Coca Cola Goes Small in India
The coca-cola company is the number one seller of soft drinks in the world. Every day an average of more than 1 billion servings of Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Sprite, Fanta, and other products of Coca-Cola are enjoyed around the world. The company has the world’s largest production and distribution system for soft drinks and sells more than twice as many soft drinks as its nearest competitor. Coca-Cola products are sold in more than 200 countries around the globe. For several reasons, the company believes it will continue to grow internationally. One reason is that disposable income is rising Another reason is that outside the United States and Europe, the world is getting younger. In addition, reaching world markets is becoming easier as political barriers fall and transportation difficulties are overcome. Still, another reason is that the sharing of ideas, cultures, and news around the world creates market opportunities.
Part of the company’s mission for Coca-Cola to maintain the world’s powerful trademark and effectively utilize the world’s most effective and pervasive distribution system. In June 1999 Coca-Cola India introduced a 200-milliliter Coke bottle in Delhi, India, in a campaign to market Coke to its poorest customers. This strategy was successful for Coca-Cola in other countries such as Russia. The bottle sells for Rs. 12, making it affordable to almost everyone. In 2001, Coca-Cola enjoyed a 25% growth in India including an 18% increase in unit case sales of Coca-Cola. Because of the variability of bottling machinery, it is likely that every 200-milliliter bottle of Coca-Cola does not contain exactly 200 milliliters of fluid. Some bottles may contain more fluid and other less. Because 200 milliliters fills are somewhat unusual, a production engineer wants to test some of the bottles from the first production runs to determine how closely they are to the 200-milliliter specification. Suppose the following data are the field measurements from a random sample of 50 bottles.