Essay about Strategic Plan Part 2: Swot Analysis

Suppliers such as Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts are marquee names in the coffee business. The brands are powerful and offer significant value to the Keurig product line. GMCR must continue to build similar relationships and retain them for the long term. These strong brand names not only offer a new target customer they also reaffirm Keurig positioning as premium product. The bargaining power of these suppliers will vary based on size and brand. GMCR must determine its power when negotiating future deals with such suppliers, in cases like Starbucks, GMCR should be willing to give more (accept lower royalty) to continue building the brand.

Mr. Coffee is best known for pioneering and leading the market in the automatic drip coffeemakers. The brand was established in 1968 by Vincent Marotta and Samuel Glazer and was then part of the North American Systems, Inc.

30 3.2.6. Five Forces Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 31 Diagram 3: Five Competitive Forces in the Coffee Industry .................................................................. 32 3.2.6.1. Threat of New Entrants .................................................................................................................. 32

Despite Peet’s Coffee and Tea being a corporate company, and the amount of stores it has produced, the goals and ambitions have not changed much. Coffee beans and tea’s are still the main focus of Peet’s and where they get most their revenue from. Bill Lilla, Peet’s executive vice president, said his company ensures quality through long-term relationships with growers, and by paying them more than the going rate. On the other hand, Starbucks Coffee insists their size has not affected quality, but it is hard to believe when their size is above and beyond the thousands. As the saying goes, too many cooks ruin the stew, and in this case, Starbucks would be the cooks, and its coffee and early aspirations are the

Starbucks desire as the leader in the specialty coffee industry is to be acknowledged for its responsibility to coffee farmers and their families to improve their well-being. The corporation’s primary stakeholders are broad organizations such as, coffee trade associations, suppliers, and groups with interest in sustainable coffee production. Including non-profit groups focused on human rights, social justice, and environmental issues. Other stakeholders include governmental agencies such as, U. S. AID (Starbucks Corporation, 2010).

Although the company is known for their coffee, they also drive a great portion of their revenue from baked good sales, which differs greatly from the Keurig Green Mountain strategy. Dunkin does compete against Dunkin intensely in the New England market, as both companies were founded and based in the area.

The key concepts behind k cups are controlled brewing and variety. The amount of finely ground coffee and tea inside the pods is portioned very precisely. Controlling how much premium coffee or tea is in the pod is a way of determining the taste of the final product. The k cups developed for a Keurig Coffee Maker are perfect for offices. Staff can choose from a wide selection of blends and types and flavors of coffee, teas, and hot cocoa. One pod is used to make one cup of coffee,

The Keurig coffee brewer is the leader in the retail market for single serves coffee brewers but it can do better. Keurig has been slowly losing some of its share of the retail market in recent years. In 2011 Keurig controlled 54 percent of the market which is down from its 2010 number of 60 percent and 2009 number of 63 percent (Geller). Keurig needs to take its product and it has to offer and enter into new markets and segments. It mainly needs to focus on the younger and lower income level of its

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. (GMCR) was founded in 1981 as a small café and combined with Keurig in 2006 (About GMCR, 2004-2009). GMCR produces specialty coffee and coffee makers; Keurig is the maker of a single cup coffee maker as well as specialty teas and coffees. Keurig was founded in 1998 on the concept that one should be able to make coffee one cup at a time rather than one pot at a time (Coffee.org, unknown). Today, GMCR has acquired and merged with several specialty coffee brewers and Keurig

“We’ve blended the disruptive innovation of a leading-edge technology company with the consumer focus of a socially conscious, premium coffee company to become what Keurig Green Mountain is today: an innovative, technology- and values-based, personal beverage system company.”

Seeing that many people drink a great amount of coffee daily all over the United States. In the U.S total number of coffee drinkers are 100 million, according to the coffee drinking statistics. Most likely there will be potential for the market to grow for Sorensen’s product line. The main concern is with the chance of larger competitors coming into the market and taking business away from Sorenson.

Keurig Inc has been founded on an amazing idea that coffee making systems that uses individual portion packs of freshly roasted and ground coffee with unique coffee maker designed to brew perfect cup of coffee at a time. At that time there are already established gourmet coffee houses like Starbucks, which is making coffee consumers to spend more money with an average of $ 1.50 or more for a cup of gourmet coffee. This change is consumer behavior created opportunity to Keurig to offer gourmet coffees by a single-cup in offices in 1998. Within a span of four years (1996-2000), Keurig have noticed sales increased by 40% in US at home coffee market. With these facts Keurig´s management got convinced, to develop an at home one-cup coffee brewer especially for gourmet coffee lovers.

Starbucks dates back from 1971 and is based in Seattle, Washington. The company was founded by Gordon Bowker, Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegl and it

One of the biggest barriers from GMCR’s standpoint is that they realize they can possible build up sales and marketing for the Keurig system once they start producing and endorsing the product. They are capable of doing so because of the position that GMCR is in as an emerging

Producing coffee with high standards of quality and trading in a more ethical way by adhering to fair trade practices are two more important factors to do businesses effectively. Sourcing raw materials is one of the most important factors under analysis of political factors and Starbucks need to adhere to social and environmental laws and norms. Further Starbucks need to consider essential factors such as tax policies, employment laws and political awareness in developing countries to monitor business processes in US market since there is a high regulatory pressures within its local market in US.