Progress of Red Bull (3)

"Congratulations to you Caroline and your whole team. You developed Red Bull better than I would have ever imagined. From a Start-Up to a large firm worth hundreds of millions in not even one year, a real achievement nobody can take away from you.

I know that many people are already waiting for the announcement of Red Bull's first financing and are eagerly waiting for you. If we can manage to create a valuation of up to 250-300 million $ I would consider the first financing a large success.

As we will release 30% of the shares of Red Bull, this would leave us with roughly 75-90 million $ we can invest in new projects.

As many of you already know, one major project we will invest in is the acquisition of the Chicago Bulls NBA basketball team. Not only does the image and brand of this team perfectly fit with our company, but it will also mark the start of a long-term strategy to invest in the sports entertainment market. The overall investment will probably be around 30-40 million $, as we not only need to acquire the team, but also keep enough liquidity to renovate and upgrade the arena and the team.

The rest of the financing will be used to further increase the production capacity, because we are a long way of from satisfying the energy drink market, which will grow tremendously over the next few decades. There is a lot of potential in this market, and I am confident that Red Bull will grow into a multinational and Fortune 500 company."

The management team was already getting very excited and even Caroline was full of enthusiasm to reach this future goal. Simon paused his speech for half a minute to let everybody realize their achievement and calm down for a moment. When the conversations and noise in the large conference room stopped and everybody put on a serious expression, he continued:

"But we can't be overly confident. We should always have a sense of crisis in our mind. It won't be long before the large profits and the huge potential will cause market rivals to enter the energy drink market. Even Coca-Cola is already developing their own product for the energy drink market and considering when and how to place the product.

Right now, the only real advantage Red Bull has is their close cooperation with Atari, but even Atari will sooner or later face opponents in the gaming market. The time both companies are nearly monopolistic in their own market segments will not take much longer. We need to use our current advantage in resources and time to further consolidate our position and to build defenses against future competitors.

The investment strategy of marketing through the sports market is one strategy we will use, and we will keep going this way for a very long time.

But there are still other opportunities we should never miss. Red Bull, whether it is the flavor or the market position, is mainly tailored for the western higher end market. But the large Asian market is not really considered in our current company strategy. Whether the price nor the flavor is tailored for the large Asian market.

This is why we should consider creating a new brand under the Red Bull Group to develop different flavors and produce in Asia, therefore decreasing our production cost and transportation cost. We can't sell a can of energy drink for 1,29$ in Asia, so we must be creative.

Let's use our current advantage and the next few years to not only consolidate our position in America and Europe, mainly due to the sport entertainment strategy, but also advance aggressively in the Asian market."

When his speech finished the whole conference room was applauding. Everybody was very excited about the affirmation of their work, the strategic position of their company for the next few years and the enterprising spirit both Simon and Caroline showed. This increased their trust into Red Bull as a company and their hope to achieve a brilliant future.

After answering some questions from the company's high-level management and getting to know some of them better, only Caroline and Simon were left in the conference room. Finally, his sister didn't put up the play of the powerful CEO up anymore but acted more like the loving sister he knew.

"I thought you didn't really care about Red Bull anymore, as you didn't show up in the last few months nor did you call to express your opinions. But at least you still take care of the strategic development, and your speech was convincing." Caroline said, while trying to tickle him from the side. This was her way to show her annoyance to the indifference her little brother showed to Red Bull in the last half a year.

While trying to dodge those small attacks Simon showed a gesture of surrender and tried to explain himself.

"You are supposed to lead Red Bull, I can't walk into the company everyday and tell you what to do or try to force my opinion on you and your team. This will not only cause you to be annoyed with me, but even the management team won't know who to follow anymore and to which opinion they must listen more.

I wanted to give you time to establish your position and see how far you can develop by yourself, and you didn't disappoint me one bit. Honestly, I didn't have much time to care about the company, even if I wanted to.

Red Bull can develop in a slow and healthy way and has a clear path, but Atari and Lamborghini need my guidance and presence a lot more. Especially Atari, this company is not only creating huge profits by itself but is strategically very important to you.

You can't deny that the huge and fast success of Red Bull would simply be impossible without the cooperation of Atari. The initial marketing and the supply channels were all built up with the help of Atari. Let's not forget about the most important sales network. Without this cooperation you might not have sold a million cans by now. My presence and help at Atari in turn helped Red Bull a lot more, than spending huge amounts of time here, at the headquarters in New Jersey."