Wednesday, January 8, 2014

1.0 Introduction to PepsiCo 
              PepsiCo, Inc. America Food and Beverages (PAB) is an American top consumer product multinational company that is known for its variety of food and beverage products. It is formed when the Pepsi-Cola company merge with the Frito-Lay Inc. It is headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States in 1965. The company is also known as the world's 2nd largest carbonated soft drink maker. The former CEO of Pepsi Cola is Donald M.Kendall who merged with Herman Lay’s Frito Lay, Inc. to become PepsiCo and was the CEO from 1971 to 1986 of PepsiCo. Indra Nooyi is now the chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo. The products produced are carbonated soft drinks, energy drinks, juice & juice drinks, sport drinks, teas, waters and fountain beverages. The core brands of PepsiCo includes Frito-Lay North America, Pepsi-Cola, Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Sierra Mist, Aquafina, Quaker Oats, Tropicana Pure Premium, AMP Energy, Propel, Mug, SoBe, IZZE and Naked Juice. The company operates over 200 countries across the globe and 50% of the sales is generated in United States of America. Below shows images of the brands of PepsiCo by its ranking.
 2.0 Monopolistic Competition
The type of market structure for PepsiCo is a monopolistic competition where there are big amount of competitors that don’t sell the exact same products but sells products that are differentiated. The products can be differentiated by style, location, brand name and also quality. One of the main top competitors for PepsiCo is The Coca-Cola Company, where the company produces soft drinks too but it competes with PepsiCo by selling products with a different price range, quality and marketing strategies.

 3.0 Supply trend of PepsiCo.
PepsiCo has more control of the supply compared to demand which will cause them to supply more to meet the demand. Therefore, a positive supply curve is formed. When supply of the products increase, the demand for the products increases too causing both the curves to shift to the right. 
The graph below shows the increase of supply and demand of PepsiCo:



            Other than that, the cost of production used to produce the products will make a great impact on the supply of PepsiCo products. The higher the cost of producing the product, the lesser products supplied. So, the rise in price of a factor of production decreases supply and shifts the supply curve leftwards.  Finally, changes in the interest rate, stock prices and also the foreign exchange rates affected the supply chain of PepsiCo products.
Below is a graph showing a decrease in supply of PepsiCo products:


4.0 Demand trend of PepsiCo.
The price in which consumers are willing to buy is the demand for PepsiCo brands at a given price. If the price of PepsiCo product increases while other factors are constant, the quantity demanded for the products will fall and there will be movement along the demand curve, vice versa.
As a consumer product company, PepsiCo operates in largely competitive markets. In order to increase the demand for its products, the company is continuing to improve the products and produce products that satisfy the customers. PepsiCo monitors the market and respond to changes in consumer wants quickly before their competitors respond first taking away some of the demand for PepsiCo’s products. The sales of the product can be affected by the consumer’s taste and preferences. Different consumer has different taste. PepsiCo has several brands that it produces including Pepsi-Cola, Frito-Lay, Tropicana, Quaker, and Gatorade. These brands offer quick snacks and convenience, which has historically been a preference for consumers. When consumers prefer PepsiCo product, the demand for it will increase and the demand curve shifts to the rightward. This will cause a shortage at the original price. There will then be movement up along the supply curve. Therefore, the equilibrium price rises and the equilibrium quantity increases. The PepsiCo is innovating ways to keep foods and snacks convenient while making them healthier. This is in response to consumers wanting healthier options. All of these actions coupled with marketing strategies keep the consumer demand rising for PepsiCo brands (PepsiCo, 2011).
Below is a graph showing an increase in Demand of PepsiCo:


Next, the location where the product is being sold affects the sales of the product. The sales of PepsiCo products are greater in United States followed by Mexico because of its large population. The larger the population, the greater is the demand for all the goods.
In addition, festive season and sports events the demand for these beverages and snacks is affected. As a matter of fact, the consumer demand will be more during these seasons. Therefore, the demand increases cause the demand curve to shift rightwards.
Besides that, is the income of consumer is a factor. The PepsiCo products are considered as luxury. So, when income increases, consumers buy more of most goods and the demand curve shifts rightward. In a clearer picture, the more money a customer has, the more products he/she buys.
On the other hand, if the competitors of PepsiCo sell their products in a lower price and with a low cost of production, customers will tend to consume the products from the competitors as substitutes. (Case, Fair, & Oster, 2009).  This will cause a drop in the demand for PepsiCo products. When the demand falls, the demand curve shifts leftward. At a original price, there is now a surplus which leads to a movement down along the supply curve. The equilibrium price falls and the equilibrium quantity increases.
Below is graph showing the demand for PepsiCo products decreases:



5.0 Elasticity of demand and price  for product.
The product prices of PepsiCo have a higher elasticity of demand. There are higher chances of fluctuation of prices. The demand will increase as the income of the consumer increases. This will cause the products to receive positive feedback for its quality. There are more chances of substitute for the products produce by PepsiCo due to its huge variety of homogenous products.

6.0 Economies of Scale
Economies of scale are used by producers to reduce their cost by producing the next unit of output at lower costs. PepsiCo applied the economies of scale to lower the cost by focusing on:
6.1  Specialization and Division of Labour
The specialization and division of labour is applied into the activities of PepsiCo to build a scale of company and due to the large number of workers. For the market report, each unit will be run by a manager. The workers work in different department with different skills. The reports will be passed to one of two chief executive officers in the national business unit, who in turn report to the CEO of the PepsiCo. 
6.2  Organizational Economies
A large firm usually has many factories that located in several locations and may produce different productions but under control of just one centralised administration in order to do business more efficiently (John Sloman, 2007). The headquarter of PepsiCo makes the product of another factory of its own to gain more profit when there is increase in demand of products produced in one of their factory. Not only that, the production of other products may be switched to another to which are more profitable if the cost of production tend to get higher. 
6.3  Financial Economies
In the long run, the financial economies of scale is important and needed if a firm wants to expand its business bigger by building up more factories, buy hightech machineries for the production and hire more employees.
6.4  Economies of Scope.
Economies of scale states if a firm can produce various product lines at a given output level lower than a combination of separate firms each producing a single at the same output level. Economies of scope are proven in PepsiCo  where multiple products are produced to increase profit instead of just producing one type of product. From being a leader in only soft drinks market, PepsiCo expanded their sales by manufacturing and producing multiple types of products such as crackers, cookies and other snack food. PepsiCo is not considered a soft drink manufacturer anymore. One half of the total current profit of the company comes from the non-soft drink line. The snack food and soft drinks of PepsiCo is an accurate example of how a firm can take up the skills of producing only one type of product which is the soft drinks and later use it to develop another type of product, the snack food.
7.0 Advertising
When a firm produces and sells products which are differentiated, the consumer needs to know the differences between these products with the competitors. Advertising is one major factor used by PepsiCo to attain their goal. The advertising cost is covered by the huge portion of the price of the product sold. By advertising, PepsiCo signals the high quality if their products. The profit of PepsiCo is affected with the expenditure of advertising.   Advertising expenditures affect the firm’s profit in two ways: They increase costs, and they change demand.
In 2010, PepsiCo declared a science-based rule that says only the nutritious products such as Quaker Oats is applicable to be advertised to children under the age of 12. 99 percent of consent is achieved by the end of 2012 in the globally representative markets such as China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Saudi Arabia and six other countries which were monitored to the consent with the Advertising Children Policy. While 100 percent consent were achieved by the U.S. and Canada markets.
Moreover, “ PepsiCo skipped soda ads on the 2010 Super Bowl for the first time in 24 years, putting the millions of dollars it might have spent on those ads toward a $20 million online charity competition called the Refresh Project.” (Mike & Valarie, 2011) 80 million of online votes were collected as a result from this project. On 2011, PepsiCo’s advertising expenditure raised by 30%.  Below shows an image resulting from the advertising of PepsiCo competing with its main competitor The Coca Cola Company.


8.0 Conclusion

PepsiCo has grown to be the 2nd largest company selling beverages and snacks with high  quality products which are demanded by many. The market structure is a monopolistic competition which has big competitors but manufacture and sell differentiated products. The company has more control of the supply compared to the demand of the products.Besides, the demand of the products are affected by many determinants such as consumer preferences, location, price of substitutes and many more. The price elasticity is very high due to the large number of competitors selling almost the similar type of products. Moreover,  the cooperation and collaboration with other companies became easier for Pepsi due to its economies of scope and financial economies.  PepsiCo uses economies of scale as the main strategy to increase its sales of production. Finally, advertising is another concept implement by PepsiCo in  order to attract more consumer to purchase their product while their profit can be increased.

Reference
(Paula,2011) – Pepsico Proposal. Available at:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/119524006/PepsiCo-proposal

PepsiCo Official Website (2010) PepsiCo Annual Reports. Available at:
http://www.pepsico.com/annual10/financials/mda/our-business-risks.html

(Awatter,2012) – Supply and Demand of PepsiCo. Available at:
http://www.studymode.com/essays/Supply-And-Demand-Of-Pepsico-901626.html

(UKessays,2013) – Economies of Scales of PepsiCo. Available at: (http://www.ukessays.com/essays/business/pepsico-applied-economies-of-scale-to-reduce-cost-


(Mike Esterl and Valerie Bauerlein,2011) - PepsiCo Wakes Up and Smells the Cola. Available at :
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_113026.html