History of The Coca Cola Company

The Coca Cola Firm is the biggest beverage company in the world, with a presence in more than 200 nations. Since its founding in 1886, the business has expanded to become one of the biggest and most prosperous in the world (Hays, 2005). From nine servings per day on average, the corporation now serves 1.9 billion people worldwide. Along with investing in local communities in the nations where it has a presence, Coca-Cola has played a significant role in fostering market innovation (Hays, 2005). Due to the company's dedication to brand principles, success has been achieved. The company's leadership has also changed in order to boost its effectiveness, efficiency, and most crucially,productivity and most importantly speed.

Background of the Company

The company’s portfolio has over 20 billion-dollar brands (Hays, 2005). It offers a range of products mainly in the non-alcoholic beverage industry. Some of the products provided by the company include the very popular Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Fanta, and Dasani among others. It offers a range of goods from the healthier choice of beverages, mineral water, and carbonated soft drinks. Further, the company is the largest provider of still and sparkling beverages. The company has over 500 brands distributed to its consumers worldwide (Hays, 2005). The coca cola company is committed to satisfying the needs of a broad range of its customers who have different needs and preferences. It does not target a particular market for its products but rather adapts to the various needs of its consumers through the development of new products. Its target audience is the youth between the ages of 12 and 30; especially the Coke brand is meant for people in this age group. However, for the company, they consider each consumer to be their target market and thus they have come with various products for each age group (Hays, 2005).

Similar to other traditional beverage companies, the Coca Cola Company is facing strategic problems that have a high potential of shaping the industry in the future (Tallant, 2010). These factors include the various government policies that are currently being adopted. The government is advocating for a reduction in the consumption of sugary drinks, continued increase in recognition in the struggle against obesity and the existence of social movements, which are against the packaging methods used by the company and its counterparts in the industry (Chalamish, 2017). Further, economic slowdowns are being experienced in the emerging markets that the firm has ventured into (Chalamish, 2017).

Therefore, the company needs a strong leadership that will manage to navigate the problems and to enhances the delivery of effective strategies that will ensure the continued success of the organization. In the year 2017, the company changed the existing CEO Kent Muhtar who had served the company for over three decades (Chalamish, 2017). Kent was the face of Coca Cola for over a decade and provided the company with exceptional leadership skills during his time. However, the business environment in which the company operates in is changing rapidly, thus creating a need for new leadership strategies to be adapted (Chalamish, 2017). The company has therefore chosen to change its management as a strategy that will allow the business to deal with the issues presented by its environment.

Kent took over the leadership of the company in the year 2008 during the recession that affected many corporations globally (Tallant, 2010). The company is a large employer and may be affected by the new US government leadership. Further, the company’s new strategy involves a focus on product innovation and the adoption of new marketing channels. The company will continue selling its products using its traditional channels, which have proven to be very successful. However, the company will need a leadership that will ensure they adapt the changing business environment. The new management may, however, fail in ensuring the success of the company since it will require new strategies for it to be successful.

Background of the Issues/Problems facing the Company

Leadership is a key factor in the success of any organization as it steers the entity towards the achievement of goals and objectives (Avolio, & Yammarino, 2013). The Coca Cola Company has been able to survive the major crisis in the world economy since its establishment. The company has managed to remain successful through change management process. The company has managed to adopt the strategies for change management which are empirical rationale, the normative reduction, power coercion and environmental adaptation (Avolio, & Yammarino, 2013).

The firm has a management style that allows it to ensure the motivation of the employees is maintained (Waldman, & Balven, 2014). The administration of the company ensures that the employees are given a chance to be innovative and creative in their areas of operation. It allows the employees to feel a part of the organization and thus ensure they improve their fecundity for the benefit of the firm (Waldman, & Balven, 2014).

Leadership and selection of leaders is an important part of any organization (Avolio, & Yammarino, 2013). The progress of an institution relies heavily on the effectiveness of a leader in gearing the other members into achieving the goals and objectives of the organization. Not everyone can become a leader and not every leadership style can be applied in every situation. Leadership is the social influence a person exerts on others so that they listen to him and follow his advice. A leader must be able to access a situation and decide what is best to be applied in the case. A manager is not a leader, and the position that a manager is given based on his qualifications do not make him or her a leader.

The causes of the difficulties are the dynamic business environment, which will pose challenges to the new leadership in the organization. The internal circumstances of a company are easy to control in comparison to the external environment (Hannah, Sumath, & Lester, 2014). It is because the internal environment is composed of factors that are within the control of the organization. This ideology makes it easy for the leadership to come up with the various strategies that will help in mitigating the challenges being experienced by the firm.The external environment, on the other hand, is composed of factors that are beyond the control of the business (Hannah, Sumath, & Lester, 2014). For instance, the government policies are things that are beyond the supervision of the Coca-Cola Company, and they can only adopt strategies that will ensure they comply with the regulations and at the same time ensure they remain successful.

The leadership of the Coca-Cola Company has played a great role in the direction challenges. The company has managed to have leaders with great leadership styles who steer the success of the enterprise. The CEO of the company has for instance been of great help by coming up with strategies that ensure the ultimate success of the business. The changing business environment will, however, require more sophisticated strategies that will ensure the organization remains successful. The new CEO will be faced with several challenges and will need to have excellent leadership skills that will ensure the organization remains successful. He must have the ability to access situations and come up with strategies that will fit the conditions. Just like Kent who took over the company in a time of economic crisis and managed to ensure it remains successful, Quincy should have the ability to deal with the changing environment and ensure Coca-Cola remains a renowned brand.

Leadership theories are critical in the development of successful management and maintenance of smooth leadership qualities (Foti & Coyle, 2017). The Coca-Cola Company has managed to gain considerable success through the various leadership theories it applies. The organization considers the principles as factors that foster leadership qualities among the employees (Gehani, 2016). The company applies the behavioral theory, which suggests that leaders are not always born, but they can be created (Schyns & Riggio, 2016). The company, therefore, capitalizes on the fact that qualities of leadership can be mastered over time. They believe that the qualities are not just native characters but successful behaviors of actions that can be described and explained. The actions are therefore easy to be mastered compared to the adoption of different random traits. During Kent’s leadership, he ensured that the employees were persuaded and given chances of learning and developing various leadership skills (Gehani, 2016). He made sure that systems were in place to monitor the improvement of the skills in individual employees and ensured that those who possessed the skills were selected for leadership positions.

The trait theory alludes that a successful leadership is an incorporation of features that define leadership skills and qualities (Schyns & Riggio, 2016). The company assessed its employees based on their psychological traits and focused on the unique capabilities. Kent managed to evaluate the employees based on their behavior and work structure (Gehani, 2016). The employees who can be considered as assertive, energetic, tolerant, decisive, persuasive, organized, diplomatic among others as successful goal oriented leaders and thus the company focuses on retaining them (Schyns & Riggio, 2016).

Further, the company applies the participative leadership which concentrates on the development of understanding to decision-making in various situations (Schyns & Riggio, 2016). It states that people need to be more collaborative and less competitive in a team situation and decisions made by a group are better than those made by individuals (Schyns & Riggio, 2016). The company, therefore, focuses on team development for more focused and cooperative decision making. The leaders of different teams are selected based on their qualities, activities, and programs arranged to foster the participation of all employees and the development of leadership skills (Foti & Coyle, 2017). The theories applied by the company have allowed it to remain successful as its employees remain motivated at all times (Foti & Coyle, 2017). Also, it permits the development of its employees and their retention, which increases the productivity of the company, and consequently the great success the company has achieved.

The leadership of the Coca Cola Company has been very satisfactory and efficient in steering the development and growth of the organization (Gehani, 2016). The dynamic business environment presents leaders with new challenges and opportunities. The leadership in the organization has managed to achieve organizational effectiveness, and thus it has gained insight into the development of a democratic and decentralized management style in the decision-making processes of the organization (Gehani, 2016). Leadership ensures that employees remained motivated and informed at all times, allowing for employees to gain operational speed and thus removing organizational barriers. It has so far managed to create a conducive and friendly work environment that has contributed to the overall success of the organization.

The problems facing the company are based on the changing business environment and the introduction of a new leader. These include the evolution of policies affecting the industry, pressure from customers as they become more conscious about their health, competition from other beverages firms and demand for green manufacturing (Suliman, Al-Khatib, & Thomas, 2016). The new management must have the ability to make decisions that will ensure the success of the company despite the new challenges.

Leaders exist to be involved in problem-solving in their areas of operation (Nahavandi, 2016). Therefore, the goal of a leader is to minimize the occurrence of challenges and thus require courage and knowledge on how to tackle each problem. They need to be resilient for creating and sustaining momentum for the entities (Nahavandi, 2016). However, the work environment presents leaders with new challenges that affect their effectiveness in dealing with the problems that exist. Further, the competitors create problems through their strategies to conquer the market (Nahavandi, 2016). Therefore, leaders must be great problem-solvers for the success of an entity.

Leadership will assist in resolving the difficulties through the adoption of strategies that will help in making the organization successful (Nahavandi, 2016). Therefore, the firm will rely on the ability of the new CEO to evaluate problems, determine their impact and make decisions that will reduce the impact. The CEO must have the capacity to come up with effective strategies that will ensure the success of the organization. Further, the leadership must have the ability to accomplish the change management process and influence the employees into accepting and supporting the developments. Various changes must be implemented for the Coca Cola Company to manage to resolve the difficulties that it is experiencing and those that are anticipated to occur in the future. The company must be at par with the changing business environment. It fosters the need for the change management process and needs for the adoption of new strategies that will support the resolution of the difficulties.

Leadership Role

As a leader in the coca cola company, the famous role is that of leadership not managing. At the helm, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Coca Cola Company, the priority is to offer proper leadership in the company instead of taking a seat and riding through the global economic storm. The role of the CEO insists on the person asking action needs to be taken in the company and the reason for making the decision (Lathan, 2014). In this stage, as a leader, the duty requires the understanding and identification of the needs of the enterprise based on the current issues facing the company.

Plans and Recommendation as a Leader

As a leader, first is to identify the factors dragging the company which should be discarded without consideration due to their unproductivity at this stage of the enterprise(Nahavandi, 2016). Additionally, the second step will include investing fully in the brand of the company which at this point includes the products and the employees who are part of the enterprise. As discussed earlier, one of the strategies applied includes identification of the employees with outstanding traits able to grow the company and to retain and in the process mentoring them. As a leader in a multinational corporation of the magnitude as that of Coca Cola Company, it is prudent to understand the general market issues that have a direct impact on the company (Lathan, 2014). It includes the energy situation, the New Equilibrium in the market and the rapidly growing middle class.

As a leader in the helm of this organization, the energy situation is of much significance since it will have a direct bearing on the overhead costs of the company. According to current market studies and predictions by analysts and experts in the energy sector, there is an anticipated visible rise in the demand for oil with a substantial increase in the prices of the commodity (Nahavandi, 2016). As a leader, these are issues affecting the company which cannot be avoided as it is an industry full matter. However, as a measure to curb this rise, the best move will involve the investment by the company in other alternative energy sources as this will enable the company focus on a much environmentally friendly energy production in the process cutting on the overhead costs(Nahavandi, 2016).

Another subject that is of concern to a leader is the New Equilibrium which is a secondary result of the gush in the production biofuels such as ethanol in line with the unreliable weather (Gehani, 2016). It has led to some of the food shortages and rising prices across the world which affects the prices of our commodities. As a leader in the company, it is primary to understand with ever increasing population; the economy dictates there is always a demand and a scarcity of goods and an additional cost pressure (Gehani, 2016).

According to new statistics provided, it is estimated that close to a billion of the world’s population will join the middle class come the year 2020. With this data available, as a leader in Coca Cola Company, it is of importance to note the middle class as the next target for the products of the company (Gehani, 2016). With the growing middle class, this will signify a significant demand for better living conditions and occasionally a quality beverage drink. Therefore, as a leader innovations and the introduction of new products should cater for the desire of all including the middle class since they are the prospective target for the new brands (Gehani, 2016).

Conclusion

In summarizing, to ensure the continued success of the organization and manage to face and conquer the difficulties experienced by the firm, the new leader should focus on different aspects. Firstly, the new CEO should ensure that transparent communication is fostered within the organization. In times of a crisis, the best method to overcome the difficulties being experienced is through open communication (Lathan, 2014). The concerns and opinions of all the stakeholders should be considered. The leaders must encourage everyone to raise their concerns and ideas which will assist in the decision-making process. Communication will, therefore, help the new CEO in ensuring the success of the organization despite the many challenges that are being experienced (Lathan, 2014). Secondly, the leaders should encourage teamwork and facilitate good relations among all the employees (Lathan, 2014). It involves breaking down silos and enabling an organization that lacks boundary. It will lead to the culture that fosters the inclusion of all the employees in the firm. The CEO should ensure the existence of entrepreneurial spirit where the employees can easily navigate and collaborate to connect the decision-making processes.

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