Carlsberg Strategic Management Assignment

“The beer industry in the United States generates $75 Billion in annual sales.” (Abelli, 4)

Interbrew had developed into the world's fourth largest brewer by acquiring and managing a large portfolio of national and regional beer brands in markets around the world. More recently, senior management had decided to develop one of their premium beers, Stella Artois, as a global brand. This case examines the early stages of Interbrew's global branding strategy and tactics, enabling students to consider these concepts in the context of a fragmented but consolidating industry.

     In this paper I will be talking about the U.S. beer industry and in short an overview of the brewing industry worldwide. I will talk about the barriers to entry, economies of scale, government intervention, pricing, current market trends, product differentiation, and imports. The focus being mainly on the U.S. brewing industry oligopoly. The U.S. brewing industry has three major players: Anheuser-Busch, SAB Miller, and Coors/Molson. Anheuser-Busch is currently the largest brewer in the world, producing over 100 million barrels a year. Anheuser-Busch currently owns over 50% of the market in the United States, with Miller trailing behind at 20% and Coors at about 11% with the rest of the market occupied by imports and craft breweries. When analyzing any industry, how easy it is for newcomers to enter the market is a great importance. If there are high barriers to entry

In a world where large, corporate breweries rule the market, craft beer is created to please an audience that applauds the styles, techniques and flavors. Though craft beer can be purchased through several different outlets, the best place to thoroughly enjoy the entire experience of the specially made beer is in the brewery where it was made. The article titled, “In Lean Times, a Stout Dream” in The Wall Street Journal1 states that, despite the hard economic times and consequent consumer cutbacks, sales of craft beer, the industry 's fastest-growing segment, rose

Boston Beer Company (BBC) has enjoyed much success with their craft beers with Samuel Adams as their main focus. Being the leader of this segment, overtopping five of their competitors combined (Exhibit 1), the company now must decide how to take advantage of the light beer market. Boston Lightship, their current light beer, had been a small contributor in BBC’s product line. Currently, it is facing dwindling sales with product volumes down from 12 000 cases per month to 3000 cases per month.

For many years, beer companies had faced many economic challenges. In economic sphere, the beer company has reached a maturity stage and the growth has been moderate. In this maturity stage it is very hard for any one company to takeover the market form its competitors because of the tremendous competition. Expanding into foreign market is also one of the concerns for Canadian companies in this era. But apart from this there are some facts, which reflect the bright side of the beer economy in the Canadian industry and those are

A documentary film made in 2009, Beer wars features and describes the American beer industry distinguishing between the large and small breweries. The large breweries feature some main corporate companies like Coors Brewing Company, Anheuser-Busch, and Miller Brewing Company whereas the small breweries include craft beer producers like Moonshot 69, Stone Brewing Company, Dogfish Head Brewery, Yuengling, and others. The documentary shows how the beer market is controlled through advertising and lobbying, which is harmful for the competition in the market. There is a reason why the small companies are falling behind and the large corporates are controlling the market, which in turn makes it essentially oligopoly economy.

According to the case, the beer market was dominated by four largest brewing companies: Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing, Adolph Coors, and Stroh. These four companies collectively ."..commanded 89.8% of the market share." (Madcap 21) The best selling brands they produced like ."..Budweiser, Bud Light, Miller Lite, and Coors were generally priced between $4-5 per six-pack" (Madcap 22) and, based on this fact, belonged to premium-priced beers. Therefore, for the MCB to move towards the mainstream drinkers, it has to reduce prices, which will cause several negative outcomes.

Molson Coors is a thriving international brewing company that has nine Signature Brew drinks and 123 Special Brew drinks that ranges from non-alcoholic to alcoholic (Molson Coors Brewing Company, 2016b). They have multiple markets around the world which contributes to the success of the company in the brewing industry. This report analyzes Molson Coors’ internal and external environments which determines their position in the brewing industry. It also discusses strategies the company uses in order to be successful in their industry. Molson Coors shares the industry with its main competitors but has its own uniqueness that makes its business stand out. Molson Coors is a successful business that presents opportunities for economic growth.

Anheuser-Busch is a company that concerns itself with the manufacture, marketing as well as distribution of alcoholic beverages. Anheuser-Busch according to the company website, "is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev" (Anheuser-Busch 2011). I chose Anheuser-Busch for this discussion based on its relative size and market share. Currently, the entity is considered one of United State's largest brewing companies. Hence it is likely that given its relative size and the huge chunk of the market it controls, Anheuser-Busch would have to contend with quite a number of economic issues. Indeed, the continued success of Anheuser-Busch in the highly competitive alcoholic beverages marketplace largely depends on how it handles these issues.

In the past 10 years, Anheuser-Busch has set its sights on capturing every stage of the brewing industry, starting with manufacturing, through distributors all the way to consumers. This began in 2008, as Anheuser-Busch merged with InBev to form the largest beer company in the world. Anheuser-Busch InBev then began buying up distributors and manufacturers throughout the world, threatening to overpower small local microbreweries like Listermann’s. This threat was enhanced in late 2016, as Anheuser-Busch InBev finalized its merge with the then second-largest beer company in the world, SABMiller. With these two significant mergers, Anheuser-Busch InBev now has the resources, money and reputation to launch a full-scale monopolization on the beer

The competitive market of producing beer has reached a new level of global monopoly. Anheuser-Busch is no longer an “American” owned beer producer since InBev transnational bought the American company in 2008 (Larson, 2017). But Anheuser-Busch wasn’t the only brew company to merger across borders. In 2007, Miller and Coors merged under South African Breweries, making beer loving Americans subject to an oligopoly, running the beer industry further and further away from American soil. Additionally, according to SABMiller, in 2012 only four firms accounted for approximately half of the global sales of beer, and 70% of revenues (SABMiller, 2012). The beer industries is achieving global dominance due to apparent strategic changes including: expansion of market share, economies of scale and leverage on market prices.

Although sales of premium brands have fallen in a steady response to the growing popularity of the craft beer. The industry revenue has been stable over the past 5 years. As a result, from 2011 to 2016 the industry revenue is expected an increase and growth annually at 6.7 percent over the five years,with a total of $39.5 billion . (IBISWorld iExpert) In the long-term, these numbers are expected that grow 0.9 percent annually within the next five years. The potential growth will be seen in the traditional and premium beer sector. As a response, the giant companies in the industry Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors look forward into the merges and acquisitions as a strategy to maintain market dominance. The strategy is based on the

Strengths:The largest producer; Improved productivity; strategic with foreign producers; Two independent distribution Weaknesses:Low volume of sales of nonbeer products; Antitrust restrictionOpportunities:Positive volume growth of beer sales; New and attractive market Threats:Rising foreign firms’ competition; Tariffs elimination; Rising imported ingredients cost

Despite the dominance of Carlsberg, in its annual report BGD could lay claim to being the largest Scandinavian beer exporter. This was because Carlsberg placed emphasis on licensing agreements or local production for its foreign markets, while BGD’s strategy was export led: ‘Eighty-three out of every hundred bottles of beer that we produce are sold in foreign markets.’ By 1995 the percentage of export sales by region of the world was as follows: western Europe 63 per cent, the Americas 10 per cent, eastern Europe 22 per cent, others 5 per cent. The development of BGD’s operations in some of these markets is now reviewed.