The Coca-Cola Company is an American-based multinational firm founded in 1892 and was first set up in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It all started with its famous and widely known product Coca-Cola, which was originated by an Atlanta pharmacist, John Stith Pemberton in the year 1886. The drink Coca-Cola got its name from its two main ingredients, coca leaves and kola nuts. Later Asa Griggs Candler, an Atlanta businessman, fully bought the company in 1892 and after his takeover, the distribution expanded beyond Atlanta (Essays, UK, 2018).
Robert Woodruff bought the company afterward, he was the most long-term owner of the company who also expanded it all over the world (Kuisel, 1991). Coca-Cola gained a lot of fame all over the world mainly during World War 2 when Woodruff instructed that Coca-Cola should reach every soldier, no matter what country they belong to, that’s when they expanded the most (Coca-Cola Company, 2012). Today Coca-Cola Company is a manufacturer, retailer, and marketer of beverages. From selling their one brand, they now have many like Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Sprite, Limca, Fanta, Dasani Water, Honest Tea, Schweppes, Minute Maid, and many more (Coca-Cola products, 2019). Today they sell around 4,100 products to over 200 countries and are one of the leading beverage companies (Coca-Cola Company, n.d.). Coca-Cola is one of the top multinational organizations with having their red and white logo recognized by 94% of the population worldwide. The brand is associated with happiness with their most famous tagline being ‘Open Happiness’ (Coca-Cola Infographic, n.d.).
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The advertising done by the Coca-Cola company had a major role to play altogether in promoting its products as they relate it to sports, quenching thirst, pulpy juices, diet, or sugar-free soft drinks.
Coca-Cola is a very diverse business organization they create a friendly and sociable environment for their employees which helps them better in development, exchanging ideas, and sharing their talents with one another. They are diverse in both, the marketplace and workplace (Coca-Cola Diversity Mission,2018).
The major problem that Coca-Cola faced was having a high content of sugar in their product which led to high calorie intakes and eventually contributed to obesity in people. Even though Coca-Cola was not the only reason behind people’s obesity or overweight issues, because of having a 50 percent carbonated drink market worldwide, it was the top-most organization responsible for the concern (Statista, 2015).
Coca-Cola contains high levels of sugar content which is not good for our health or our teeth. Coca-Cola, being most loved by youngsters and children was another bad sign as they were the ones dealing with the maximum obesity rate, as they were into eating fast food and consuming maximum amounts of sugary beverages in the United States; Coca-Cola was most sold at fast food chains (Gwyther, 2015).
Drinking soda-based or sugary drinks was highly discouraged back then and even today. It was only then that Michelle Obama started a ‘Drink Up’ campaign in the United States of America for all youngsters and adults, the motive being to drink more water than beverages with high amounts of sugar and soda content (Rhodan, 2014).
The United States of America was and is still dealing with a high percentage of obesity in people, the campaign's main objective was to promote healthy drinking choices, like water. “I am confident that in the coming months and years, we will see people across the country drinking more and more water,” said Michelle Obama.
There was also a case of a lady named Gladys Escola, where a Coca-Cola bottle exploded in her hand causing her injuries and deep. cuts. When she took the case forward, she got to know from the defendant’s delivery executive that he had come across various cases of Coca-Cola bottles being exploded in the past. This was happening because of not improper packaging of the bottles or because of an excessive amount of gas in them. Escola- the plaintiff won the case as the jury’s verdict was in her favor and the Act of Negligence took place on the defendant (Supreme Court of California, 1944). There were many incidents that took place with the explosion of bottles and the cases were registered under Negligence Act by the Company or the Manufacturers.
Another issue that Coca-Cola went through was Kerala’s Plachimada Struggle. This was a case of villagers who protested against the Coca-Cola factory, which was set up in the village of Plachimada, Kerala in the early 2000s. The primary concern of this protest was to raise a voice against the destruction of the groundwater. The wells in the village started to dry and the remaining water left for use was contaminated with toxins. This also was a major problem for the farmers while irrigating their fields. The Coca-Cola plant was producing its main brands like Fanta, Limca, Sprite, Thums Up, Maaza, etc. They had a permit to produce 5,61,000 litres of drinks which required 3.8 litres of water per litre of drink. In spite of knowing that the village was full of backward-class people with minimal resources, the state government still gave access to the company to deplete the main natural resource- water, in order to increase their GDP. Within two years of the plant’s establishment, the people started facing water shortages, and the water that they received, was unhealthy for human consumption or even for domestic usage. They started to protest outside the factory in order for it to shut down, despite a lot of struggle they went through for years, they were able to get the factory’s license canceled (Bijoy, 2006).
Coca-Cola also had to deal with a racial discrimination lawsuit against them which was filed by eight current and former employees of Coke and Juice Element, Minute Maid Company stating that they faced racial bias in payment of their salary and promotion in positions. They were discriminating between the black and white employees keeping the white employees in benefit. This led to the downfall of the company’s reputation until they worked on this matter in the following years (McKay, 2000).
To overcome all such problems of obesity, Coca-Cola launched its products with no sugar or Diet Coke where people dealing with obesity yet being addicted to Coke can still enjoy the drink. Coca-Cola has also focused on each country's taste and preferences and come up with exactly what their customers need, for example in Australia, people prefer more orange drinks but with less amount of sugar, so they launched the limited edition orange flavored no sugar Coke (Coca-Cola Company, July 2018). Coca-Cola launched its low and no-calorie soft drinks in Britain at first and later in 13 more Western European markets. It was a huge success in less than a span of 12 months despite having a different taste than the usual drink and recently they launched it in various flavors and eye-catching packaging (Coca-Cola Company, April 2018).
The company aims to improve the conditions in Indian villages, taking an example of the fruit circular economy introduced by them, which is going to make a difference in the lives of Indian farmers. As said by T Krishnakumar, President of India and Southwest Asia, they want to buy the fruits and juices from these small producers and add that to the branded beverage that they sell, in order to assure the farmers by promising to buy the fruit concentrates from them so that they produce more and earn more, making a difference to the farmer community (Coca-Cola Company, 2017).
Coca-Cola observed the taste of Indian consumers and tried to develop products of their choice and also used famous actors and sportsmen to advertise for them, as they knew that they could capture the Indian market by advertising it in this way and also keep a minimal price for their product in order to reach the less developed areas of India (Greer, 2018, p. 38).
The Coca-Cola Foundation in India- Anandana, helped the community members of the village to construct 150 dams over Northern India, pairing up with the local NGOs, making 13 billion litres of water storage and assisting 500,000 villagers (Coca-Cola Company, 2016).
The company today is known for being the most diverse in terms of gender equality and diversity in racial differences. After dealing with a lot of racial discrimination cases, they worked on their employment terms and stand today as one of the most diverse organizations. As per the company, it is more beneficial to them to have a heterogenous culture as they get more ideas and innovations to work on in various countries, according to the demands and likings of their customers for the most loved beverage brand (Chiu, Fischer & Friedman, 2019).
People Management, the department responsible for the development of the organization, employment, job satisfaction, managing the risks, and being the backbone of the company, plays an important role here.
Human Resource Management, another term given to People Management is defined as: ‘A strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization’s most valued assets – the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of its objectives’ (Armstrong, 2006).
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