Robert Mondavi Corporation: Study Notes

Bonny Doon Vineyards, a successful winery business based in Santa Cruz, California, has grown from selling 5,000 cases of wine a year in 1981 to 200,000 cases a year in 1999. To keep growing and be more profitable, the business must choose amongst three possible strategic directions. The first strategy is to start importing wines from Europe into the United States. The second alternative is branching into a retail outlet for unusual wines of great value, accompanied by a high level of service. Lastly, the business’ D.E.W.N could be expanded to include wines not made by the company itself but by other wineries that follow the same values and philosophy.

The structure of the wine industry is quite different around the world. The barrier to entry is relatively higher in the New World than in the Old World. Referring to the market data on the level of concentration in 1998, people can see a few players dominate the markets in Australia and the U.S. while the level of concentration is quite low in Europe. Therefore, the rivalry in Old World is intense there.

Due to the fact that consumers have a plethora of premium wines (substitutes) to choose from and there is no penalty for switching between brands consumer buying power is fairly high, making consumers sensitive to price increases. As previously mentioned, the competition for sourcing quality grape growers is high making switching costs high as well. In order to circumvent the dependency on outside growers, Mondavi is starting to increase its internal sourcing capabilities.

For restaurant retailers, the power of suppliers is high. This can be indicated by lack of substitute produces and low importance of restaurants as buyers.

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

Bargaining Power of Suppliers: A producing industry requires raw materials - labour, components, and other supplies. This requirement leads to buyer-supplier relationships between the industry and the firms that provide it the raw materials used to create products. Suppliers, if powerful, can exert an influence on the producing industry, such as selling raw materials at a high price to capture some of the industry's profits. Tesco maintains direct professional business relationships with all their suppliers of organic food and non-food product worldwide. They also conduct supplier viewpoint surveys to find out what their suppliers think of Tesco.

However, Bonny Doon is vulnerable and reliant on its suppliers, as 80% of the firm’s grapes are bought from external growers. Bonny Doon requires unpopular grape varieties and grapes that meet high quality specifications (which decreases agricultural yields and creates a trade-off for growers). They need to develop long-term relationships with the growers to ensure uniformity and high production quality with respect to the firm’s key product input: grapes. On the other side of the value chain, the firm has preferred small-medium sized distributors for their product. This has enabled them to retain higher profits, despite selling wine in smaller quantities.

Vincor does market wine alternatives itself, as a way of dealing with substitute demand. Vincor makes cider and has a wine kit business division (Spagnols) that gives Vincor some product diversification. Partly because of the ease of competition and as part of the differentiation and protection of the Canadian wine industry, Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA), a quality assurance program that identifies Canadian premium grape content, assists in making start-up more difficult for those wishing to emulate Canadian wine brands. The dollars spent on marketing and brand loyalty play a large part in protecting market share and there are certain absolute cost advantages that contribute to establishing some barriers to new competition. Ultimately, there is little cost to the consumer when considering switching brands. Experimentation in wine drinking is often a characteristic of the wine drinking market and thus can contribute to promoting new substitute entry into the market.

The same concentration is happening in the “on-premises” buyers, where many large hotels and restaurants chains are purchasing wine centrally rather at locally, increasing their buyer power.

The second least important factor in Mondavi’s corporate strategy is the threat of substitutes. A substitute offering arises when there is a product in a different industry that can satisfy the same need as the product a company sells. If one looks at wine as an alcoholic beverage, there really is no substitute for wine, as beer and liquor are technically in the same industry. However, if seen as a luxury item that’s purpose is for the experience, there are some substitutes for wine. Examples include high end chocolates or cheeses, as customers might desire to be connoisseurs in these two items instead of wine. It would seem that the cost of switching to one of these products would be rather low for customers, indicating there could be some risk.

Wine consumers hardly think about price when it comes to buying. For the lower grad cheaper wines, the power of the buyer is greater; but when in comes to premium brands of wine, the power of the buyer is low.

The acquisition of other wineries has made it possible for Mondavi to make strategic moves in their plans and strategies. The acquisition will bring together complementary wine assets, including vineyards, production facilities, and distribution capabilities that will strengthen Constellation 's portfolio and further build the Robert Mondavi brand. (6) Acquisitions and mergers are popular in the wine industry. Mondavi 's s long-term goal is to own 25 percent of its grape production.

The following analysis will use Porter's 5 Forces Model to identify the market power. The grape growers are the suppliers, the winemakers are the sellers and the consumer is the buyer. This discussion could also include the suppliers of raw materials for bottling the wine, the shipping companies used to carry the wine to the point of sale and also the supermarket, liquor store and restaurant owners where wine is often purchased by the consumer.

In the most recent years, domestic sales of wine has declined constantly. The wine consumption is becoming more occasional. This is partially due to an aggressive anti-alcohol campaign and driving restrictions set by the local government, but also facilitated by a lack of marketing strategy: the wine market is loosing touch with the youth (the average age of wine drinker is gone up from 35 to 55) and young people are getting more keen to beer or alcohol pops.

Since we live in a fast pace life consumers tend to want thing immediately and do not want to wait for things such as delivery time and like to purchase items in bulk and have a variety of items to choose from. As a result supermarkets meet the demands by stocking up with large quantities and array of assorted products. There is a larger selection of wines to choose