Diageo Case Study

The premium wine segment is quite concentrated with high barriers to entry making mergers and acquisitions a strong and prevalent growth strategy. With industry analysts forecasting the demand for premium wine to grow at 8% to 10% per year, many former non-rivals are now becoming a threat. Jug wine producers are entering the premium market and beer and spirit producers

Diageo was created when Grand Metropolitan, plc and Guiness, plc merged in 1997. While the Diageo name is not well known to consumers, its brands are among the most famous including Guinness, Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker and Cuervo. The company recently decided to focus on a strategy to grow through its spirits, wine and beer businesses and divest of its Pillsbury and Burger King subsidiaries. This case study will focus on the proposed capital structure decisions of Diageo.

The buyer’s power within the wine industry varies between different places in the world. There are for example strategic differences between Europe and the “New World”. The “New World” includes countries like the US, Australia, Chile and South Africa. In Europe there is a big competition

Our strategy is to have the best and necessary brands - Guinness Director. Vanguard, 2013. Vanguard News. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/01/our-strategy-is-to-have-the-best-and-necessary-brands-guinness-director/

The understanding of the goal to be envisioned at Seagram moving forward is to become, remain, and develop an outside reputation as the top beverage company with 15% growth each year (Jick & Peiperl, 2011). The vision must effectively be passed to the 200 senior managers to make it a shared goal to be given and embraced company wide. The hope is that the top managed beverage company will be efficient and customer-centered, recognizing employees, while not micro-managing. The old model, based on decades old vision, needs to be replaced with a quasi-tried vision that has helped Seagram remain as one of the top, well-known companies. The new vision has seen success and is moving the company alongvtowards being the top managed beverage company. There are yet and still steps that will provide some right now actions that may help Seagram reach this goal of being the top managed company in the near future.

Upon review of the information provided, it is clear that a vision set forth by Upper management, President and CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr. had not been implemented and there is much work that needs to be completed to fulfill his legacy. Bronfman’s statement was clear and concise with a vision to be sought after no matter the cost. His vision, according to Jick & Peiperl, 2011 is for Seagram’s to be the “best managed beverage company” (p. 255). Bronfman had an idea/image of how he wanted Seagram’s to be viewed by the world and its employees. His vision offered a baseline for all employees to follow which in turn offers a one company initiative. Offering this baseline for the corporation leaves no chance for deviation from the cause. This company with deep roots in diversity and was losing ground due to changes in the new ideas of sobriety, increases in taxes on liquor, the 1990s recession, increased government regulation and social criticism (Jick & Peiperl, 2011). To define this project is to give direction and purpose to Bronfman’s word by backing them with actual progress towards his vision. This vision for Seagram’s is to not be confused with the need of the newly acquired MCA Corporation. This company should have its own visions and values.

Bonny Doon currently has an enviable position in the 1990’s Californian wine-producing industry. The company has successfully differentiated itself from its competition and achieved a first mover advantage in terms of selling “undervalued” wines. However, due to increased rivalry and a changing and increasingly challenging market,

Beers first course of action at O&M was to pick a small group of change thirsty individuals, regardless of their current positions, to help her orchestrate the needed change. She only wanted the “people that got it” to help her clarify the vision O&M needed to recapture lost and win new accounts. She knew that this vision must be brand focused, but which direction was still unknown. Beers called for a secret meeting of these “thirsty for change” individuals in which they agreed upon Brand Stewardship as the focus for O&M’s vision. Even though there was a consensus as to this direction, many were still unsure of how it was to be implemented. Even after reading this case, Brand Stewardship is still an ambiguous term and perhaps on purpose. Beers’ leadership in the past came from her ability to

The treat of substitute products is high for the wine industry in general. Wine is not the number one alcoholic beverage in the world. Consumers drink beer, liquor, distilled spirits, and other drinks when wanting to consume alcohol. Vineyards are now being bought out buy liquor and beer companies, such as Gallo and Diageo. There are many substitute products for wine.

The United States wine industry is a 12 billion dollar industry and is composed of 7,000 wineries and around 1,800 different companies. The three major companies within the industry are Constellation brands, E&J Gallo, and The Wine Group Inc. The industry has made its way through the economic crisis at a better rate than some of the other U.S industries however in order for them to continue to see any type of growth it is important that they acknowledge their issues and find ways in which they can rectify them. The majority of the issues among the industry are problems that cannot be directly controlled by individual wine companies. Therefore it is imperative that wineries find away to use these issues to their

As a company[s main mission to be the greatest beer in the world, they have achieved competitive strategies to be able to protect their business-level strategies; Sprinkler Expansion strategy, Aggressive Marketing Strategy and Consumer Responsiveness Approach.

As the future growth of the industry also is shown to be positive, the company’s fundamental strategies in terms of management, employees satisfaction, cost cutting to reduce unnecessary expenditure, giving constant returns in terms of dividend, refinancing the money into for the expansion of brands not working well for the company ,tapping for the emerging markets, entering into 40 different variants show a clear indication that merger proves to be a great move for the company and beverage industry performance

PepsiCo Inc. is one of the leading brands in the world's food and beverage industry. It operates globally with a strong customer base and a wide array of products. This paper analyzes the general business environment for this leading food and beverage brand in order to assess what strategies it has been pursuing to operate in this challenging and complex environment. The analysis of internal and external environment has also been done in a view to figure out the biggest strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for the company. The final section gives an overview of the company's resources, capabilities, core competencies, and value chain which can help it to achieve a competitive advantage in its industry.

Diageo’s code for business value creation does involve their tangible assets, however other organizations can easily buy them, so these are rarely the source of competitive advantage. The greatest tangible source that is not easily obtainable by other companies is their own resource to produce raw and unique materials to their own products. Diageo has competitors purchase materials from their owned and operated distilleries and land to make their own product. Intangible assets are difficult to measure and can’t be touched or seen. These assets drive innovation and contribute to Diageo’s success and competitive edge in the market place. Above, examining Diageo’s unique mix of resources explores how Diageo develops certain resources necessary to support corporate strategy. As we have reviewed, Diageo has a purpose, vision, mission and objective, and has strategically implemented internal assets and has the capability and resources to deliver their strategy.

Diageo is the world’s leading premium drinks company. It has more category leading brands than any other drinks company and market leadership in many of the major growth markets around the world. Diageo’s unique STP strategy has allowed it develop into a globally renowned brand with an operating profit of over £2 billion in 2005. With its headquarters in London, Diageo has experienced rapid expansion with over 80 offices worldwide employing around 20,000 workers. The firm’s recent success can be largely attributed to its efficient market segmentation and product diversification that have allowed it to meet the specific demands of its global consumer base.