Coffeex is a leading coffee importer and distributor for coffee capsules. The worldwide volume of coffee exports rose to a record of 4.5 billion tones in 2010, or $7 billion. Coffeex was the first agent in promoting the coffee capsules for homes and companies, which was a fast-growing business in an emerging market about 10 years ago experiencing a tremendous success with an annual growth of over 25%.

The agent penetrated the channels with coffee capsules through aggressive marketing and partnering with top/key local traders in big cities, offering sponsorships on events and volume rebates in return for exclusive or preferential sales on-premise. However, the growth has slowed down in the past few years to about 10% per year and the profit margin is also declining.

What I expect:

1. In your opinion. What are the channels where Coffeex has been working with?

2. Can you think and explain the reasons for the recent slowdown and fall in profitability?

3. List and explain the strategic options for the company to rebuild its growth.

4. Do you think that Coffeex can implement new technologies that can help to rebuild its growth? If yes, list them and provide an explanation. If not, provide an explanation too.