1) Some aspects of the political environment that may have played key roles were the change in the names of both companies, the problems with the water contamination, the boycotts of American goods, the low demand for carbonated drinks, the prohibition of imports, and the policies that didn’t include international companies. These issues could not have been anticipated prior to market entry, however, Coke could have agreed to start new bottling plants instead of what they actually did, which was buying out Parle, and then would have not have had to sell a whopping 49% of it’s equity.

2) For Pepsi, one advantage was that it gained 26% market share by 1993, by entering the market before Coca-Cola was able to become a popular choice in the market while it was still in development. A disadvantage was that they were forced to change their name to Lehar Pepsi. Another disadvantage for Pepsi was that the government limited their sales to less than 25% of total sales. For Coca-Cola, an advantage was that the company was able to buy four bottling plants from Parle (an industry leader), in addition to buying out some of Parle’s leading brands. A disadvantage for Coca-Cola was the fact that the company was denied entry into the market until 1993 because Pepsi already had a place before them. That made it much more difficult to establish market share while Pepsi was there.

3) For product policies, both entered with products close to those already available in India in regards to drinks. (For example, Coca-Cola introduced Sprite and new bottled water products). For promotional activities, both advertise and use promotional material such as giveaways and paid vacations. For pricing policies, Pepsi started out aggressively introducing price policies in order to get immediate market share from different competitors, while Coca-Cola cut its prices by 15-25% in 2003. For