Region status for india-PepsiCo's big plan

Recently PepsiCo awarded "Region" status to India. The company will hold its annual board meeting in India for the first time in mid-September. India will be the second country after Mexico to have the annual board meet. The $43-billion beverages and snacks company has been very successful in India, even if when the parent company was facing the global down turn. Chairman and CEO of the company hails from India that may be a reason for getting this Region status, but what I feel there are more solid reasons behind it.

1. Decentralization: Allocating the "region" status will facilitate more independent decision making process and faster allocation of resources. It has integrated its beverages and snacks under a common leadership in line with Indra Nooyi's "power of one" strategy. Indian brass of management will take decision according to the Indian market only, which is best suited for India.
2. The Indian wing has given them an all time high growth of 33-35% last year at a time when its parent was struggling to make profits. That shows the high growth opportunities that India has for the comapny. Besides this it has to tackle Coca-Cola in Indian market which is a big task itself. The investment of PepsiCo in India is already $1 billion and it has plan of investing a total of $500 million over three years.

So hope to see a complete turn around, when the biggies will confront each other.

" COKE vs PEPSI"- it's more intense now

The rivalry between these two companies is no longer new for us,but this time the rivalry is more intense in India. From last two days newspapers and news channels are feeding this news. The two giants are trying to to sign sponsorship deals with the eight teams that are part of the Indian Premier league.Pepsi which is emphasizing on younger generation for its "Youngistaan" dropped Shahrukh Khan after having a decade long association with the superstar. But King Khan 's team Kolkata Knight Riders recently tied-up with Coca Cola -brand "Sprite" to be specific for next two years. Coca-Cola also edged out Pepsi by signing deal with Delhi Daredevils and Gautam Gambhir and is all set to renew the deal with King's Eleven Punjab. Most important thing is that Virender Sehwag and Ishant Sharma who had already signed deal with Pepsi are in Delhi Daredevils and KKR respectively. So again it seems Pepsi's loss being coke's gain. While Pepsi is already with Chennai super kings and planning to roll out co-branded cans for IPL edition. It also cancelled its on ground sponsorship with BCCI three months ago and IPL is owned by BCCI. Here also coke grabbed the opportunity,it has already signed the on-air sponsorship with SET (Sony Entertainment Television) MAX and in talk for ground sponsorship also.So let's see who is going to win the race