Company Background
Yakult is a Japanese
probiotic milk-like product which is made by fermenting a mixture of skimmed
milk with a special strain of the bacterium Lactobacillus casei Shirota. It was
created by Minoru Shirota who found that lactobacilli
were effective in suppressing harmful bacteria within the intestines, in 1930.
After 5 years, in 1935, he started the manufacturing and Yakult had sold to the
public.
In 1969, Yakult
operated their business in Hong Kong. The first factory was located at Kwun
Tong and now the factory is moved to Tai Po. In the beginning, Yakult used to
employ “Yakult Lady” direct marketing strategy to sell the drink. It used to
use glass bottles in order to recycle and reuse them. However,
this trend was not suitable for Hong Kong and changed to sell at supermarket
now. In 2011, Yakult has published a new production line in Hong Kong for
producing a new flavor of Yakult – Yakult LT, which has lower sugar content and
high vegetable fibre.
Questions
1. How can your company deal with the
increasing customer demand in China?
How do you plan for your production forecast?
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9.
How do you manage the fluctuation in demand to your production resulted by
the large volume of purchase from the mainlanders especially the parallel
traders?
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Answer:
In order to deal with the increasing demand in
mainland China, Yakult is trying to build more production factories in China
to ensure meeting the growing demand. Nowadays, it has 6 factories in China
and the number will keep increasing in the future. Under the six production
plants, Yakult can produce a total of several million bottles per day, as to
meet the increasing demand in mainland China.
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2. With more intensive
competition from similar probiotic products from mainland and other Asia
countries, what are the strategies for Yakult to keep its competitiveness?
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11. There are many
similar products in the existing market, how can you differentiate yourself
with those products?
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Answer:
Yakult registered for the bacterium Lactobacillus casei which was
created by Japanese scientist Minoru Shirota, the starter of Yakult. This
bacterium has its unique function which is benefit to the intestinal system
of human body. This differentiates Yakult from other Probiotic Drinks as no
other companies are able to use the same bacterium to perform the same
function. Besides, Yakult has a team of professionals to monitor each bottle
of the probiotic drink has enough number of Lactobacillus casei strain
Shirota. Yakult believes that it can help to gain the trust of the customers
by ensuring the product quality. Moreover, Yakult is a renowned company which
is developed for nearly 80 years. The history of the company is also a
promise to customers.
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3. Will you consider
providing more varieties of products?
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8. There are lots of
favours in different regions except Hong Kong only got 2 favours in total.
What is your product strategy in dealing with customers in Hong Kong?
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Answer:
For Hong Kong Yakult, there is only one flavor in order to
maintain the good quality of probiotics and taste of the beverage. There are
two types of Yakult in Hong Kong which are the original one, and the other one
with low-sugar and hi-fibre. In addition to the Yakult, Yakult has also
launched a new drink which is a sugar-free tea called 蕃爽麗茶 to cater the healthy lifestyle of Hong Kong people.
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4. Why don’t Yakult
develop a new product with other flavor?
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Answer:
Until now, Yakult will not consider providing more new products as
the production lines of original and Yakult LT have already saturated. Their
production capacity is around one million bottle per day. Hong Kong Yakult factory
does not have enough places to launch more production line as land
limitation. So, Yakult only can product two products. Also, there are not
strong rivals of Yakult in Hong Kong, unlike Singapore, where need to
introduce different flavors to compete with other competitors in the market.
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5.
Yakult can keep longer than in the past.
What is the reason behind?
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Answer:
Yakult has done several ways to maintain the
quality of its products. First, once the Yakult are produced, they will be
refrigerated in the freezer in order to prevent it from going bad under warm
temperature. Also, the Yakult Company supervises the super market to store
their product in the freezer too. If super market does not follow to do the
procedure, Yakult Company will stop supplying the products. This issue can
make sure the customers can buy the good quality product. If the products in
super market are overdue, they will be replaced by fresh products. This is
one of the after sale service of Yakult Company.
Besides, Yakult Company has two
subsidiaries centers which are responsible to distribute the product to whole
Hong Kong stores or super markets. The two subsidiaries centers are located
in Shatin and Kwan Tong respectively. Kwan Tong’ center is responsible for
distributing the product to East Kowloon and Hong Kong Island while Shatin’s
center is responsible for New Territories. Each day, Yakult Company will
assign a staff to these two centers to check the expiry date of the product.
If the products are overdue, they will be returned to main company and
destroyed. At the same time, visiting these two centers can help to estimate
the demand of Yakult milk by checking the sale information in the distribution
center. Therefore, it can help planning of production of milk so as to
maintain the sufficient supply of milk in the market.
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6. As the customer
demand of mainlander increases, how do Yakult control its production process
efficiently?
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Answer:
Today Yakult investigate the important steps
which ensure that they deliver the highest quality products to the customers.
The Yakult manufacturing has strict procedures in place to guarantee that the
quality of the products is never compromised.
Yakult’s International Organization for
Standardization products and services how their products and services meet
the highest international food manufacturing standards. The policies and
procedures are also independently audited as regular part of the
accreditation process.
Testing at the on-site quality control area
ensures that every bottle of Yakult and Yakult light contain 6.5 billion
probiotic bacteria; the unique Lactobacillus casei strain and also guarantee
a product of the highest integrity.
The commitment to quality extends beyond the
manufacturing facility through each stage of the distribution process to
stores, ensuring the cold chain to stores is uninterrupted. In practical term
this mean the temperature in the Yakult refrigerated vans and transport delivery vehicles is below 4 ℃.
Yakult staffs are committed to giving the
best service possible. Their highly trained sale team work at supermarket
level to ensure that product is not out of date or damaged and the Yakult
fridges are clean.
These are all vital steps in Yakult quality
process. Therefore, they can ensure the quality of product during the
manufacturing and transportation.
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7. How do you forecast
the market demand under the condition of decentralized sales in numerous
distribution networks?
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Answer:
To forecast the demand and
manage the production in Hong Kong, there are more than one hundred employees
going to the retail stores around Hong Kong to collect data of the sales.
Then, the data about demand collected and integrated to help the company
decide how many bottles of Yakult to be produced. Besides, the weather
information and the past demand record would also help in forecasting the
market demand.
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10. To cope with the huge demand from mainland
China, do you consider making some new changes in your logistics/
distribution network, such as providing online purchase to mainland people?
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Answer:
Yakult has already had some production plants in Guangzhou,
Tianjin etc. There is not any intention to provide online purchase because
Hong Kong’s product supply for Hong Kong and Macau. The delivery time is
another important factor to consider because Yakult cannot be stored for a
long time.
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