REVENUE STRATEGY - PEPSI

Indian villagers charged that PepsiCo—which has named India as a top strategic priority—consumes excessive groundwater in their parched communities. Even worse was the repeated claim that the snack and beverage company, along with rival Coca-Cola Co., were allowing pesticide residue from groundwater to get into locally made soda. Blasted with e-mail alerts from Centre for Science and Environment, journalists and bloggers worldwide leapt on the story, raising the specter of a global consumer reaction just when soda makers were coming under harsh scrutiny for contributing to obesity.

What did Pepsi do?
1. It held a rare joint press conference with Coke in New Delhi, offering data that contradicted CSE's and saying the company followed the same strict standards all around the world.
2. Pepsi executives joined CSE’s Sunita Narain at sometimes contentious meetings over the next two years aimed at helping the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) arrive at guidelines on pesticides, caffeine, and even PH levels in soda.
3. It met with editorial boards, presented its own data in press conferences, and ran TV commercials featuring its then-president in India, Rajeev Bakshi, walking through a gleaming laboratory.
4. It also stepped up efforts to reduce water usage in its plants. A bottling facility, in the city of Panipat, near New Delhi, has reduced water usage to 8.6 liters for every case of two dozen 8-oz. bottles, down from 35 liters at the start of 2005. Workers post Japanese-inspired kaizens, or suggested improvements, to reduce waste, illustrating the ideas with cartoons and stick figures for added clarity.
5. After Indra Nooyi became Pepsi CEO she visited India, spoke widely of Pepsi's initiatives to improve water and the environment and her own fond memories of growing up in the country. One of her main themes: "This is a company with a soul." Indian newspapers and television covered her tour lavishly and with praise. Soda sales improved, although they ended 2006 flat compared with rapid double-digit growth in China.
6. It may even invest in educating communities in how to farm better, collect water, and then work with industry to retrofit plants and recycle.

Reputation is the soul of revenue.....

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