NPD and Innovation in Soft Drinks Winning Strategies for Britvic

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject Business economics - Marketing, Corporate Communication, CRM, Market Research, Social Media, grade: B (Good), Leeds Metropolitan University, course: Contemporary Strategic Issues, 23 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Every industry is affected by significant and dynamic market drivers. The soft drink industry is not an exception to this and witnesses recently turbulent times, caused by essential environmental changes, especially from socio-cultural and environmental factors. Britvic mainly operates within the UK, but also in some parts of Europe. The company also has a growing overseas presence, exporting to over 50 countries through their subsidiary Britvic International Ltd. In the annual report 2006 the top management stated that their intention is to grow their sales aggressively, to drive profitable revenue growth in core brands, and to continue success from innovation and internationalisation. In order to achieve these goals the company has to adapt reasonable strategies, appropriate operational structures, and innovative processes which fit to the rapidly changing environmental forces. The aim of this report is to provide a detailed analysis of the soft drink industry and furthermore potential strategic approaches for the selected company Britvic. For this purpose industry definition and its scope, as well as changing environmental factors will be considered in the first section, followed by key strategic issues for the industry to 2012. The third section will examine key success and key competitive factors for Britvic which will be elaborated to appropriate strategic options in the following chapter. The final section provides a conclusion based on the analysis of the previous chapters and will present how Britvic might be able to deal with the challenges of the 21st century. It should be pointed out that only the most significant factors of several frameworks are presented in the main part of this report. Further details of the analysis are described in the appendices. Moreover, the appendices should support and confirm the statements given in this work and assist the reader to get a clearer picture about the potential of the proposed strategic prospects.