Four perspectives of organization at Coca-Cola

Discuss about the Organizational Development for Coca-Cola Business Operations.

The theoretical perspective of organization primarily relies on four perspectives such as the classical, contemporary prospective, symbolic interpretive as well as postmodern perspectives (“Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated – AnnualReports.com”, 2018). The managerial department of Coca-Cola primarily concentrates on the implementation of such contemporary as well as post-contemporary perceptions in order to sustain the association with the business environment (Sharp, 2016). Embracing such modern standpoints has further facilitated managers at the Coca-Cola Company to pay attention on the certainty of the market scenario based on concepts and other theoretical perspectives. Moreover, the company has experienced several external challenges because of absence of suitable implementation of organizational perspectives (“Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated – AnnualReports.com”, 2018). It is important to note that Coca-Cola in the US has faced declined market share due to lack of proper modernism by the organization in order to offer healthy beverages for the health conscious target base (Brown, 2016). Furthermore, the post modernist theorists have condemned the company for its incompetence of implementing its environmental sustainable performances. As a result, Coca-Cola can facilitate through the effective execution of modern and post modern standpoints in order to improve its operations as well as level of efficiency (Waldman  & Balven, 2014). Coca-Cola has executed both mechanical as well as organic framework of the organizational development and sustainability and thus uses both contemporary and post contemporary standpoints in the organizational administration (“Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated – AnnualReports.com”, 2018). Coca-Cola previously focused on the theory of X and Y of Mc Gregor in order to develop motivational and innovative techniques for the workforce (West, Ford & Ibrahim, 2015). Following this, the company exercised post modernist standpoint by sustaining decentralized organizational formation comprising of two key operating segments primarily the bottling investments and the corporate community, which were further segregated on the basis of geographical location, thereby guaranteeing enduring supervision and improved labour generation within the company (Hair Jr et al., 2015). Coca-Cola has gained recognition for possessing a multicultural workforce of over 50,000 to uphold the multiplicity within the work culture and to produce enhanced employment opportunity (Yang,  Lu & Chang, 2013). This act of the company reveals its implementation of post modernism standpoint. However, several concerns faced by the company were relied on the varied prices of raw materials in international market scenarios. Further depending on the environmental demands and supply chain, the cost of unprocessed or raw products and supplier rises (Karnani, 2014). As a result, the production expense and cost of bottle manufacturing further increased thereby, causing transference of the organizational structure of the company has facilitated the firm to focus on strategies related to pricing, marketing as well as branding separately for the discrete geographical areas (Barkay, 2013). Thus, the decentralizing the company’s executive structure and initiation of the accountability of discrete regions on the location head that has further facilitated the firm to recognize its unique target base for instance the launch of diet coke for the US customer base (Ling, 2017). The flexibility, constancy and increased rate of consistency are regarded as the mechanistic characteristics of the firm and on the company and on the contrary, the high rate of awareness, productivity and effective communication channels are regarded as the key characteristics of the organic framework of the company. Furthermore, Coca-Cola implements the modernistic X and Y theory of enthusiasm to evaluate the efficiency levels of the workforce and consequently create the motivational procedures (Hastings & Domegan, 2013). The whole operation procedure of the company is divided primarily into production, sales and human resource divisions. Hence, the workforce belonging to these segments are thus required to execute similar operations for the company’s existence (Ling, 2017). The employee related to the manufacturing segment are thus required to engage in bottle manufacturing procedures and further the employees belonging to the production segment are thus responsible for bottle packaging (Lindsay et al., 2013). Such activities are referred as some of the monotonous operations that the workforce was involved in, which further revealed the implementation of theory X in the supervision process of these segments that has further facilitated the company to offer effective supervision to the growth and evaluation of the work process (Barkay, 2013).  Thus, the company effectively used the modernist perspective in its organization structure at the initial stage along with the alterations in the customer’s demands as well as preferences to enhance the efficiency Coca-Cola shifted to post-modernist theory (Ling, 2017).

Contemporary and post-contemporary perceptions in Coca-Cola’s management

The company possess several remote external factors that influence the company. Coca-Cola is influenced by political, economical, social, technological, legal, and  environmental factors.

Political Factors- As the company supplies products that are due to the Food and Drug Administration. As a result, the company must adhere to all governmental rules and regulations in order to provide the stores with their products (Hassan, Amos & Abubakar, 2014). However, several legal authorities that leads to obligation, which might result in preventing Coca-Cola from product distribution. 

Economic Factors- Coca-Cola has its worldwide supply chain catering varied cultures, traditions, food preferences (Hair Jr et al., 2015). It possess over $85billion worth of justice. It is important to note that over 68% of the enterprises’ revenue is derived from outside of the US (Baah & Bohaker, 2015).

Social Factors-The Company has its major product distribution in urbanized regions whereby they can cater customer demands. Coca-Cola has been involved in introducing over 30 new alternative flavours in Japan in order to drag the local customer base of that region (Waldman  & Balven, 2014). Furthermore, they have made similar efforts in China (Salar & Salar, 2014). On the contrary, since US has been emerging towards healthy beverages, Coca-Cola has thus introduced Coke Zero to attract its mass consumer base.

Technological Factors- Coca-Cola in order to compete in this emerging market requires exceptional machineries that would facilitate in manufacturing improved quality products in increased qualities (Ayub et al., 2013). The company has been using social media for endorsing its products that would facilitate in encouraged sales.

Legal Factors-The Company holds all authorization of their business that involves all previous and upcoming products that are developed with copyright permissions.

Environmental Factors- Issues related to water accessibility is posed as the biggest environmental concern, as the company’s primarily deals with beverage products water accessibility may lead to immense loss for the company( Donkor, 2016).

Coca-Cola despite of considering its external factors must focus on its internal factors as well. Further assessing its internal factors will facilitate the company to identify its strengths and weaknesses.  A SWOT analysis further permits the company to create a strategically approach that is beneficial to the firm in order to address their concerns and issues of increasing its revenue by the year 2020 along with global expansion.   

Strengths ·         Well established marketing strategies ·         Brand Equity	Weakness ·         Unable to drag the health conscious customer base ·         Negative publicity
Opportunities ·         Low calorie beverage ·         Emerging health trend ·         International emerging markets (Salar & Salar, 2014)	Threats ·         Intense competition ·         Shifting customer preferences (Hair Jr et al., 2015)

The company has numerous strengths however, its major strength lies on its well-established strategies and approaches. Coca-Cola has several campaigns that attract its consumers. It primarily targets its campaign to individual of all age groups and backgrounds (Waldman  & Balven, 2014). The organization’s campaigns are mainly diverse in nature and intend to reach out to diverse range of individuals across the world on contrary to its rivalries such as Pepsi, which is not much into global marketing (Salar & Salar, 2014). Brand equity is another factor that possesses well-established recognition in several nations across the world. Among the few leading soft beverages brands, the enterprise is popular for produces and sells four of them such as Coca-Cola, Sprite, Pepsi and Diet Coke (Lindsay et al., 2013) .

External challenges faced by Coca-Cola

A primary weakness that the company is facing at this moment is its lack of soft drinks that accomplish the need of health conscious customers. A few decades ago, the company intended marketing into healthy beverages (Lindsay et al., 2013). The company in association with Coca-Cola enterprise has introduced the Dasani brand of bottled drinking water in the UK (Ayub et al., 2013). As the company has most of its products owing to the introduction of increased level of bromated in the product that could further cause effects including cancerous disease.  This further resulted in recall expenses of $40 million for the enterprises in the year (Donkor, 2016).

Enterprises in the beverage industry possess the opportunity in order to take advantages of developing markets. Consumptions of soft drinks has been growing rapidly particularly in Asian nations like China (Hair Jr et al., 2015). Several reports have revealed that countries where the average per-capita consumption has remained below 60 servings per day. India and China are nations, which belong to this category (Odukah,2016). These markets furthermore offer extensive developmental opportunities for the industry. The company has the opportunity to raise its market capitalization by maintaining sustainable product existence within these emerging markets. 

Despite of sharing a major market value, Coca-Cola still experiences certain threats from its competitors namely PepsiCo. Pepsi being enormously growing possess massive product diversification (Lindsay et al., 2013). The company along with offering nibbles permits them to achieve a vast range of consumer following. Thus, the health trend can be viewed as a threat for the carbonated beverage industry as a whole.

Thus, from the SWOT analysis of Coca-Cola it can be evaluated that the company possess greater strengths than weaknesses and its level of opportunities are greater than threats.

Coca-Cola Company in Nigeria has implemented the strategy of marketing mix ‘4 Ps’ (promotion, product, price and place) in order to launch their products at global market.

• Promotion tactics- This strategy evaluates the overall effort of the organization to obtain increased revenue in the short. Various competitive programmes in Nigeria have been organized by the company in regards of marketing and promotion during festivities to gather the target base (Hair Jr et al., 2015). However, Coca Cola enterprise is growing successively due to the standardization of their products.
• Product approach- The global marketers have effectively comprehended the fundamental demands of the Nigerians in regards to their preference on beverages. It must be further noted that a majority section of the Nigerians have chosen their bride price on their marriage rites specifically the EGGON EXTRATE in Nasarawa state (Karnani, 2014).
• Pricing Strategies- Cost is regarded as a determinant of the approaches of demand and supply through resource distribution among the customers as well as the producers in the market. For instance, in Nigerian countries coca-cola has been referred as ‘price penetration’ whereby price is established in order to cover a wide range of market with a limited period (Lindsay et al., 2013).
• Place Tactics- This strategy incorporates the selection of distribution channels, transportation arrangement. The company has struggled to reach out to every region of Nigeria thereby has established over ten manufacturing plants, sixty depots along with almost five hundred thousand dealer across the nation (Greene, 2014).

Coca-Cola Company has recently announced a new streamlined global structure in order to improve the operational unit configuration in opposition to its bottling footprint and to endorse and develop chief leaders of the company. The organization has formed a Europe, Middle East and Africa Group that comprises of corporate sectors that has been covering up the Europe, Eurasia as well as Africa Segments (Waldman  & Balven, 2014). In the European region the business sectors will be amalgamated into an upcoming business sector that is Central and Eastern Europe to aid the bottling approval within that region. Furthermore, in Africa, two more business sectors have reconfigured in an integrated align operational procedure with bottling operations on the continent.

Coca-Cola’s implementation of modern and postmodern standpoints

In 2014, the company has been noted for aiding in induction as a response to lower anticipated employee satisfaction survey outcomes and the dominance of a directive management technique. Furthermore, in order to initiate a well established induction culture, Coca-Cola introduced in external coach practitioners along with coach instructors to achieve the standardization level of ICF for accreditation and endorsement. The company in order to ascertain the enduring sustainability of induction culture has further prioritized the growth of an improved trained internal coaching cadre (ICC) (Waldman  & Balven, 2014). Coca-Cola’s ICCs complete over 70 hours of ICF Approved Coach Specific Training through a program that offers detailed coverage of the ICF code of conduct and ethics. Trainees are hence required to have a completion of 20 hours of documented induction to become recognized ICCs (Waldman  & Balven, 2014). According to several reports, over 4000 employees belonging to managerial positions have graduated from this program (Salar & Salar, 2014). It is significant to note that the advantages of adopting such an induction culture within the organization have been experienced  whereby over 90 percent of individuals who have been associated with ICC have been reportedly expressed high satisfaction level with the process and consequences of coaching (Ayub et al., 2013). On the other hand, managers with effective coaching expertise with respective teams have reported enhanced level of loyalty and trust along with increased interpersonal associations within teams, high level of innovation and improved employee engagement. Coca-Cola’s market share index further reveals whether employees are aware and practice organizational ideologies and principles which has been elevating over past decades and is currently at rate of 85-90% (Lindsay et al., 2013).  Since 2014, the level of employee sustainability and engagement throughout the enterprise has faced an increase of 25%.

References

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