The Role of Employees in the Development of Coca-Cola Company - Essay Example

Running head: challenges in the global business environment 27th November Introduction John Pemberton is the man behind the invention of Coca-Cola around the 19th century. The company is headquartered in United States with a registered trademark of Coke. The company is known as the leading soft drink producer globally. Coca- Cola Company produces a finished product which is known as concentrate, later the concentrate is distributed to all the registered and licensed bottlers. Since the company has been producing high quality products it has maintained a high profile with the customers thus able to venture in the market attaining a high profit throughout. To meet the customer needs and wants, the company has different brands. Notable brands are Caffeine Free Coca-Cola, Coca –Cola Zero and Coca-Cola Vanilla as well as Coca –Cola Cherry among other brands. The brands are further flavored with different flavors like cola lemon, cola orange, cola raspberry, cola cherry among others. Coca Cola Company works under the integrity ensuring that the management and the employees maintains the code of ethics for example by making sure that nobody takes bribe in the company from their suppliers or from their royal customers. Since the employees play a major role in the company development they are treated with respect so that its business can be sustainable. Coca- Cola Company aim is to make sure that it leads as examples and learn from the experience. High standards for the customers and the employees at all levels are encouraged so that the company will strive in good performance. Due to corporate governance, Coca-Cola Company has been reviewing their system to make sure that transparency and accountability is achieved. This is ensured by effective corporate governance and skilled board of directors that provides the guidelines to ensure that matters of corruption and bribery in the company will never take place. Additionally, in the charters which the employees are required to read and obey the rules, the code guides requires all the stakeholders to be honest and have integrity in their day to day routines (Foster, 2008). The ethics and compliance committee has the duty to make sure that all the employees read and understand the charters. The ethics and compliance office plays a major role in the company success since they ensure that discipline, education, consultation and monitoring of the employees are done regularly so that customer requirements are achieved. The employee performance in each and every day is usually checked to ensure that the company output is increased and also ensure that the firm’s brands meet the customer needs. Workers safety is also ensured by Coca Cola Company not only to instill the feeling of motivation among the workers but also to ensure that the operations of the company are not jeopardized. The main competitors of Coca Cola Company are Pepsi and Nestle. Coca-Cola Company has the ethics and compliance office to deal with matters of integrity; PepsiCo like Coca cola ensures that all honesty and integrity is attained in the company. However the board that deals with corruption matters in PepsiCo is not committed as that one of Coca-Cola Company for example in New York, United States PepsiCo knowingly or recklessly did not pay $500,000,000 as tax. This shows that matters to do with integrity are not taken with much seriousness by Pepsi as compared to its main rival the Coca-Cola Company. To make sure that the employees are working in good condition just like Coca Cola Company PepsiCo emulates human right workplace. For example, in matters to do with employee wages they consider a lot, benefits such as house allowance, medical insurance coverage among others are provided to ensure that best working condition among the employees is provided. Nestle Company has a slogan which they use to encourage and motivate the customers, good food, and good life. The company ensures that the daily routines are conducted in honesty manner and governed by integrity. Compliance to applicable laws in the company makes the employees to play their role uniquely and thus producing high quality products that meet the customer specifications. Due to its commitment, Nestle Company has so far attained good reputation making a lot of customers to remain loyal towards its products. Corporate business principle are maintained, additionally good working condition of the employees is emphasized on where the company offers the best to ensure that quality products are produced. PepsiCo and Nestle to some extent have tried to be honesty in what they are producing; additionally they have tried to deal with matters to do with integrity though the two companies have been involved in corruption. For example, PepsiCo trying to evade tax worth $500,000,000 in New York did not portray a good picture to the public; this negatively affected their reputation to the general public. After the court litigation, the company was fined heavily. In terms of safety measures of the employees, PepsiCo and Nestle have been working towards improved working condition for the employees either employed in contract or permanent. Conducive environment is provided to facilitate continuous supply of their products. However, in Nestle, the chocolate that is imported from Ivory Coast which is estimated to be about 40% has made many individuals who are working there to be exposed to dangerous conditions (Isdell, 2011). The chocolate that was being imported in 2005 was being produced by underage making the company to have poor reputation on the public since underage life was ruined. This was until nestle was threatened that if the trend continuous the chocolate will be labeled that it was produced by slaves. If PepsiCo will not address the issue of corruption then the possibility of it becoming competitive in the soft drinks will be eliminated and thus creating a negative image towards the company. If it will not consider conducive working environment for the employees the production rate will be lowered leading to shortage of supply. On the other hand, if Nestle will address the issue of safety towards the employee positive relationship will be maintained between the employees and the management. Additionally, the employees will be motivated thus an increase in production leading to increased revenue. To ensure that the code of conduct of Coca- Cola Company will remain relevant through the years, the global leader in soft drink industry should involve some employees in the board of committee that is concerned with ethics and compliance. This will mean that if the employees will suspect any kind of corruption in the company they will be the first to note and thus provide relevant information to the office so that it will be investigated. Audit should be done regularly so that transparency and accountability is ensured by all employees thereby eliminating cases of bribery and other corrupt motives (Kahn, 1960). One of the effective ways that Coca-Cola Company is currently adopting in order to manage environmental issues is engaging in public and private environmental awareness so that watersheds are preserved and protected. Public awareness will mean that individuals will be using water efficiently. Secondly the Coca-Cola Company has honored the commitment of ensuring that water is recycled since they normally use water on daily basis. This recycling of water has played a great role in environmental conservation for example in 2013 Coca Cola Company invested about $4million to start water saving programmes. Within a span of that year the company had 1 million cubic meters of water that was saved in the company plants. Due to advanced technology that Coca –Cola Company has embraced for a number of years the company has been able to remain competitive in the market thus outdoing their rivals like PepsiCo and Nestle. For example, through extensive advertisement being undertaken by the experienced marketing team, for a number of years the company has enjoyed increased revenue. The use of YouTube among other online marketing media has improved the sales of the company thus attaining high profit. Additionally, through the use of technology the company was able to introduce more than 500 new brands as at 2012. Packaging of the brands was successful due to the use of modern environment minding technology. The potential challenge that Coca Cola Company could face if they will not embrace technology is that the customers will not be aware about the company new trend and innovations. If the technology will not be embraced, then the possibility of running innovation will be costly since the company will be using manual method to run their daily routines. Lastly, imitation is likely to occur if the technology is not embraced. The strategy which needs to be used to address the issue of innovation is that competent individuals should be employed in the company so that they will be creative thus coming up with unique new brands. In reference to cost of running technology, the company needs to expand and budget for innovation. Lastly, imitation should be dealt with by ensuring that any information concerning the company should not be treated as confidential. Coca- Cola Company has introduced corporate social responsibility as a lobbying and creation of strong brand awareness strategy. This has lead to an increased customer loyalty for example by protecting the environment while packaging their brands. Coca Cola Company ensures that all packaging will be used for future need rather than being a waste. The lobbying is important and should be part of plan strategy since the company is able to attract quick attention from the local and foreign residents (Kotler and Keller, 2012). During Coca Cola expansion programs, foreign governments will favor and support the company since they it indicates a lot of seriousness as far as conservation of the environment is concerned. This will make individuals to increases their buying mode since the company is still playing a major role in environment conservation. One of the corporate citizenship that Coca-Cola Company has adopted is United National Global Compact. The compact ensures that human right is protected. Additionally, it has contributed in preservation of environment by joining to global conservation forums. Another corporate citizenship is the Coca Cola Foundation which ensures that the community will benefit from the company and thus encouraging win- win scenario. In this way, the beverage company provides admirable support to the community through sponsoring education programs and medical checkups among others. Through the use of Coca Cola Foundation and United National Global Compact, the company is able to attract a lot of customers from different parts of the world leading to establishments of other outlets which will increase the sales ratio. Competitors will be weakened since customers will like to be associated with the organization that supports less privileged in the society. References Foster, R. (2008). Coca-Globalization: Following Soft Drinks from New York to New Guinea. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Isdell, N. (2011). Inside Coca-Cola: A CEO’s Life Story of Building the World’s Most Popular Brand. With the assistance of David Beasley. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kahn, E. (1960). The Big Drink: The Story of Coca-Cola. New York: Random House. Kotler, P and Keller, L. (2012). Marketing Management. London: Pearson Education Limited. Read More