Industry Background Analysis

Coffee was one of the worlds most important tropical commodities. In Britain, the first coffee house is opened in Oxford in 1651 and 1700 there was 3000 coffee house in London. The last three hundred years have seen coffee make its way around the world, establishing itself in the economies and lifestyles of the main trading nations. Coffee is now one of the most valuable primary commodities in the world. The largest coffee producers, Brazil, Vietnam and Columbia, accounted respectively for 31%, 14% and 9% of the worlds green coffee production in 2009. Coffee consumption had been growing at an annual rate of 2.4% since 2000. In 2007, Europe was the largest consumer of coffee, accounting for 31% of worldwide consumption, followed by the United States with the consumption of 16% of the worlds coffee, and Brazil with the consumption of 13% of the worlds coffee.There are many coffee manufacturers in the world. Boladen Farm is a coffee farm founded in early 2007 by Sam Say, a Lao refugee who lived in Canada and Hong Kong. Bolaven Farms was a coffee business with a social purpose. With an office in Hong Kong and a farming facility in Laos, Lao population lived under the poverty line of US$2 per day in 2007. The ventures mission was to provide high-quality coffee to the worldwide public while helping to alleviate poverty among coffee farmers. Bolaven Farms trained its own cohort of local farmers in modern production techniques on its farm. The original idea was to provide farmers who graduated from the programme with a US$5,000 loan so they could set up their own farms and start supplying high-quality coffee to Says venture.

Bolaven Farm Background Analysis

Bolaven Farms is the leading organic grower and supplier of the finest Bolaven coffees. Fine Bolaven coffees are rare and distinctive, grown and processed in the pristine environment of the Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos. Bolaven Farms is producing and offering a locally grown product in a country where there is no strongly established coffee drinking culture and therefore no local demand for the product or even a concept of good coffee Working for the farmers future: They want to assurance of employment and additional land to cultivate farmers and graduated them from the programme. Bolaven Farms would own the land and hire farmers to each maintain and manage three hectares of land: one for coffee farming, one for housing and livestock, and one for an alternative crop to counter balance the risk from coffee. The initial income from each three hectare farm would cover its establishment costs. And the cost was recouped, 60% of the farms output would belong to the farmers.

Advertising and create public relationship: Bolaven farm also post article in the SUOTH CHINA MORNING They continued to educate the general public about the importance of organically grown coffee and introduced new people to Bolaven Farms managers. As a result of these introductions of Bolaven Farms collaborated with Impact Asia, a public relations firm from Hong Kong. Impact Asias CEO, moved by the idea behind the venture, offered pro bono help in developing a professional public relations strategy for Bolaven Farms. Social oriented Business: After operating four years operations and the company had already invested US$4 million in the project. With this money, it had purchased land, applied for certifications, and trained 250 farmers and 7 management trainees. They considered their business successful in fulfilling social objectives, but he was also well aware of the weakness of its business component.

SWOT Analysis
Strengths: Connection networking Good relationship network Skilled farmer Production factors are available Weakness Undefined target market Prize rate high Low advertising Geographic challenges Corruption Lack of ownership and capital Start up investment increase level of risk

Opportunities: Threats: Land capacity was high Worldwide marketing opportunities Coffee prices were notoriously volatile Developing and educating local Strong competitive world community

Solution: Re-Structuring Market:

From the above points it is clear that the farm is lagging behind in its marketing department. Thus we think a market restructuring with strong positioning could solve the problem without compromising with its mission.

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Serving Niche Market: As a premium brand, Bolaven farm need to target specific niche markets. Europe and United states are the largest consumer of coffee so they should initially target the large cafes of Europe and United States to distribute their product. Dedicated Distribution Channel: Bolaven farms authority should emphasize in the marketing and promotion. Setting up a missionary sales force might help it to achieve long term relationship with the targeted customers. Re-Positioning & Branding: It has to create an image and make a good position in market as a premium brand. While promoting the brand it should focus in the following aspects: Organic coffee and Certified coffee produced with respect for the three pillars of sustainable development; economic development for farmers; environmental conservation and social improvements. Promotion and Advertising: Bolaven farm has no marketing department to promote their product. So farm should expand its marketing department in suppy chain. Without marketing customer could not attract to its product. So they must provide free sample to customer, they communicate to their customer with mail, branded magazine advertisement, give prospectus, internet advertisement etc.

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IV. Competitive Analysis: Before choose their market segmentation they have to aware about their competitor and also fixed the product prize comparing with them. Like Philip Morris/Kraft, Tchibo, J.M. Smucker Company, Starbucks, Sara Lee/DouweEgberts and Nestl.

Conclusion: By re-structuring the market Bolaven farm can improve their situation and increase their profit. With their increase profit they can provide to their farmers more now. So Bolaven farm can earn their profit to attract more customer without compromising their mission.