Bolaven Firms

Bolaven Farms’ mission statement is “Growing the finest coffee is our passion. Restoring land ownership to the joy of the farming poor is our desire”. Its main purpose is to alleviate poverty and to produce premium organic coffee. Once earning the initial investment, its aim to reinvest 80% of its profit for community development sort of makes it a social business.

SWOT Analysis of Bolaven Farm:
Strength: Cheap labor, business with social cause, premium grade coffee, organic certified coffee, 75% of people are farmers
Weakness: The business is oligopoly. So, it’s difficult to create the market, lack of farming skills, corruption in Laos, starting a brand from scratch, local market
Opportunity: Market growth of coffee is huge (yearly average 90%), can venture in Europe and America, can take over roasters and have larger share of profit, establish itself as unique premium brand promoting social cause
Threats: Political instability, the owner has political ambitions; there are alternatives (tea, soda etc)

BCG Matrix
Bolaven Farm falls under question mark (problem child) category in BCG Matrix. It isn't generating much revenue right now because it doesn’t have a large market share (in fact, they are new). But, they are in high growth markets (the import volume of organic coffee to these countries grew by 564% from 2004 to 2008)import in coffee so the potential to make money is there.
Ansoff matrix
The coffee market is mature and highly competitive. Bolaven Farm focuses on selling existing products into existing markets. Market penetration is the growth strategy in this case. Bolaven Farm can carry it out by:
Price Adjustment
Initially, Bolaven Farm has to give away free samples to establish it as brand and get recognition from the customers. It must offer competitive premium price once it develops certain awareness in the market. It also has to attract decent caterings. It can also bring out the product in mini-packs to make it affordable to all class.
Increased