Subject: Business Strategy
Executive Summary:

Throughout most of its history, the Coors Brewing Company (Coors) has been a regionalized brewer within the United States, specializing in high-quality beer through by virtue of its source water selection, stringent production standards, and cold filtered brewing approach. As the company expanded its distribution to new markets within the U.S. in attempt to gain market share, it made a strategic decision to maintain a majority of its brewing operations at its primary production facility in Golden, Colorado. This decision was based upon the desire to preserve its core production strengths through close family control. However, as the company desires to expand its market presence beyond the U.S. boarders with a goal of becoming the 5th largest brewer by 2008, its historic approach to management and operations provides a detriment to achieving this objective. As seen by the on-going consolidation of top brewers within the beer industry, the competition is fierce as more brewers are competing within a global market with extended product lines and decreased profit margins.

Question: How did Coors operating performance change relative to its competitors between 1970 to 1985? Why ?

Performance improves from 1970 to 1977:

Coors was extremely successful prior to 1977. Key to their strategy was a set of unique, cost specialized elements: geographic focus, low-cost production, a differentiated product, and market power over their distribution customers. By managing these aspects well, Coors achieved 21.2% market share in their market, with the lowest relative amount of advertising in the industry. At the same time Coors’ low cost per barrel, at $29, was second only to Heileman. In spite of their low cost, Coors’ differentiated product allowed them to charge a premium over most of their competitors, giving Coors the