Poca Snack

Pepsi Co, established about 100 years ago, is the owner of the Poca brand and one of the largest companies in the world, having a significant variety of carbonated, non-carbonated beverages, salty sweet and gain-based snack and other food which are available in more than 200 countries. PepsiCo Vietnam was established in 1991 (IBC) under the form of a joint-venture company, and became owned wholly by foreign businessmen in 2000, with a great many investments and supports from PepsiCo Global.

Along with the success of Lay’s snack brand name all over the world, PepsiCo is on the way to build a new snack brand, Poca, with a view to becoming popularly recognized in not only Vietnam but also overseas markets in the long run. Although Poca brand has been established in Vietnam nearly for four years, it is ranking now in the top three leading snack companies (The Market Newspaper 2008). Until now, Poca has 20 flavors with various package sizes from 10 to 60g. Although Poca brand is now very popular and has had a large market share in the market for snack they still have some limitations.

Firstly, as being a comparatively new entrant with recently launched products, Poca has to compete with a great number of big and long-standing well-known opponents, such as Oishi, Pringles, Kinh Do. Almost Vietnamese customers are used to those famous brands so they do not care much about Pepsi Co snack – Poca. Secondly, most people think that snack is unhealthy food. Therefore, many parents do not allow their child to eat snacks. Moreover, Poca also contain small amounts of cholesterol, animal fat, sodium which are well-known as unhealthy substances.

Last but not least, natural factors such as water, soil or weather play a very important role in growing potatoes and wheat, so if there are some changes on one of them, it could effect to the productivity of the whole industry. In addition, each year Vietnam often face with many disasters such as storms or typhoons. Therefore, Poca sometimes faces shortage of main raw material and it leads to large amount of backlogs. There are some suggestions to deal with Poca brand’s limitations.

Poca brand should intensify the natural nutrition such as anti-inflammatory, omega 3, aliphatic acid, and oleocanthal and minimize the unhealthy ingredients like cholesterol, animal fat, sodium and artificial substances. Besides, they can change the packing materials from plastics into Bio-Plastics packages – which automatically disintegrate into carbon dioxide, water, and biological substances under the natural condition. It will encourage people to buy Poca instead of other snack brand to protect the environment.

Moreover, the whole industry has to be aware about the weather in Vietnam in order to avoid shortage of main raw material. They should have careful planning and well weather prediction. Furthermore, there should be more promotions to attract the customers. For example, the company sometimes holds parties or concerts with the performance of the brand’s representatives – famous stars, they can give out some discount programs to attract more consumers. Additionally, the company should increase more flavors for recent products.

They should give out the surveys among their target customers to determine the favorite flavors for the upcoming products. As Poca develops new competitive and unique flavors, it can compete with other famous competitors such as Kinh Do Barkery or Bibica.

INTRODUCTION

Saigon Cosmetics Corporation (SCC) is officially established in 01/01/1987 and became a share holding company in 01/01/2000. The company specializes in manufacturing and distributing perfume. Besides, the company also produces shampoo, shower gel and soap.

Before 1990, the market of SCC is only local. In 1990, the first foreign markets were the Soviet Union and the Eastern European Bloc countries. Since then, the business has developed greatly, and now been it is aiming for international markets such as the US and UK. In addition, the company completed and put into use a new factory of 18ha area at Cat Lai Industry zone, District 2, HCMC in 2004. , Miss Saigon Elegance is a high quality product of the company which has a unique shape of a Vietnamese girl wearing an “Ao dai” and a conical hat.

Since the year 2007, SCC has started investing in new stores to sell its products. At present, SCC has 13 stores in all over Vietnam. Many of the stores are located in big department stores/supermarkets in Ho Chi Minh City – the most developed city of Vietnam. Moreover, there is a showroom in Phu My Hung – a new and wealthy district in HCMC. Besides, SCC products are also sold at other general retail shops. * The company aims to build its brand into a internationally competitive one, make it to the world-class level.

This will face with tremendous difficulties as there are top brands in the world that has perfume product; e. g: Calvin Klein, Chanel, Cartier, Hugo Boss, Giorgio Armani, etc. Products at medium cost may make the customer wonder about the quality of the products as comparing to other brands of perfume. Vietnamese customers are in favor with foreign brands rather than the local brands. Perfume in general is luxury product, which are usually sold at high price. * To provide customers with high-quality products, the company imports materials from French.

Moreover, the company is in associate with Liz Claiborne cosmetics for manufacturing technology and quality assurance counseling. Most of the materials for the products are imported. This results in import tax and transportation cost that cut down on the company’s profit. Access to raw materials is limited There are counterfeit products of Miss Saigon Elegance perfume that have been found in some South East Asian countries. This threatens to take over part of the company’s profit and harm the customers’ health and therefore, damage the brand image. Recruit skilled employees to make sure that products have good quality. Associate with other well-known brand such as Ponds to make a bundle of perfume and body care to attract more customers.

ST strategies:

• Mass invest in promotion to get customers’ attention and increase sales.
• Build up a good system to communicate with customers to keep them and attract new customers as well.

WT strategies

• Diversify products to set different prices for different target customers.
• Try to promote the products in more areas with attractive advertisements.

 SO strategies

• Develop the company’s website for customers to be able to buy product online.
• Research the market in Vietnam as well as foreign markets to improve the quality of the products to meet customers’ satisfaction. |

WO strategies

• Recruit skilled employees to make sure that products have good quality.
• Associate with other well-known brand such as Ponds to make a bundle of perfume and body care to attract more customers.
• Invest more in promotion for our products and try to have more customers from not only the market in Vietnam but also in other countries.
• Maintain the relationship with the customers by building a good membership system which allows discount to customers who have silver and gold membership card.

Product Mix Pricing Strategies:  SCC has many kinds of products which has different appropriate prices for the customers. The products range from average quality product to high quality product. This means that the company is using product line pricing to set different prices based on the different quality of the products.

Price-Adjustment Strategies: Psychological Pricing: because customers tend to judge a product’s quality based on the price – higher price means better quality – so we set a fairly high price that is compatible with the value of the products.

Product-bundle pricing: the product line of Miss Saigon Elegance contains two kinds of fragrance: N1 and N2. When buying both fragrances, instead of paying 500,000VND, customers will have to pay 450,000 only.

We suggest other bundles, for example, when buying a bottle of Miss Saigon Elegance (250,000VND) and Miss Vietnam (180,000VND), customers only have to pay 399,000VND instead of 430,000VND. * the company should have salespeople to push its products to the customers. With this strategy, word-of-mouth can be excellent in helping people recognize and remember the products as well as the company. * On occasions like Christmas Eve, Women’s Day, New Year, Company birthday etc. customers can have a small extra 5ml bottle of Cindy perfume when buying a 75ml Miss Saigon Elegance or 20% discount on all product.