Preview

Manufacturing and Packaging Line

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1362 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Manufacturing and Packaging Line
CASE ANALYSIS MEMO – SESSION 06

Keurig

2012.11.07

Entrepreneurial Management
Dr. Sean M. Hackett
Waseda Business School, MBA
Fall, 2012

Panjapol wariratanaroj (pe) – #35112329-5

JOanna chen (joanna) – #35112318-7

li wei – #35122327-5

kemal SADULLAYEV (kemal) – #35129403-1

Gaetano d’imprima (tano) – #35129755-8

I. Identify/Define the Key Issues/Situation Analysis A. Key issues that will impact Keurig to survive, thrive and grow • Strong bargaining power from a supplier: MTS, being the only supplier for the K-Cup packaging line, has a control over the machine. Having no substitution plan in place, Keurig is forced to follow MTS’s request to fulfill the K-Cup manufacturing capacity. • Difficult to ‘reverse engineer’ the manufacturing technology: despite the alternatives of having new K-Cup suppliers, there is no assurance that the new suppliers could complete the project on-time and on-budget as the learning curve is hard to be built at an initial stage. • Delays in the full roll-out of the new coffee brewing system: delays in manufacturing lines (both K-Cup’s production and brewing machines) caused a subsequent delay in distributing goods to consumers. Thus, it created risk of losing market opportunity to other competitors. B. Critical Success Factors • Quality of the final product: despite marketing efforts and distribution channels, if either the final product (coffee) tastes bad or the brewer does not perform well, it can’t be sold. • Consistent and sufficient funding prior to the product launch: in order to create an impact to the coffee market, the large amount of funding is required to support the operations. • Ability to bring a brewer’s price down in a consumer segment while keeping the good quality product: considering the high quality coffees, people are more likely to purchase a less expensive household version especially at a

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Coffee has an unfailing and growing economic utility. In other words, the level of pleasure received when people drink coffee has remained high over the years. Additionally, there are more buyers in our economy that are extending the types of beverages they drink with coffee, and the extensive assortment of coffee drinks that are offered. This has supported the increase of coffee’s utility in the marketplace.…

    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Keurig is the leading single-cup brewing system in the at-home market, with 82 percent of the market share in terms of dollar sales and 81 percent in terms of unit share as of December 31, 2008. In 2008, GMCR (Keurig’s parent company) reached $500 million in sales while 10 years ago its sales were $43 million. 84 percent of GMCR’s total revenues are derived from the sale of Keurig single-cup brewers and K-Cups. When comparing 2008’s numbers to those of the previous year, sales increased by 46 percent and Keurig system-wide shipment of K-Cups increased by 59 percent.…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    When a small sign was hung on a little cafe in Waitsfield, Vermont in 1981, nobody would have imagined that Green Mountain Coffee Roasters [GMCR] would become one of the world's leading specialty coffee makers. Through hard work, "Demand quickly grew beyond the walls of the café," and many other local companies requested GMCR coffee to offer their customers (GMCR, Company Overview, 2009, p. 1). Today, GMCR "is recognized as a leader in the specialty coffee industry for its award-winning coffees, innovative brewing technology and socially responsible business practices" (GMCR, The Story of Green Mountain, 2009, p. 1). Reaching this point, however, was not easy and forced GMCR to master their marketing strategies in order to survive the competition.…

    • 4200 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Keurig case

    • 4582 Words
    • 15 Pages

    As the coffee market continued to grow, it exhibited two trends. First being the “mainstreaming” of specialty coffees and secondly, only brewing one cup of it at a time. Keurig focused its efforts towards adapting to these changes by dramatically boosting innovation, technology, and their R&D department. Keurig changed the game in the single cup sector by introducing their patented K-Cup and partnering with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR). These were tiny plastic cups that contained the coffee grounds already within the filter and sealed with an aluminum lid. All the consumer then has to do is place the cup within the Keurig machine (without removing the aluminum), close the lid and press a button, and in less than a minute, a fresh cup of coffee awaits. From the time of its launch in 1998, Keurig offered only 8 varieties of GMCR coffee and by the early 2000’s consumers had the choice of over 200 varieties from 30 different brands.…

    • 4582 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In 2006 Keurig Green Mountain made a defining decision to acquire Keurig Inc., a company who manufactured single-cup beverages. The K-Cup structure was originally intended for coffee, but has since expanded into several beverage types including fruit juices, tea, iced tea and hot chocolate. This growing sector has been beneficial to Keurig Green Mountain because demand is growing and margins are high. Additionally, as the K-Cup System has become the industry standard, Keurig Green Mountain has been able to license the technology to otherwise coffee competitors such as Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts. This technology allows the much smaller Keurig Green Mountain to stay competitive with industry goliaths like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, even though Keurig Green Mountain has far fewer retail outlets.…

    • 4171 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Coffee Pod Launch - Kraft

    • 1648 Words
    • 7 Pages

    This case revolves around the decisions and issues faced by Geoff Herzog, coffee development project manager at Kraft Foods Canada. The main issue being faced is whether a launch of coffee pods within Canada should be done at the same time that the US Kraft division. As pointed out in the case, delaying the Canada launch would give Herzog the chance to study US demand, allowing for better target marketing to Canadian customers, and it would also…

    • 1648 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Market Analysis

    • 795 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Keurig is Innovative: they took the idea – that every cup of coffee should be fresh, and that everyone should choose what type of coffee they want, whenever they want – and made it happen in an innovative way. The innovation was in the engineering to make these objectives easily attainable.…

    • 795 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Geoff Herzog is the product manager for Kraft Foods Canada; He has learned that Kraft Foods North America was planning on a launch of coffee pods in the United States. He had less then a month to decide if Kraft should proceed with the launch in Canada. Because Kraft owned the two major coffee brands in Canada, Maxwell House and Nabob the branding strategy would be needed. He had to also set a wholesale and retail price for the coffee pods, also their flavors to decided on and should they use traditional distribution or direct-to-store delivery (DSD). He also had to develop an effective adverting and promotion strategy with a limited budget.…

    • 693 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Keurig’s main generic business strategy is a focused differentiation strategy. Their product as a whole is focused on coffee drinkers in general you can’t really market their machine or products to someone that doesn’t drink coffee. The only other use would be for something such as hot chocolate, which would be an expensive purchase just to have a hot chocolate maker. They’re differentiated by offering a specific product that’s far better compared to their rivals. The products they offer are different in size, products and features compared to everyone else. And until recently when their patent on the k-cups expired they were the only company offering that type of product.…

    • 1646 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Starbucks

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The coffee brewing industry is in a maturity stage of its life cycle. It has been implanted a few decades ago, and now it's stable. There are a lot of different companies that are in this industry, a lot of local coffee shop gets into the market, but nothing threatening to the bigger firms.…

    • 914 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Keurig at Home

    • 982 Words
    • 4 Pages

    20 million Americans drank gourmet coffee daily in 2003. As a result of this amount of coffee lovers that can’t start their day without coffee, Keurig. Inc had the idea that they should be able to brew their own perfect cup of coffee any time they need. People started paying $1.50 or more for a cup of gourmet coffee at coffee shops like Starbucks. This gave Keurig. Inc the idea of offering coffees in a single-cup proportion size to offices. After the placement of Keurig brewers, gourmet coffee sales increased by 40% in the U.S at-home coffee market. According to that big percent Keurig management wanted to develop an at-home single cup coffee brewer for coffee lovers. Keurig Inc. targets customers including office users and households; the plan to target offices first and hopes to gain a profitable success with at home users. Keurig Inc. main problem is how to obtain the position they want in the at home coffee market segment without loosing their share of the office coffee OCS segment and maintaining their gourmet coffee quality; on the other hand, they have less than six months to launch the product, and they have very limited budget for production costs and expenses, and changing the portion packs they have.…

    • 982 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    sdaf

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Keurig wished to capitalize on the growing market for specialty coffee by creating a brewing system that would make a single serving of high-quality gourmet coffee quickly and consistently. This was accomplished through the use of “K-Cups”: a unique coffee package that contained coffee grounds and a filter, and preserved freshness by protecting the coffee from light, air, and moisture. Use of K-Cups, combined with a brewer that used the appropriate amount, pressure, and temperature of water, ensured a consistently high-quality cup of coffee every time the system was used.…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Regarding entering the Canadian market successfully with Douwe Egbert’s new product: Grannie Annie’s hot chocolate milk.…

    • 416 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Colombian Coffee

    • 2106 Words
    • 35 Pages

    El Dorado Coffee Shop will fund its starting up costs by using personal savings and probably a loan. However, because the initial plan of initiation does not necessarily requires a physical location since the coffee could be distributed and…

    • 2106 Words
    • 35 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Starbucks Marketing Plan

    • 5679 Words
    • 15 Pages

    Pollock, L., (2011, August 30). Starbucks coffee to be offered in keurig K-cup in November. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111904199404576540142190021556…

    • 5679 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays