HISTORY:
Coke was invented by a pharmacist Dr. John Pemberton in 1886. He fought civilian war and wanted to invent something that would bring him commercial name and success. The drugs that he invented failed to make any money from them. So he moved to Atlanta and tried to make some good beverages that could make him popular. He created syrup and mixed it with some carbonated water and was deemed “Excellent” by the ones who tested it. Dr. Pemberton’s partner Frank Robinson named the beverage “COCA-COLA” and also designed the trade mark that is still used Worldwide today. In 1888, prior to his death, he sold portions of his business to various parties and the major part of the business was sold to Atlanta businessman Mr. Candler. Under his leadership, the business expanded beyond Atlanta. In 1894, the demand progressed and Candler wanted to make it portable all over the world. Large scale trade of bottles started in 1899.
CULTURE:Culture of this company concentrates on one company, one team, and one passion.
➢ One Company: Coca-Cola develops meaningful and boosts learning opportunities and predicting the skills and resources that will be useful in future.
➢ One Team: Coca-Cola requires vision, innovation and passion of every single person in the company. And the relationship you build in company will help you succeed not only in job but in your career too.
➢ One Passion: Coca-Cola believes on fostering workplace that enhances the unique abilities of our people. This company supports in fair and inclusive environment for the workers
PLANNING: In Coca-Cola, planning is mainly done by the top level management. Top level management has the authority of setting goals and objectives of the company. Coca-Cola Company sets its strategic goals for three years and change them after every three years. The goals are set by the Managing Director of the company, he has annually meetings in which they make sure and review that strategies are smoothly moving with environmental change. Tactic goals are set annually at the end of the year. For example, increase in the revenue comparatively to the last year, increase in market share and etc. Operational goals are set by the Managing Director of the company. Over here, top level management consults the lower level management before implementing the goals officially. Management by Objective (MBO) is used in these types of goals. Every employee is told that what company is expecting from him and then they are judged on the basis of organization’s rules and regulations. Major decision making is centralized in Coca-Cola. Classical model is used which includes top level management takes time in decision making and before going for rational economic solution all the possible alternatives are kept in mind. In the case of programmed decision making, top level management does it on their own, without consulting the employees. In routine, decisions are with the consultation of middle level management. The decision that the top level management usually make are:
➢ The package positioning
➢ Trade discounts
➢ Advertisements
➢ Price reductions
➢ Distribution
In recruitment of new employees, top level management approve the vacancies and than Human Capital Department (HCD) conducts the test for employees of lower level. After passing the test, candidates are shortlisted for the interviews. General Manager takes final decision of selection of employee.
ORGANIZING:
Organizing is the second management function of coca cola. The following steps or organizational designs are seen in the Coca-Cola Company for accomplishing their goals and objectives:
1) Departmentalization: The Coca-Cola Company is divided into various departments. Grouping of employees is based on their knowledge, skills and work activities. Such kind of approach helps the company in solving their difficulties and employees also need less training. As the general manger is head of all the departments so, all the departments have to report to the general manager in the company. There are five major departments in the coca cola company which are as following:
Production Department: This department deals with all the production of the company. All the plants in the country are under this department.
Industrial Relation Department: This department manages the difficulties of the employees. The department listen the queries of the employees and send them to the high authorities for settling them up and stop them from becoming a hurdle in the work progress.
Sales and Marketing Department: This department deals with the availability of products in the market for the customers to buy and deals with the problems of advertisement, promotion, and supply of the product.
Human Capital Department: This department looks after the efficient workers of the company. They promote these workers so that they remain happy and don’t leave their jobs. Management level employees are also dealt by this department.
Finance Department: This department deals with the cost and price of the products. It also sort out the import related issues. Finance department is helped by the sales and marketing department in making invoices and payroll entries.
Geographic departmentalization: The organization structure of Coca-Cola has shown the company’s operation in two broad geographic areas the North American sector and the international sector, which includes the Pacific Rim, the European Community, and Northeast Europe, Africa and Latin America groups.
2) Centralization and decentralization: Before the nineties the company was having a centralized system, but after sometime they realized that if they had to meet the needs and wants of the customers they should have a decentralized system of control in which the power or the authority of decision making is distributed so that every sector can be managed effectively and efficiently. This system was implemented in the nineties by the company’s board of directors.
3) Formalization: There is balance standardization and rules and regulations are clear to everyone. The organization has made the Code of conduct which is a guidebook for the employees on how they should act? The disciplinary actions are the major point of the code of conduct.
4) Chain of command: The Chair of the Executive Committee plays the role of figurehead and chairs the board meetings. He is also the CEO as well as senior decision maker. Each division of the company has a public affairs director, finance director, marketing manager etc. When one of these divisions is executing some new plan, an advertising campaign for example, the division has to report their superiors. Since the company’s hierarchy is so tall, information has to travel back to corporate headquarters in the Unites states, where the Executive Committee has the final decision making authority.
5) Span of control: Coca-Cola currently has more than 93,000 employees who are all under the supervision of the different levels of corporate management. There is a top managerial staff that controls the assembly authority and plan functions. The CEO is also a part of the Senior Leadership Team and even there are just six individuals that report directly to the CEO, he or she has the power to obtain information from different members of the leadership levels. Both the CEO and CFO have six people who represent them.
6) Work Specialization: There is a high percentage of work specialization in the Company because every manager is appointed in the task in which he is skilled so there is no monotony or boredom. All the promotions of the workers are based on their conduct and act. Therefore, no favoritism is allowed.
7) Delegation and Accountability: There is a high percentage of delegation in this company. The work is done with proper authority, power and responsibility. Every manager is made accountable for the performance of his subordinates. All the subordinates are directed very actively by their respective managers at the time of completing some goal. Managers also motivate their subordinates to boost up their energy, performance and make them more effective. They make them think that they have to give their highest performance to their managers which increase their quality of work.
8) Resource Allocation: When the company has to deal with the issue of resource allocation they give the authority to managers to use the resources of the wherever and whenever they are needed. Only they are required to get the acceptance from the manager if those assets or resource belong to his department. The resources can be labor, capital, machinery or anything else.
9) Organizing the Human Resources: The company does the recruitment process when there is a position empty and the recruitment is always done on permanent basis in Coca-Cola Company. In Coca-Cola firstly all the vacancies are announced within the organization so that if there is someone who is able to fulfill the requirements can get him/herself promoted or can refer someone of his relatives. If there are no suitable persons than the company searches its bank where there are huge amount of application of the candidates. If, by this way they don’t find someone capable they give advertisement in newspaper.
Organizational Chart: Muhtar Kent is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of The Coca-Cola Company. He is on this position since April 2009. Previously he was President as well as Chief Executive Officer and earlier, President and Chief Operating Officer. Coca-Cola Company is “Tall” in terms of organizational chart. It is controlled through a vertical hierarchy, with decision-making power residing with the company’s top management. Daily and routine decisions are made by the line managers at the middle level. Coca-Cola has more than 700,000 system employees, moreover, their bottling partners. The company’s functioning has reach over 200 countries, with six geographic divisions or segments. The head office is responsible for providing the company with the direction and support to the regional structure.
Structure of Coca-Cola: The structure of the Coca-Cola Company is made up of both “Mechanistic & Organic” organizational designs. This Beverage Company mostly focuses on the responsiveness. All the complex integrating mechanisms are the characteristics of the organic structure. The company uses interviews and survey for the flow of information from bottom to up, latterly the information is exchanged through the intranet. The surveys have made the Company to believe of simplification and standardization. Standardization and Centralization are connected with mechanistic structure. The mix of the two structures is ideal for the company. When company wants to attract a huge independent market, on one hand it requires to be fluid and on the other hand to be more efficient in production. Coordination is easy for the company by using complex integrating mechanisms. Now that the information in the company is flowing very freely, the top level of management will get the information much faster due to the organization’s flexibility and responsiveness. Recently there was a change in the organization to make it more decentralized and organic which did not go well because of uncertainty.
Organizational goals: Coca-Cola is effective as well as efficient, as they have made it their aim to succeed in these areas. Coca-Cola is more fascinated with efficiency than effectiveness, but they still achieve in both. They aim to maximize profits for shareholders by selling Coca-Cola products worldwide to a wide range of customers. They are able to do this all by vertical hierarchical organization that allows them to take benefit from a low cost strategy, increasing revenues and limiting expenses.
LEADING:
Leading is defined as,
“A management function that involves working with and through people to accomplish organizational goals.”
Coca-Cola enjoys effective leadership by developing a clear vision, setting things according to it, having implementation and while doing so regularly communicate about goals. Coca-Cola vision is known as Vision 2020 which main focus is to avail new opportunities and be innovative. Such vision is developed by leaders who have not established a compelling vision but are also motivating employees to follow it. For execution part, Coca-Cola adopt three core capabilities:
➢ Consumer marketing: It involves marketing investments and relationships with sellers and bottling partners which are done to have a strong bond with customers.
➢ Commercial leadership: Under this leadership Coca-Cola show concern for need of their sellers/retailors (20 million) and solve their problems to expand its business.
➢ Franchise leadership: It deals with working with company bottling partners (300) to have a greater system alignment.
Leadership styles:
Democratic leadership style is the main style followed in Coca-Cola. Democratic is where all the managers and the employees contributes in the final decision making. With the exception of labor, all the levels are considered equal. Here, workers are asked to make decisions but they need to be very careful because they will be held accountable for any mistake. After the decisions are made, feedbacks are also highly encouraged in Coca-Cola Company which is then use in making strategies.
For some big purposes, consultative democratic style is adopted where although employees are asked for their opinions but the final decision is taken by the top manager. This is done to avoid conflicts.
Although autocratic style is not liked here but it is used at factory floor for controlling employees and to make them follow procedures.
Moreover laissez-faire style is also part of Coca-Cola culture where leader gives tasks to their subordinates but provide little or no guidelines to them. When managers found that employees are meeting business indicators then this style is adopted by managers to keep them relaxed.
This style allows employees to utilize his own creative ideas in completing a work which prevents boredom and inculcates a sense of refreshment in them.
Steps in leading:
In the Coca-Cola Company, this function comprises of the steps given below:
➢ Communication: The Coca-Cola Company lets its employees to interact with each other freely without any barriers among various departments. This further facilitates a free flow of information which means encouraging sharing of ideas among one another. Decisions are also taken with mutual discussions between top and middle level managers. Not only this, this process continues till the least hierarchical level.
Moreover, there is no rule that bounds an employee not to have a direct conversation with the general manager. Both formal and informal methods are used for interdepartmental communication.
Furthermore, Grapevine is used for getting employees’ feedback and their views about the manager. These strategies fall under democratic style.
➢ Corporate Culture: The top management of the Coca-Cola follows the given culture of the organization. Coca-Cola has formal and standard values and everyone in the organization are obliged to adopt them. The top level manager acts as a role model to make sure that the rules are applied in the company and a close check is kept regularly on their employee’s behavior. Leadership do so as common culture is necessary for future success.
➢ Motivation: Employee motivation is also highly encouraged in this very organization. Performance based promotion strategy is adopted which motivates employees towards hard work and devotion. They are praised verbally too by the managers on their accomplishments.
Not only promotion strategy is being used but campaigning and holding different types of motivational competitions among the employees of Coca-Cola Company also provokes the necessary self confidence in them. Another strategy that this organization uses is the compensation one which too is a very important tool in motivating their workers. Employees working in Coca-Cola Company are always helped whenever they come up with some serious problem irrespective of its type (personal/ professional). One more motivating factor used is the provision of a challenging environment. The more the environment is challenging, the more employees strives to get their goals which ultimately benefits the company (Coca-Cola).
CONTROLLING:
After planning, organizing, leading the last and foremost important step is of Controlling. Controlling is the part where the managers use their authoritative skills and make sure that all the functions are performed effectively in accordance with the organizational goals. This is also a very critical part as it is like an evaluation procedure for the organization that whether they have achieved their organization’s goals or not. If the work force has been successful in achieving all the goals than the firm will reward them with a prize. This also depends on the type of work and also the employee or worker. On the other hand if they fail in achieving and completing their goals they also face consequences according to that. As it is very evident for the management not just authorize all the activities but also use the power in a way that can increase the productivity of the work resulting in efficient and effective work force. Coca Cola leading the beverage world has achieved all this by putting immense efforts and have formulated a system which is premier for the firm and has played a vital role in firm’s excellence.
Sales Person Reporting System: This is a system developed by the firm to support the controlling system. In this procedure the sales person will have to report all the details of the activities or tasks he is supposed to perform to the market developer everyday. This report includes details about the per day sales. The market developer here plays the significant role of reinforcement for the employee supporting him to perform his duties.
Punch Card System
This is a system created for the purpose of attendance of the employees. The company makes its sure that the employees are performing the duties at the proper timings that are specified by the company. So this card ensures that the time of entry and exit of the employee is recorded properly without any deceit or errors.
Route Card
A route card is given to each employee which includes details about the outlets. The details are related to the visits to the outlets also the amount of time he has spent in the outlets working, the time taken during the travel from one outlet to the other outlet. It also includes the name of the sales person and also the loader. The details about the vehicle which is the entry and exit timing of the vehicle .
Forum
In addition to the punch card system and the route card, there is a forum. A forum is provided to fill up by the employees in which they record the in which they place the orders that are supposed to loaded in the truck the next day. This is very important as due to this forum the management can keep a check of things like the amount of products salesperson is selling which brand specifically and hat which size of the product is most popular in demand or sold by the salesperson. These records are very important and useful especially for the Human Resource(HR) sector of the company. In this way they can effectively evaluate the workers or employees performance and calculate their salary accordingly.
Sales Person evaluating system
Evaluation of the sales person is a very key stage as it is important to maintain and improve performance of the employees. In coca cola the evaluation of all the employees is done on the quarterly basis.
Monetary Rewards/ Promotion
This is a great opportunity for the employee to get recognized for the jobs or activities he has performed with hard work and efficiently doing his job. The company rewards such employees. These are the monetary rewards which prove to be a great source of encouragement for the employees. Sometimes his efforts won him an even bigger reward like Promotion. So he strives to get theses rewards and keeps them in mind. Now these monetary rewards are not only awarded to the salesperson but the best market developer and the best sales manager is also rewarded with these incentives from Coca Cola.
Performance Development Program
Performance development program is like main platform according to which the employees are evaluated. Certain targets are set by the firm and then evaluation process takes place where they calculate the achievements that the employees has been successful in obtaining following the specified targets. These targets are created and shared with all the employees in the start of the year to every sales manager, each quarter to market developer and on monthly basis to each salesperson. The performance however is evaluated on the basis of the number sales that an employees has been successful in and for this purpose the call completion, effective and productive call, route calls, call slips, attendance of the salesperson, punctuality of the sales, along with the growth in sales by the salesperson and market development are all taken in account .
ACHIEVEMENTS:
Awards
2014 – U.N. Women’s Empowerment Principles Leadership Award
2014 Award for Corporate Excellence (Secretary of State)
2014 Industry Champion of the Year Award (Sustainable Bio Award)
Rankings
America’s Most Respected Brands – #1
World’s 50 Most Admired Companies – #6
World’s Most Valuable Brands – #4
Best Global Brand – #3
Innovative companies – # 81
Lies in world’s top 10 private employers having more than 700,000 personnel (including bottling partners)
Daily average servings
1886—–9 people
Now———1.9 billion people
Suppliers 28% increase from 2006 to 2007
94% of population recognizes them
Consecutive annual dividend increase for 53 years
SUCCESS OF COCA-COLA: Coca-Cola Company is succeeding globally because of the following reasons:
Simplicity: They uses a simple language like “Enjoy” and “Happiness.” Despite of their tremendous expansion, they have never left their basic ideals.
Personalization: Despite of its status, the use of “Share a coke” strategy brings them very close to their customers. Every country customizes this new technique to its popular names.
Socialization: They makes the best use of social media to promote the “Share a coke” strategy.
RECOMMENDATIONS: Coke could invest more in diet programs, such as associate with schools and design healthy improved programs or invest more diet soft drinks, which will convert the obesity images of Coke and regain the younger market.
Another recommendation for the company is that while it competing with top brands in the world of non-alcoholic beverages it should invest more in providing incentives to the people. Though it is already a part of the firm; strategy but by increasing the incentive it can attract a larger traffic towards its brands.
The company which is already very famous for its marketing should now start an application where people can order the products according to their demand for their events like a birthday party or perhaps a school function at a subsidized rate for the customer so they can develop a direct relation with the bran. This will promote the PR and will contribute to the popularity of the brand.
REFERENCES:
➢ https://www.ukessays.com/essays/business/the-management-styles-at-coca-cola-business-essay.php
➢ https://www.coursehero.com/file/11658907/Final-Copy-Management-and-Leadership-at-coca-Cola/
➢ http://www.coca-colacompany.com/careers/who-we-are-infographic/
➢ http://www.academia.edu/7569416/PROJECT_REPORT_ON_COCACOLA_COMPANY_ SUBMITTED_BY_MUTHU_KUMARAN