Change Management – Coca Cola Corporation
Coca Cola is a retailer, marketer and manufacturer of non-alcoholic drinks and is
known worldwide for its coca cola beverage. In addition to Coca cola brand, Coca Cola
Company offers 500 beverages and non-beverages brands in about two hundred countries.
The company was founded by Asa Candler in 1892. It’s headquarter is located in Atlanta,
Georgia of the United States of America. The company had total net income of
approximately 11.8 billion US dollars in 2010 with a total number of employees 139,600
worldwide. Company’s brand i.e. Coca Cola stands number one in the list of most well-known
brands of the world.
Coca Cola like any other company is a type of company that requires making changes in its
products and business strategies according to the consumer expectations and external
environment.
The need for change in an organization is often created by external and internal
factors, where external ones encompass governmental laws, labor markets, market
conditions, economic scenario etc. and internal factors are the workforce, resources,
attitudes of workers and strategy adopted by the organization (Robbins and Coulter,
2008). Coca Cola Corporation is among one of the oldest corporations of the world. It
has gone through many internal and external changes since it has been in existence. The
company has used techniques of change management in order to survive from the
consequences of those events.
Barton et al (2002) reported that Coca Cola Corporation adopted acquisition strategy in time
of Asian financial crisis. The company acquired bottling, coffee and tea shop businesses in
Korea and Malaysia. Beverage is a type of industry where tastes and preferences of the
consumers change on a continuous basis. Coca Cola Company also responded to such
consumer changing behaviors in an effective way by developing new products like Diet
Coke and Coca Cola Zero. The company also committed a marketing blunder when a
rival company launched a black beverage with comparatively sweet and smooth taste.
The product was named as new Coke. But the sales gradually went down and the company
faced severe consumer criticism and protests.
The company managed this situation very commendably by restoring the old formula and
naming the bottle as diet coke (Kotler and Armstrong, 2010). As people are becoming
more health conscious and willing to invest in health based products, coca cola is developing
juices and various energy drinks as well. This shows the company’s strategy to respond to
varying consumer tastes and expectations and change itself according to it.
The coca cola company used theory of organization change presented by Kotler (1996)
which elaborated the procedure to manage change on the people dimension of the
organization. In addition to making operational and strategic changes, the company
also changed its advertising strategy by targeting various groups of consumers like.
American consumers, African consumers,
Middle and far eastern consumers and
European consumers. The company altered the packaging of its coca cola brand and
developed more product lines and broadened them globally.
The present condition of Coca Cola Company worldwide is very good. The company is selling
its beverages throughout the world successfully. But in some countries, coca cola stores are
not as according to the company’s main marketing, inventory and efficiency theme.
The company is planning to align its performance standards according to its own
corporate
culture
and
strategies
with
the
help
of
a comprehensive change
management plan. These changes will be implemented within the business operations and
management of the company.
Questions:
Q.1 Now since you are aware of the process and technicalities involved in a Change
Management Process; in your opinion why would you think this process would be
important for Coca Cola? 1000 words, express your reflection. Explicitly.
Q.2 According to you what are the challenges Coca Cola must have faced in
implementing the management of change and In your opinion what assumptions did coca
cola made for managing the Change in context to :
- Reputation and credibility pressure
- Growth pressure
1000 words,minimum 3 site references to be mentioned.
Q.3 How do you think Innovation helped Coca Cola to reinstate its presence in
market without affecting its credibility among customers and stakeholders? What would
be your recommendations for Coca Cola Company before and after implementing change
management; SWOT analysis charted to be attached? 1500 words, express your opinion
