Coca Cola Case Study

I choose Coca Cola Company because this is one of the companies I have heard about when I still have lived in Poland. During communism where stores were pretty, much empty drinking a Coca Cola was like a dream. So when Poland got "free" and many of the oversees companies introduced their products to our country Coca Cola was one of the companies that initiated their items to the stores.

Coca Cola has been established 125 years ago in Georgia, Atlanta. First it was introduced in 19th century by John Pemberton as patent medicine and later purchased by As A Griggs Candler who formed as one of the biggest businesses of the soft-drinks in 20th century. Today, there are 200 countries in which Coca Cola's products are sold. I think everybody in the world know the Coca Cola design, which has been created by Frank Mason Robinson in 1885. He also contributed a lot of his ideas to market Coca Cola products.

Brand portfolio

Name Launched Discontinued Notes Picture

Coca-Cola 1886 The original version of Coca-Cola.

Caffeine-Free Coca-Cola

1983 The caffeine free version of Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola Cherry

1985 Was available in Canada starting in 1996. Called "Cherry Coca-Cola (Cherry Coke)" in North America until 2006. Zero-calorie variant (Coca-Cola Cherry Zero) also currently available.

New Coke/"Coca-Cola II" 1985 2002 Still available in Yap and American Samoa

Coca-Cola with Lemon

2001 2005 Still available in:

American Samoa, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, Denmark, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Korea, Luxembourg, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Réunion, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, United Kingdom, United States, and West Bank-Gaza

Coca-Cola Vanilla

2002 2005 Still available in:

Austria, Australia, China, Germany, Hong Kong, New Zealand (600 mL only) Malaysia, Sweden (Imported) and Russia. Was called "Vanilla Coca-Cola (Vanilla Coke)" during initial U.S. availability.

2007 It was reintroduced in June 2007 by popular demand

Coca-Cola C2

2003 2007 Was only available in Japan, Canada, and the United States.

Coca-Cola with Lime

2005 Available in Belgium, Netherlands, Singapore, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Coca-Cola Raspberry

June 2005 End of 2005 Was only available in New Zealand.

Coca-Cola Zero

2005

Coca-Cola M5

2005 Only available in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Brazil

Coca-Cola Black Cherry Vanilla

2006 Middle of 2007 Was replaced by Vanilla Coke in June 2007

Coca-Cola Blāk

2006 Beginning of 2008 Only available in the United States, France, Canada, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Lithuania

Coca-Cola Citra

2006 Only available in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, New Zealand and Japan.

Coca-Cola Light Sango

2006 Only available in France and Belgium.

Coca-Cola Orange

2007 Only available in the United Kingdom and Gibraltar. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland it's sold under the label

Coca Cola is growing and it is steady business around the world. They do work with over 300 bottling partners who increased 5% the volume and income of their products. "In 2010, our Company generated $9.5 billion in cash from operations, up 16 percent over 2009. We returned $7.2 billion to our shareowners by repurchasing $3.1 billion in Company stock and paying $4.1 billion to shareowners through dividends. In fact, we have increased our annual dividend payments for 49 consecutive years." (http://www.coca-cola.com/en/index.html).

Coca Cola value their relationship with their employees as approximately 15% of them are stockholders. SunTrust Bank holds 9% of the stock. Warren Buffet an owner of Berkshire Hathaway located in Omaha, Nebraska is the largest individual who owns Coca-Cola stocks. It contains 200 million shares (8%) valued as $11 billion. Emory University in Atlanta holds $3 billion of the shares by which makes them the richest University in the United States. There are also many smaller companies and individuals in US and in the world who are the stockholders which makes Coca-Cola truly global company.

Being such an enormous company as Coca-Cola there are always an allegation regarding different issues toward them. For example Coca-Cola does not approve nor support child labor. So in order to make sure this do not occur the Supplier Guiding Principles (SGP) program has been created. Every direct suppliers, authorized suppliers, direct bottling partner suppliers, and others have to comply with those regulations. Coca-Cola often performs investigations towards every company they work with to make sure that the policies are in place.

Coca-Cola also pays enormous attention to protect the environment. They make sure that many of the products are recycled and lighter packages are used so it requires less usage of fuel when transporting. The water products are in PET or refillable bottles and all of them are recycled. "The bottles are clear, green and light blue because these colors have the highest recycling value. Even our caps and labels are designed to be recycled along with the bottle and are compatible with local recycling systems." (http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/citizenship/challenges_opportunities.html). Coca-Cola also works with regulation