Coca-Cola Company Global strategic management

Global corporations traverse the international market by focusing on the quick expansion that results from a company's capability, resources, and current industry position (Frynas, 2015). Companies rely on global strategies, which include international, multinational, and global plans. According to the international approach, the firm has a consumer base outside of its own country. As a result, the firm requires distinct tactics for each region, as client demand and competition may change significantly among countries (Frynas, 2015).

The global approach, on the other hand, demonstrates that the company sees the globe as a single enormous market with a single supplier and little local variability among the many regions. Therefore, the competitive advantage develops from the global perspective (Hill, 2013). The international strategy, however, observes that the firm’s goals and objectives relate directly to the home market. Values such as a consistent brand, borderless marketing, co-creating with consumer, internal hubs and the adoption of a global village structure help to shape and reflect corporate values. Therefore, a slight alteration of the existing strategies requires a change in the corporate values (Frynas, 2015).

The Coca-Cola Company is a multi-national company that is guided by values, mission, and a vision. The company’s mission is to refresh the world, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness as well as to create value and make a difference (Hill, 2013). The corporation strives to provide a great platform where members of staff get inspired to be the best versions of themselves, as well as bring to the world a portfolio of quality beverage brands that aim to meet the target audience’s needs and desires. The firm further aims to nurture a winning network of consumers and suppliers to create mutual and enduring values, to be a highly effective and fast-growing company as well as maximize the long-term returns to shareholders while implementing the firm’s responsibilities (Frynas, 2015).

The Coca-Cola Company operates under the values of leadership, collaboration, integrity, accountability, passion, diversity, and quality to determine the firm’s expected behavior. The corporation encourages its members of staff to focus on the customer’s needs, be curious, act with urgency, maintain a positive attitude to change as well as have the unwavering courage to change course when the need arises. The firm further urges its employees to be accountable for all their actions, learn from the previous outcomes as well as find ways to reward employees for taking risks and finding new ways to solve problems (VOTE, 2014).

Over the years, Coca-Cola has been making adverts with the “open happiness” slogan, but lately, the company is pursuing a new campaign “taste the feeling” since the previous adverts had failed to emphasize on simple issues like enjoying an ice-cold Coke on a hot day (VOTE, 2014). The new slogan will ensure its products remain in the limelight and thus a competitive advantage over the other soda products. The major strategic shift will promote a one-brand campaign that will unite the various varieties of the soft drink in a single campaign instead of conducting different events. The “taste the feeling” will emphasize on the fact that drinking any Coca-Cola product is a simple pleasure that makes each day’s moments special.

“The taste the feeling” slogan will also feature a universal storytelling with Coca-Cola products at the heart of the conversation to portray both the emotional and functional aspects of Coca-Cola. The management will also work on reminding people why they love the product as much as they love the brand. The major strategic shift will impact Coca-Cola’s Human Resource strategy in a positive manner. For instance, since the firm’s main focus is the building of a well-motivated workforce, the new approach will focus more on planning, defining the job description of each employee, training as well defining methods to conduct interviews and hire professionals.

So far the “taste the feeling” strategy has enabled the firm to adopt a simplified model of itself by coming up with products that the customers can emotionally identify with. The company has put in the effort to reshape the business structure by identifying areas where the firm has the ability to grow faster, smarter and more efficient. The company further got rid of the functional management and instead linked the regional outlets directly to the headquarters. They also got rid of obstacles that had earlier inhibited the growth and responsiveness of the company.

The company is also focusing more on better ways to enhance the employee experience across the corporation’s outlets with the aim to create the world’s most exciting, productive, fulfilling and fun working environment (Grobler, 2016). As a result, the workplace encourages innovation, growth, curiosity and promotes learning. The firm will also become more efficient in its marketing strategy since it aims to convey emotions in its subsequent adverts. However, it will also aim to increase productivity while reducing the production and marketing costs so that it does not make losses in the pursuit of enticing the consumers (Shetty, 2016).

The corporation will adopt the appraisal of training and motivation human resource strategies to ensure that its products reach the target population from a well-trained and motivated staff. The appraisal of training will incorporate the purpose of training, the competitive environment, the expertise required as well as the monitoring and evaluation of the achievement of the set goals (Grobler, 2016). The Coca-Cola Company’s goal is to reach out to every consumer in a special way that connects to their emotions. As a result, the firm will train its employees to meet the emotional needs of the clients. The corporation will further evaluate the competitive environment to evaluate what the rivals are doing differently to attract and retain customers so that it can improve its performance (Shetty, 2016).

The company will also consider implementing the motivational aspect of the human resource strategy (Grobler, 2016). The company will encourage the motivation of employees by rewarding the well-performing employees, offering financial security such as long-term contracts, instilling a sense of equality among employees of all cadres as well as occasionally conducting team-building activities. The motivational human resource strategy enhances the various abilities of individual employees thus resulting in a large pool of human resources. As a result, assigning tasks at work becomes easy (Shetty, 2016).

The strategy further encourages employees to work hard and smart within the corporation since they all have a certain prize to attain at the end of the year or month. It will further increase employee loyalty to the firm as well as makes it easy to track individual performance over a period of time (Shetty, 2016). The team-building activities will help to relieve the tension at work by providing a platform for them to know each other ‘outside the office’. As a result, they are able to identify with each other’s character, personality, strengths, and weaknesses, making it easier for them to work together towards a common goal (Shetty, 2016).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Coca-Cola Company is a global company that abides by the existing global strategies. However, in the recent past, the company has been experiencing the need for connecting with their consumers in an emotional way thus the shift from “open happiness” to “taste the feeling”. The latter slogan was adopted with the aim to portray coca cola products as the center of every day’s special moments that are worth remembering.

References

Frynas, J. G., & Mellahi, K. (2015). Global strategic management. Oxford University Press, USA.

Gehani, R. R. (2016). Corporate Brand Value Shifting from Identity to Innovation Capability: from Coca-Cola to Apple. Journal of technology management & innovation, 11(3), 11-20.

Grobler, P. A., & Warnich, S. (2016). Human resource development (HRD) practices in local vs foreign companies in South Africa: is there a difference?. Journal of Contemporary Management, 13(1), 702-724.

Hill, C. W., & Jones, G. R. (2013). Strategic management theory. South-Western/Cengage Learning.

Shetty, S. S. (2016). HR Strategies of Multi-National Companies (MNCs) in India (Top 5 Companies).

VOTE, F. P. (2014, April). The Coca-Cola Company. In The Annual Meeting of Shareowners of the Company was held on Wednesday.