Coca-Cola - International Business Operations Paper

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The Coca-Cola Company ™

Taylor Barela, Madi Gore, Lexi Geiger

INTB 4410 FINAL PAPER

Jon Wilkerson

23 April 2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary        2

COMPANY OVERVIEW        3

Deep Dive        4

Organizational Structure        4

Marketing        7

Global Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management        10

Conclusion        13

Works Cited        15

Executive Summary

This report provides an overview of The Coca-Cola Company ™ from an International Business perspective. This report examines the current Marketing, Organizational Structure, and Global Manufacturing / Supply-Chain Management of the corporation. This report is intended to present how this company has created tremendous value and global presence. It will also include potential strengths and weaknesses the company could face given their current positioning.  The Coca-Cola ™ company was carefully selected by our team because of their immense market domination and continued success.

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Name: The Coca-Cola Company ™ 

Products: Soft drinks and beverages

• Headquarters/Operations: Atlanta, Georgia
• Size: As of December 31, 2016 The Coca-Cola Company ™ had 100,300 associates worldwide
• Industry: Beverage
• Competitive Landscape: PepsiCo ™ is their largest competitor

Mission

• To refresh the world...
• To inspire moments of optimism and happiness...
• To create value and make a difference.

Vision

• People: Be a great place to work where people are inspired to be the best they can be.
• Portfolio: Bring to the world a portfolio of quality beverage brands that anticipate and satisfy people's desires and needs.
• Partners: Nurture a winning network of customers and suppliers, together we create mutual, enduring value.
• Planet: Be a responsible citizen that makes a difference by helping build and support sustainable communities.
• Profit: Maximize long-term return to shareowners while being mindful of our overall responsibilities.
• Productivity: Be a highly effective, lean and fast-moving organization.

Values

• Leadership: The courage to shape a better future
• Collaboration: Leverage collective genius
• Integrity: Be real
• Accountability: If it is to be, it's up to me
• Passion: Committed in heart and mind
• Diversity: As inclusive as our brands
• Quality: What we do, we do well

 *This information is derived directly from Coca Cola ™ ’s website. [3]

Deep Dive

Organizational Structure

The Coca-Cola Company ™ has a divisional organizational structure. More specifically they have an entirely separate International Division. The Coca-Cola Company ™ divides its international employees into geographical divisions. Certain functions and resources are utilized across divisions [1] such as Manufacturing, Marketing, Finance, and Corporate staff [2].  The Coca-Cola Company ™ recently changed their International organizational structure. These changes to their structure were made in 2016 in aims to better suit their company’s global footprint [2]. The Coca-Cola Company ™’s new International Organizational structure is geared around implementing their five strategic actions for growth [2], developing the next generation of Coca-Cola ™ leaders, and enhance their corporate social responsibility.

The Coca-Cola Company ™ adjusted their international organizational structure to be less horizontally differentiated and more decentralized. They did this by decreasing the number of international divisions they had by combining similar geographic regions and also decreasing the amount of key leadership positions. Before these changes, Coca-Cola ™‘s international organizational structure was divided into 5 divisions; Eurasia & Africa; Europe; Latin America; North America; Pacific Group; [13], but now the international divisions have been consolidated into 3 divisions; Europe, Middle East & Africa; Latin America; Asia Pacific; [2].  This promoted Coca-Cola ™’s strongest leaders, by giving them more oversight on big picture issues, and created more low-down decision making. This is going to help streamline Coca-Cola ™’s daily operations and give more autonomy to the lower divisions who handle Coca-Cola ™’s daily operations.

The Coca-Cola Company ™ is currently in over 200 different nations [5]. To best suit their growth plans with the diverse portfolio of cultures they service, Coca-Cola ™ determined five strategic actions for growth. Those actions are:

1. FOCUS ON DRIVING REVENUE AND PROFIT GROWTH
2. INVESTED IN OUR OWN BRANDS AND BUSINESS
3. BECOME MORE EFFICIENT
4. SIMPLIFIED OUR COMPANY
5. REFOCUS ON OUR CORE BUSINESS MODEL                                 [5]

        The Coca-Cola ™ Company centers their strategic actions around four main “strategic pillars”, these are the framework in which they implement their mission, vision, and strategy.

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By building their strategy around these pillars Coca-Cola ™ is able to adapt and continuously improve their approach to different cultures, changing political environments, and volatility of the economic market.  

Moving forward The Coca-Cola Company ™ has more changes to come, that will further adjust their organizational structure to be more socially responsible. The current international organizational structure changes have not only benefited Coca-Cola ™’s decision making and leadership roles, but are also going to have an  influence on the company’s global footprint. The new structure is going to help decrease Coca-Cola ™’s  bottling footprint. By combining divisions and resources, the company is also going to also combine the region’s bottling plants [5]. All of these changes Coca-Cola ™ is making is going to better protect the company and their strategy from future changes in their external environment.