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Essay / Case Study of Coca Cola and Coca-Cola in India
Introduction Coca-Cola is the world's largest cold and soft drinks company and operates in over 200 countries. The company's brand is also much more popular than other brands in the world because it has become globalized all over the world and everyone can find it almost everywhere. Moreover, in 1993, the company returned to India after the new government policy that required the company to show the formula in 1977, which forced Coco-Cola to stop working in India at that time (Banerjee, 2009 ). Coco-Cola came back because they knew that India's population is 1 billion, which is a huge market for soft drinks. The soft drinks industry grew 76% between 1998 and 2002, and Coca-Cola invested $1 billion to once again become the leader in India. Additionally, many restaurants, cafes and universities stopped selling these drinks, causing Coca-Cola sales to drop by 30% in the first two weeks. Not only did sales in India fall, but Coca-Cola's shares on the New York Stock Market also fell 5%, to 50 per share. Additionally, investors did not trade in Coco-Cola stock because they feared that what happened in India would affect their stock prices. However, Pepsi conducted independent tests on its drinks, which yielded negative results, and released them to the public (Banerjee, 2009). Additionally, Coca-Cola India CEO Gupta commented on the CSE and results, but Pepsi released independent tests of its drinks, which came back negative. For this reason, non-governmental organizations have used this government laxity to make claims against Coke. In fact, Coca-Cola is the largest international investor in India. As a result, NGOs could use this company as a target. Coke India enjoys huge popularity worldwide, so any information against Coke could affect customer loyalty. On the other hand, NGOs gained popularity among the people and supported their demands against Coca-Cola because they showed this ratio to prevent people from getting sick in the future. Additionally, soft drink companies are very popular in India, so any allegations against these companies attract public and media attention. The claims showed that pesticides in soft drinks could lead to cancers, skin diseases and mental illnesses in the future, making people afraid of drinking soft drinks (Ravi & Lipschutz,