO with an agenda. "If they came out of the tainted 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...
...January, just after he was laid off, Whitfield called human resources at Progress to see about a job. The Roxboro power plant employs six supply-chain analysts, says Harry Sideris, the plant manager, but he doesn't need any more. Even if he did, Sideris says, Progress has a soft hiring freeze in effect and is filling only essential positions...
...trade embargo against Cuba, he eliminated restrictions on travel to Cuba for Cuban-American families, and his Administration is now in talks with Havana about improving immigration and postal service between the two countries. Erikson says the concert by Juanes, who lives in Miami, was a reminder of the "soft power tool kit" the U.S. should wield more often. "Obama needs to bring more of that kind of cultural diplomacy back into the arena," he says, "but so far it's taking a backseat...