Coors Balanced Scorecard: a Decade of Experience

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Coors needed to find a way to solve their problem and get back to performing at the top of their industry. They were a leader in the overall cost leadership strategy, which means that they were minimizing their costs to produce their product ( ). They would do things such as grow their own ingredients for the beer and process it themselves as a way to minimize their cost and overhead. Coors also had a different fermentation process that allowed them to save money and not have to buy different substances to add to their beer. Another way they reduced some of their cost was by not pasteurizing their beer (Adolf Coors in the Brewing Industry). It did have to be refrigerated so the use of energy was the alternative. It did not save much money, but Coors was finding different ways to reduce costs and ultimately be more profitable than its competitors, especially in the west region of the United States. It had a huge plant that was continuing to use most of the beer that was being produced. Coors was in control until much of their competition began to also expand west.

Even though their shipping costs were twice the industry’s, average shipping costs would have been much more had they attempted to enter other states. Besides, Coors made up for the inefficiency with the scale of their plant, the largest in the nation. The location lent itself well to Coors’ ability to differentiate its product. For example Coors was brewed using “pure Rocky Mountain spring water.” Coors had a great opportunity to serve an underserved geographical market. Seven of 24 million barrels sold in the region had to be imported from production facilities outside of the region, and Coors’ Colorado facility was more central to the area than the three other closest facilities in Missouri, Texas, and Wisconsin. Coors had the second lowest production cost per barrel in the industry, in spite of their claim of the most expensive raw material costs. Their cost advantage stemmed from the industry’s highest capacity utilization, economies of scale through the country’s largest brewery, single product focus, and the industry’s fastest packaging lines. Matching their low production cost was the lowest advertising cost relative to the industry. The mystique that had been built up about Coors and their differentiating, all-natural appeal allowed them to get away with lower advertising costs than average for the industry. Coors differentiated their product, both in the

Coors
Company,
which
accounted
for
74%
of
beer
shipments
in
Mountain
Man’s
region
in
2005.

Molson Coors Brewing Company is one of the leading manufacturers in the Brewing Industry. They have been in business for over 350 years

The UK population is ageing noticeably, with only slow growth predicted in the adult population.

Coors began to make a strong surge to compete with the other brands of beer during much of the mid 1900s. Their brewery was staying extremely busy and producing large amounts of beer. Coors also did things a little different compared to other breweries. All of their costs seemed to be at a minimal level and sales were continuing to climb. The company appeared to be going in the right direction. Coors was only operating one brewery and appeared to be doing great in the industry. The brewery was operating effectively and efficiently. The performance of the company was continuing to do well up until about 1977 (Adolf Coors in the Brewing Industry). Times began to change and performance was lacking. The

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.

There are many different types of beers such as light, premium, or super-premium. Coors’ has been able to impact all those different types and be competitive. They are able to satisfy all the type of beer drinkers, and by doing this they are able to receive more of a profit by being able to satisfy all the beer drinkers. By having distributors in the U.S. and Canada, Coors is able to hit many different markets than other beer companies. This gets their name out to other countries and people will chose their product over someone else because see Coors’ cans everywhere. By being able to have both of those distributors it has been a major part for the growth of

DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse) has had an increase of 11.5% in sales during the 2012 fiscal year. This is due to an increase in customer sales, “conversion and average unit retail.” (www.dsw.com, 2013) However, in 2012 there was a decrease in the company’s merchandise margin rate due to poor sales.

In the 1960’s, Coors profited by being one of the first beer companies to market their aluminum cans. This was very important for Coors because of their production process. They were the only large beer company that didn’t pasteurize their beer. This required them to get innovative with their delivery process. The beer industry was very saturated with competitors and Coors found their cash cow with their Banquet brand. However, in order to provide that unique taste their product was required to age longer and because they skipped the pasteurization process their product had to be shipped cold.

In the plc diagram above, the beer brands Coors Light and Coors Banquet is shown in relation to their respective stages of their lifecycles. Coors light is the newest beer of the two and is in the beginning of the growth face. Coors Banquet is more towards the beginning of the mature face, since it’s their oldest brand and it is not growing that much anymore.

As previously noted, there are no distinctive competencies when it relates to the beer industry except for the product itself. One of the keys to any business is understanding trends and being able to monetize based on those trends. In recent years many of the largest companies in the beer industry have seen slower growth in the U.S. and Europe. In fact Molson Coors reported a 0.2% increase in sales in the U.S., 3.6% growth in Europe, but in Canada they had a drop in sales of 8.2% year-over-year in 2014. In comparison, the Molson Coors International (MCI) business saw sales grow 13.2% in 2014.

Although through the years leading up to 1974 there was increasing profit and volume every year, there were missed open and key opportunities by Coors. The reasons remain unclear as to why they were not capitalized on. For instance, through the 60’s and 70’s there was a large demand that was not being fulfilled locally in the states Coors was

Adolph Coors company is a brewery with a long history. It was founded in 1873 and managed to make it through Prohibition by diversifying into near beer, malted milk, cement, and porcelain. Starting in 1958 the company brewed only one beer “Coors Banquet”. In 1978 when it introduced Coors Light, it only took 7 years for this light beer to become 40% of the company’s revenue building brand and to become the second best-selling light beer on the market.