The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational corporation that operates in the beverage business. It manufactures, sells, and distributes syrups and finished nonalcoholic beverages. Its foundations go back to 1886 when pharmacist John Pemberton concocted a unique caramel syrup and mixed it with carbonized water in the neighborhood pharmacy in Atlanta. His bookkeeper gave the drink its name, writing it in the font that is still used to this day. After Pemberton died in 1888, Asa Griggs Candler, who had bought most of the shares of the Coca-Cola Company from Pemberton, took over the business. He, later, became its first president. Since then, the Coca-Cola Company has sold more than 10 billion gallons of its syrup. Nowadays, the company’s capital, in a fiscal year, averages 1.107 billion dollars.
The Coca-Cola Company has a culture of diversity and inclusion. This culture type is characterized by hiring employees of different races, age groups, religions, and genders. Coca-Cola has been named one of the 50 most diverse companies and has hired Lori Billingsley as the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer in 2018 to continue its efforts. The company hires 131,000 people in more than 200 countries. 30% of the employees working in the senior management were reported to be women, and the company aims to make it 50-50. Furthermore, some of the jobs at Coca-Cola are reserved for young talents. Moreover, Coca-Cola hires veterans and makes use of their skills.
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As indicated by its sustainability report, Coca-Cola’s efforts are concentrated in many fields, including climate, waste reduction, water leadership, sustainable agriculture, and people and community. Its 2020 social initiatives include donating 14 million dollars to the Red Cross and Red Crescent for COVID-19 relief, distributing face shields to medical responders, and producing and donating hand sanitizers to medical facilities. In the Egyptian branch in particular, employees are involved in 100 village projects that aim to develop poor villages by connecting water to houses, providing medical equipment, and providing women with businesses. Concerning the green approach, Coca-Cola is employing a dark green one. Some of their green actions in 2019 include restoring 1.5 trillion liters of water (since 2012), reducing the carbon footprint of the drinks by 25% (since 2010), and making 88% of their packaging recyclable globally. Possible impacts of these initiatives on the company may include improving its public image. A percentage of people are concerned that Coca-Cola is abusing the world’s drinking water supply. Thus, its water restoration efforts as well as its provision of clean water to communities may decrease these concerns and increase trust in the company. This, in turn, may reflect an increase in revenues.
Similar to any other company, strategic management is important for the Coca-Cola Company. The company employs a concentration strategy. Coca-Cola concentrates on ‘building a total beverage company’. Coca-Cola has diversified its beverage products. It produces soft drinks (ex. Coca-Cola, Fanta, and Sprite), juices and dairy and plant-based drinks (ex. Fa!irlife), water (ex. Dasani), coffee and tea (ex. Costa Coffee) and energy drinks (ex. Monster Beverage). Moreover, it has expanded in many markets. It operates in 200+ countries, having approximately 225 bottling partners and 900 bottling plants worldwide.
In its internal environment, several strengths and weaknesses of the company can be noted. One of the obvious strengths of Coca-Cola includes dominance over the beverage industry, as seen by the number of beverage products that it produces. Moreover, Coca-Cola has an established brand that it has developed for over 100 years. For many years, Coca-Cola has been named the most expensive brand and has only been passed by several tech companies in recent years. Furthermore, it has a strong existence in most markets. On the other hand, its weaknesses include the lack of healthy products. Coca-Cola’s most famous products are soft drinks that are harmful to a person’s health. In general, the number of healthy beverages, compared to its other beverages, is minimal. In addition to the lack of healthy products, Coca-Cola has low diversification compared to PepsiCo. PepsiCo competes in the same field as Coca-Cola but has a greater variety of products.
Moving on to its external environment, there are several opportunities for Coca-Cola, as well as several factors that threaten it. One of the opportunities is that Coca-Cola could still increase the number of beverage products. For one thing, it can introduce healthy drinks and beverages to the market, as this is one area that it lacks. Additionally, it can advertise unpopular beverages and acquire small competitors. On the other hand, the main factor that threatens Coca-Cola is water scarcity. Being a company whose production depends on water as its main resource, water scarcity may significantly harm its production if the issue is not tackled. Other threats include an increase in health concerns by consumers and high competition from its main competitors, such as PepsiCo, Nestle, and others.
The Coca-Cola Company operates in more than 200 countries in five regions of the world. These five regions are North America, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and the Middle East, and Africa. Nowadays, Coca-Cola is sold officially in all countries except North Korea and Cuba. The global attitude of Coca-Cola is polycentric. This is due to the fact the company operates with the mentality of “Think globally, act locally”. As discussed in online sources, human resource management in Coca-Cola varies from one country to another, as Coca-Cola leaves local management for the managers of each branch. In its global entrance to other markets, Coca-Cola mainly adopts the franchising system. The actual company just produces the syrup. Other companies then bottle and distribute Coca-Cola products to the local market, such as to restaurants and grocery stores. Nowadays, Coca-Cola partners with approximately 225 bottling companies.
The overall company performance of the Coca-Cola Company is outstanding. In addition, Coca-Cola has a good corporate culture. As stated by the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, by bringing a diverse group of people to the table and hearing out different opinions, better results are obtained, making the company successful. Moreover, Coca-Cola has done a lot in terms of social responsibility. However, I believe more can be done in sustainability. In its sustainability report, the company has a lot of goals that, if achieved, would have a profound impact on the environment. One of these is that it aims to collect a can for each one it sells by 2030. Finally, I believe that utilizing the franchise system has significantly helped Coca-Cola achieve global reach. Without franchising, it would have had to handle bottling and distribution in 200+ countries. The only concern I might have is regarding the health issues of its products. To sum it all up, in my opinion, Coca-Cola is a model of the perfect company that startups nowadays should take as an example.
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