Brita Case
Class prep 6 – Sophie Shao – 643404
What challenges face the Brita Brand?
Product cycle – Britas core product pitcher has reached the end of the product cycle – the decline stage
No innovation – Brita did not proactively improve their core product PT or develop a new product (innovation) while PT was reaching the growth and maturity of its product life cycle. Therefore Brita missed the best time to seize the new market opportunity. Customers got tired of PT trying to figure out when to change the filter and there was no improvement on the current pitcher to satisfy customers need.
Strong competition – Main competitor PUR seized the market opportunity and introduced FM long before Brita, which is more convenient and able to get rid of more impurities from tab water. They became the market leader and this made Brita suddenly found themselves facing formidable competitors, especially after P&G bought PUR filter company and further achieved economies of scale and reduced cost.
Preference of substitutes – Increasing consumption of bottled water also placed direct threat to Brita as its perceived to have better taste and purity by consumers compared to pitcher filtered. Again, Brita did not react to this market change.
Risk adverse and negative attitude towards innovation – the management in Brita did not encourage innovation and risk taking. It did not monitor the customer preference and uncover the evolving, difficult-to-articulate need even after substantial market research. There is not enough resource allocated to R&D team to develop new products, and the cross functional organizational structure reduced accountability of the VP or the Global head of R&D to initiate any innovation.
They have now got the result of the segmentation survey and have to decide if they