Innocent Smoothies Essay

This report is aimed to examine and analyse the opportunities in the market for the ‘innocent’ brand. The research draws attention to †¦. the report evaluates and concludes†¦. it is recommended that †¦. ii. Introduction Innocent Ltd. is a fresh business that has been exceptionally successful in creating wholesome and natural smoothies. The company has appeared in the Sunday Times for four consecutive years in the ‘Fast Track 100’, a list of the fastest growing privates companies in the UK. The company has aimed to place itself on the side of the consumer as supporting green issues and responsible business practices and this has evidently proved to be in favour with the company’s brand image which has resulted to its success. On the other hand, it has faced criticism from cynics who argue that the company’s ethical position is a facade as they have sold a 20% stake to Coca-Cola which led to thousands of dissatisfied and betrayed customers who previously supported the company’s initial brand values. This has led to ‘White, Harte and Laine,’ a specialist in strategy and market development, who have conducted this report that will be researching and analysing the opportunities in the market for the ‘innocent brand’. This report will define what a ‘market driven organisation’ is and discuss how it compares to ‘innocent’ whilst addressing their customer relationships. It will also outline the trends in the macro environment by looking at the political, economical, social, technological, environmental and legal factors which created the opportunity for ‘innocent’ to initially build its firm position in the smoothie market. An analysis of the company’s main opportunities and threats over the next five years will be highlighted through a SWOT analysis. The report will additionally adapt Porters Five Forces analysis to the smoothie industry and finally, recommendations will be made about possible business strategies that ‘innocent’ could pursue in the next five years. iii. Main Body In an article by Bill Barrett, Uncles (2000) defines a market driven organisation as an organisation that has a thorough understanding of customers and potential customers, including their changing needs and wants. Uncles (2000) states that market-driven organisations continuously gather data in all environmental sectors – competitive, cultural, political, economic, technological, human resources, physical resources, and consumer. The market-driven concept is a managerial concept where close attention is given to business processes and activities. There must be an emphasis on an organisations ability to respond to environmental changes. All aspects of the organisation must be aware of and consider environmental changes and continuous process improvement is mandatory for a market-driven organization. Innocent’ has been described as a market driven organisation. Innocent’ is an ethical company whose initial idea was to produce its products from 100 per cent pure, fresh ingredients and no fruit concentrates. As defined by Uncles (2000), a market-driven organisation understands the customers, and potential customer wants and needs. In order for ‘Innocent’ to have c reated a market-driven organisation they had to put their customers first with the organisations objectives, goals and strategy. This is evident as their main aim is to take a social responsibility to the public and environment by producing 100 per cent natural products. It is established that ‘innocent’ promotes healthy eating and appeal to eco-friendly and health conscious consumers; therefore in order to put the wants and needs of these consumers into place, they had to come with strategies to uphold their brand name as well as delivering the desires if their consumers. Hodge, et al (1996) believes that by putting the customer first in an organization’s mission and goals, market driven organizations make providing value to the customer a top priority. Market-driven organisations also develop product strategies to deliver whole product solutions to customers and use strategic relationships to build synergy, create whole-product solutions, and gain support of stakeholders. ‘Innocent’ strategies put the interests of their health focused consumers at the heart of their organisation and gain support through various deeds such as: * Keeping all their ingredients natural. This strategy reinforces the initiative of the company only producing food that is healthy and good for their consumers. The fact that only natural products are used means that their product s has a positive health benefit minus the additives and therefore keeping the focus on the company’s brand name ‘innocent’ connatating purity. * The use of responsible ingredients. ‘Innocent’ tends to purchase their farms from ethical and environmentally friendly farms. Once more this is another way to strengthen their brand name ‘innocent’ to their consumers to portray their organisation as a green and a social responsible company. * Sustainable packaging. ‘Innocent’ uses 100 per cent recycled material as package for their products. This compliments their ‘green’ image and satisfies their eco-friendly and health-conscious consumers. * They are a resource efficient business meaning that they aim to produce as little carbon dioxide emissions as possible while manufacturing the products, growing the ingredients, transportation and packaging. This approach coincides with the interest of their consumers who are environmentally friendly. * Sharing their profits with charities. 10 per cent of the company’s profit at the end of the year is donated to charity which fund the rural developments projects in the countries in which their fruits come from. This highlight’s the caring nature of ‘innocent’ toward the environment as well as to their consumers. From the above points we can therefore establish that ‘innocent’ is a market-driven organisation. Their target markets are eco-friendly, health conscious consumers who value organic, natural and environmentally friendly products. Evidently, from their strategies it is indicated that ‘innocent’ puts the interests of their consumers at the heart of their strategies by taking into account the environmental factor of global warming. It must also be noted that back in 1998, the fate of ‘innocent’ was decided by people through a ballot by putting their empty bottle of ‘innocent’ drinks in a ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ bin depending on whether they should pursue the business. The outcome resulted in the majority of bottle being placed in the ‘YES’ bin. This demonstrates that ‘innocent’ has always valued the opinions of their consumers and act upon their wants which are the traits of a market organisation. The smoothie market