The Success of the Coca Cola Company - Research Paper Example

The Coca Cola Company constantly renews its organizational structure to better its operations against competition in the bottling industry. The core of its organizational structure is to enable speedy and efficient production geared with motivational leadership to make a win company. Alongside the internal and external structures that support and work immensely for the organization, the company has a strong organizational culture. The well stated mission, vision and goals are the drivers of its operations and the interaction with other companies. In viewing this, the operations of the global company are fostered by the organizational culture while the structures provide a continuous channel for supply chain and distribution of the products among the continents. Remarkably, the company has well-built structural formations aligned with its culture to place it enable its excellent performance. Organizational Structure The Coca Cola Company being a multinational corporation is structured to streamline its divisional operations with the global operations. The structure of the company is founded on an ethnocentric framework where all operations cross continents originate from the concepts and cultures at the base of the company. Basically, the organizational structure consists of Separate International Division that represent the various regions across the globe. In this organization, the corporate staff act separately away from the head office in the various franchises. Because of the global demand for the bottled products, Coca Cola has various divisions around the continent. These are continental divisions named as the Eurasia & Africa Group, Europe Group, Latin America Group, North America Group and the Pacific Group. These divisions are well-managed, each with a president, and vice presidents in charge of the subdivisions that are country based (Dhar et al., 2005). The worldwide business makes of partnerships central to the production and distribution of the variety of its products. The external structure consists of large partnerships in the different sections of production. Coca Cola has partnership with about 300 packaging partners to ensure that the concentrated syrups and base drinks reach the targeted market. The packaging partnership structure makes the bundles and stocks for distribution to the retailers and wholesalers. These strategic organization effectively avails the products to restaurants, clients, film theatres and other consumers as part of the sale. The centralized structure through which the organization runs enables these activities proceed as planned to satisfy the customers. With these complimentary partnerships, sound communication and planning, the operational activities are completed seamlessly (Pendergrast, 2013). Organizational Culture Coca Cola’s organizational culture simply describes the behavior of the organization, its vision, mission and the core values that company and its stuff believe in. First of all, the Coca Cola Company holds its employees as very important assets to the organization. For this reason, the top management ensures that the employees are valued and motivated towards their career fulfilment. The deepest emphasis is on team work and empowerment of the employees on all levels. The flexible organizational structure of Coca Cola offers the opening for teamwork to bring in exquisite performance. For instance, at the Britain Coca Cola, the development of new products taps in to the potential of the employees through team work. Teamwork is found to be very useful in the various division such as the marketing, sale, research and management team. The individual contribution of the employees in the teams keeps them motivated and feel valued to the organization (Dhar et al., 2005). The Coca Cola Company also counts on innovation to grow its profitability, strike better ways of serving customers and grow in the space within which it operates. The innovative culture is thus a blue print for the company. The company appreciates innovative ideas so richly because these add enormous value to its production. In enhancing this, the company provides a very friendly environment that enables employees to be wildly innovative. In the values from which the company, stands, trust is paramount. At the beginning, the company was small in scale but over time and the constant growth it has seen, the importance of trust is so overwhelming to the company. In the heart of the internal and external relationships like in partnerships, trust is the key value. Trust is propagated in several ways for the company. The customers and the consumers trust the company to offer the highest quality of service while satisfying their needs. The growing relationships with other bottling companies are built on the foundations of trust that each of the company’s interests are the focus. The employees also trust the company values them for their input for the great results. Along with this, the company has invested heavily in creating open communication channels to foster healthy internal and external relationships (Taylor, 2000). The open communication channels include the monthly leadership sessions to assess the various functions. There also weekly department team meetings to review the operations at the department levels. Besides these, Coca Cola has employee consulting groups as platforms for the sharing of experiences and this brings together all the corporate staff. From this scheduled programs, there is professional contact where information is shared and transmitted as part of teamwork, innovation and employee satisfaction. Company Control System Given that Coca Cola has over 93,000 employees under different levels of the corporate management, the internal control systems in place help to oversee the conduct of the staff. Each employee has to report to the office that they are directed to ensure efficient performance. There is a Senior Leadership team of which the CEO is part of. This executive team is responsible for functional administration. The leaders of the sub-division also answer to the Senior Leadership team and provide information as they are mandated to. Just like any other company, the Coca Cola Company is susceptible to change because of the changes in the economic landscape. To cope with this, the management makes operational administrations in the form of functional strategies to align it with the target objectives (Hays, 2005).  The policies and procedures of the company are adjusted to suit the radical changes in the beverage industry. With the aim of creating a sustainable advantage and having a strong customer base, the company focuses on acceptability, availability and affordability of their products. There are periodic assessments at the departmental levels to evaluate the outcome of new products and the change in the needs of consumers. In the periodic assessments, business plans are evaluate, the product response viewed followed by detailed plan on the way forward. These analyses create accurate perceptions of the consumer needs, the revenue generated for the company and the level of completion from Pepsi, Water Companies and other local beverage companies. The insight from the assessment keeps the company up to speed with the changes in the market space while the changes implemented keep the company on track in the path to achieve its vision (Taylor, 2000). Grand Strategy, Organizational Structure and Control Systems To a large extent, the control systems of the organization is aligned with the grand strategy. The Sales Analysis aimed at increasing revenue and designing the next marketing plan concurs with company grand strategy which is which is to provide high quality drinks to the satisfaction of personal needs. Along with the strategy to achieve this strategy, the market share analysis measure efficiency and efficacy of production. The efficiency is also inclined towards the quality of the consumer products (Hays, 2005). The organizational Structure as studied is centralized to infuse a degree of responsiveness that is key in ensuring every member observes key value and works to the best of their ability. The major areas of concern such as development and quality improvement are geared by the control systems and the management of the divisional structures all in line with the grand strategy. Conclusion The success of the Coca Cola Company over the past years has been attributed to the coordination of its operations in its global divisions. Being a leading brand, the pressure to maintain its position in the market, influenced by the external and internal controls is one of its key strengths. The measures of performance in line with its budget, revenue goals, and the provision of high end services is seen to drive the company to success. In the view of its culture, the effectiveness of its staff is informed of the core values by which all staff abide. These key elements work in harmony for the realization of the vision. Effective strategies put in place communicate the long-term goals of the company which is primarily to expand the product line and offer high quality services. The organization structure and culture are the pillars for which sustainable efficient production across all the continents. References Dhar, T., Chavas, J. P., Cotterill, R. W., & Gould, B. W. (2005). An Econometric Analysis of Brand‐Level Strategic Pricing Between Coca‐Cola Company and PepsiCo. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 14(4), 905-931. Hays, C. L. (2005). The real thing: Truth and power at the Coca-Cola Company. New York: Random House. Pendergrast, M. (2013). For god, country, and coca-cola. Basic Books. Taylor, M. (2000). Cultural variance as a challenge to global public relations: A case study of the Coca-Cola scare in Europe. Public Relations Review, 26(3), 277-293. Read More