Delta Q
: to tea or not to tea : marketing case study

  • Matthias Berchtold (Student)

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

Change is a constant progress and companies need to be able to respond quickly to the market and to their customers. This case illustrates that, in spite of a weaker starting position, companies are able to compete with much bigger competitors if they understand this insight. For that reason, this case demonstrates the importance for a company to align its strategy and its portfolio to changing consumer behaviours and tries to elucidate this to future managers. This dissertation focuses on the writing of a case study about Delta Cafés, a Portuguese coffee company that has recently experienced problems by the implementation of a new product and was facing strong competition by a multinational giant. Delta created Delta Q, a closed coffee capsuled system, in 2007 as a response to the new coffee industry trend towards the use of capsules and the huge success of its strongest competitor Nestlé. The managers at Delta Cafés saw themselves as David fighting against Goliath and their battle seemed even more fierce than expected. A year after the launch, Delta Q landed far off the target (16 % instead of 30 % market share), only reaching the third place, just behind the two Nestlé brands. For the management and innovation team of Delta Cafés the main challenge was therefore how to change this situation in order to achieve or to exceed the desired market share of 30 % by the end of 2009. The case depicts several decisions in the range of brand positioning, distribution channels, switching costs and differentiation the management team around the CEO Nabeiro can undertake in order to (re-)gain its market position.
Date of Award27 Jun 2013
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • Universidade Católica Portuguesa
SupervisorJoão Borges Assunção (Supervisor) & Paulo Alexandre Gonçalves Marcos (Co-Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Brand positioning
  • Distribution channels
  • Switching costs
  • Differentiation

Designation

  • Mestrado em Gestão

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