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It has become an ongoing debate whether Indian commodity futures markets can accommodate farmers. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Indian commodity futures markets help rationalize farmers’ price expectation. The study starts with questions on the efficiency and other roles of commodity futures markets.

From a sectoral standpoint and economic importance, the study considers pepper, coffee, and natural rubber (NR) futures and spot markets. The efficiency of futures markets, divergence/convergence and causality between futures and spot markets have been studied by employing co-integrations, error correction and causality models. The sample period of the data are taken from the inception of futures trading. These three commodities are also compared on the basis of trading at the futures markets vs spot markets.

Analysis shows that though pepper futures market is informationally efficient in price discovery, while coffee and NR spot markets do the process faster. Pepper and coffee futures and spot prices exhibit the convergence; NR shows a sign of divergence. Unidirectional causality from pepper futures to spot market is observed wherein the former was weakly exogenous to the latter and while, bidirectional causality is observed in coffee and rubber. Coffee spot appears weakly exogenous while this remains inconclusive in the case of NR.

The authors analyzed the futures markets in rationalizing the spot market price in three plantation crops in India. In order to make the study more generalizable, further research is warranted in other commodities including those prices of which are government regulated.

The paper is unique in terms of understanding the interaction or interrelationship between futures markets and spot markets and drawing inferences about the role of futures markets in price formation in plantation commodities like pepper, coffee and NR.

The teaching objectives of the case study are to provide students with an understanding of how strategic marketing tools are applied in an international marketing context and how brands, especially brands that come from emerging markets, are introduced and managed within modern versus traditional trade (e.g. ethnic shops).

This case illustrates the challenges and opportunities related to the introduction of a brand to a new market wherein the product (traditional coffee), although part of a very well-developed product category (coffee), may have been new to consumers in the new market. The brand itself, Zlatna džezva, is a flagship brand in its home country (Bosnia and Herzegovina) within a developing market. However, both the brand and the traditional coffee experience are relatively unknown to other markets. The case study focuses on Vispak’s CEO and CMO who are contemplating their next business move in the new market. Finally, the Dutch market and consumers are presented to facilitate the process of segmentation, targeting and positioning for students. The case study concludes with a task and dilemma for managers of the company.

This case could be used in a variety of undergraduate level classes, depending on what the instructor wishes to emphasize. The authors use the case for following courses: principles of marketing, marketing management and international marketing. In all courses, the case is allowing students to obtain the greater overview of the scope of the strategic marketing decision-making. Before starting with case analysis, students should have some familiarity with central marketing issues and concepts, specifically related to analysis of environment, segmentation-targeting-positioning, product and brand management.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS: 8: Marketing.

Looks at the marketing of five Kraft Italia food products: Splendid, Sottilette, Milka, Hag and Philadelphia in Italy. Examines the changes in consumption rate and how marketing strategies for these products have developed. States that the lessons to be learned from these case studies could help encourage the development of effective marketing of other brands in Italy.

In February 2003, President and CEO Nick Lazaris faces critical decisions on Keurig's launch of a new consumer coffee brewing system. Keurig has successfully sold single-cup brewing systems through commercial distribution channels and is now expanding to the lucrative consumer segment. However, a meeting with key strategic partners six months prior to launch raised questions about the product design. This prompted the Keurig management team to revisit its decisions on product design, pricing, and the marketing plan. With six months to launch, what should the company do?

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the competitive position of Italian roasting firms in the international market, thus developing a multidimensional framework for measuring industry export competitiveness.

Considering that the objective is to evaluate the export competitiveness of Italian roasting firms, the author chooses “positive” and “ex-post” indicators, combined in a multidimensional and a multivariable framework. The two dimensions of competitiveness implemented are competitive performance and competitive potential; the author used four indices to evaluate the first dimension (export market share, net export share, net export index, revealed comparative advantage) and three indices for the second dimension (unit export price, relative quality index, relative export growth).

The evolution of the international context, with the emergence of new competitors and the spread of coffee consumption worldwide, creates new opportunities but also new challenges for Italian companies. In fact, both competitive performance and competitive potential have been worsening since the second half of the early twenty-first century because of the lack of innovation. A mix of external and internal factors explain this lack.

In order to recover their international competitiveness, firms should leverage on the combination of “traditional elements”–such as Made in Italy effect and the rich technical know-how, depending on their long tradition in the espresso coffee market niche–with “innovative elements,” depending on new marketing skills and competences; these new elements could be developed internally or, most fruitfully, acquired externally, through collaboration with other firms. In this way, Italian businesses could improve the relative quality perceptions of their offering.

Coffee roasting industry in Italy is a significant component of the Italian economic system and it contributes to the development of the Made in Italy abroad. Therefore, an improvement of its export competitiveness could be beneficial to the whole domestic market.

This paper constitutes the first attempt to study the evolution of the coffee industry in regards to the international competitive landscape. This is quite surprising, considering that coffee is one of the main segments of the food and beverage industry; it is the second most important commodity exchanged worldwide after oil and the third most popular beverage after water, tea and carbonated beverages. Then, the analysis of export competitiveness is developed combing two main research streams: the industrial organization literature and the strategic management literature. Moreover, this paper offers a methodological framework useful to measure export competitiveness also in other industries and countries.

Developing new markets for small producers has been a major focus of research and development in many parts of the world. Too frequently, the ways in which existing production and market systems constrain producer possibilities has been ignored. This study examines how existing systems have affected coffee farmers in Costa Rica and Panama as they attempt to enter the elite coffee market, which promises higher prices for premium production. In the past 50 years, Costa Rica had created a system quite favorable to small producers in the world coffee market, while Panama had done little. Yet today, the Costa Rican system has proven to be a barrier to entering the highest levels of the coffee market, while the Panamanian system has produced coffees that are currently among the best in the world. The shifting ways in which production and marketing systems connect with world markets and elite taste suggest the necessity of greater sensitivity to how existing systems affect what farmers can and will decide to do.

Nowadays, the agricultural business environment is expended to the whole world. Transaction records in point of sales and customer relationship management (CRM) systems can be large-scale data for long-established global chain businesses. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to using a proposed data mining approach to discover valuable markets/customers of urban coffee shop industry (retailer) in current environment of Taiwan, which can implement the industry's data-driven marketing strategy on a CRM system.

In this research approach, Ward's method, C5.0 decision tree and a proposed model are applied for discovering valuable markets and mining useful customer rules.

These found markets and discovered rules can be applied on marketing information or CRM system for identifying valuable customers and target markets.

In this study, the CRM system can be the media for the data-driven marketing strategy in environment of Taiwan. The approach of this research can be applied on other businesses for their data-driven marketing strategies as well.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a data mining approach for mining valuable markets for online customer relationship management (CRM) marketing strategy. The industry of coffee shops in Taiwan is employed as an empirical case study in this research.

Via a proposed data mining approach, the study used fuzzy clustering algorithm and Apriori algorithm to analyze customers for obtaining more marketing and purchasing knowledge of online CRM systems.

The research found three hard markets and one fuzzy market. Furthermore, the study discovered two association rules and two fuzzy association rules.

However, industry of coffee shops has been always a fast-growing and competitive business around the world. Thus, marketing strategy is important for this industry. The results and the proposed data mining approach of this research can be used in the industry of coffee shop or other retailers for their online CRM marketing systems.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the informational efficiency of Arabica (other milds) and Robusta coffee futures markets in terms of predicting future coffee spot prices.

Futures market efficiency is associated with the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between spot and future prices such that coffee futures prices are unbiased predictors of future spot prices. This study applies unit root testing to daily data for futures-spot price differentials. A range of maturities for futures contracts are considered, and the study also uses a recursive approach to consider time variation in futures market efficiency.

The other milds and Robusta futures prices tend to be unbiased predictors for their own respective spot prices. The paper further finds that other milds and Robusta futures prices are unbiased predictors of the respective Robusta and other milds spot prices. Recursive estimation suggests that the futures market efficiency associated with these cross cases has increased, though with no clear link to the implementation of the 2007 International Coffee Agreement.

The paper draws new insights into futures market efficiency by examining the two key types of coffee and analyses the potential interactions between them. Hitherto, no attention has been paid to futures contracts of the Robusta variety. The employment of unit root testing of spot futures coffee price differentials can be viewed as more stringent than an approach based on non-cointegration testing.

Identify the advantages and disadvantages of being first-to-market with a new product in a new environment. Explain the differences between business-to-business (B2B) and B2C markets, how they are interconnected in the speciality consumer good category and the challenges of developing a balanced strategy for both. Assess the competitive positions of different market players within both B2B and B2C. Analyse the role of brand in a niche market and how brand perception influences consumer behaviour. Identify and assess the different strategies for growth in an evolving niche market.

Origin Coffee is an artisan coffee roaster in South Africa grappling with rising competition, evolving consumer tastes and brand management concerns. As an early entrant, Origin largely created the niche market for speciality coffee across the country as both a retail coffee shop and a wholesale supplier to independent shops and businesses. This case follows founder Joel Singer 15 years later, in August 2020, as he contemplates how to scale the business, which has cultivated a brand synonymous with quality and excellence. Repeated efforts to expand the Origin footprint have met with disappointment and the business is still operating exclusively from its original roastery-café in Cape Town. Yet, the customer perception is that Origin is an industry giant – an established player that has outgrown its plucky upstart status. Origin also faces an increasingly crowded competitive landscape of local artisan roasters and larger chains. The case showcases the power of entrepreneurial innovation to cultivate a new niche market, as well as the risks of playing in a market that is very narrow and immature. Students are left to determine what Origin’s place in the future of South African coffee can and should be.

This case is appropriate for students enrolled in postgraduate programmes such as Master of Business Administration and Executive Education programmes. Although the case learnings are transferrable, this case will be particularly useful to students with interests in entrepreneurship, B2B and B2C market strategies and niche market strategy.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.