The Coca-Cola Company: Products, Cultural Diversity And Ethics (Article Sample)

The Coca-Cola Company
Name
Institution
The Coca-Cola Company
What bridges the gap between the current situations and where the organization or company wants to be in the future is the process of planning and decision making. It is through this process that managers select the goals of the organization and determines the way in which these objectives are going to be achieved. Planning is the foundation for the future of the organization. Planning is, therefore, the thinking before doing for an organization. From time to time, management is given the responsibility of planning for the long term as well as the short-term goal of the company. It is through the planning that the organizations can foresee their future and the achievement of their objectives. Planning has two components, the goal or objective and the action plans to achieve the goals. The action plans are the strategies for the attainment of the goals. Planning also involves the evaluation of the past events about the organization and forecasting the future.
Decision-making, on the other hand, is the identification of the best alternative among the available options for the company. Decisions usually require a lot of evaluation and for the success of the organization, it is critical that the management considers the critical steps of decision making. In some way, decision making is part of planning. Often, organizations are faced with challenges that require decision making. The management is, therefore, is charged with the responsibility of identifying the various alternatives for the solution and choosing the best among them. For the management to provide the feasible solution, it had to weigh the advantages and the disadvantage of each of the alternatives and chose the one that offers more benefits than disadvantages.
Through the planning process, managers fit the alternatives and test them for their effectiveness in solving the organization challenges and achievement of the goals. We can, therefore, say that planning and decision making are interrelated. However, a decision can be made without planning, but planning cannot be done without making decisions. For such big companies as the Coca-Cola Company, then a process of planning and decision making is crucial to any single decision in the enterprise can have adverse effects on the growth of the company as well as the revenues (Johnson, 1988).
To understand better about decision making and planning, it is critical that we understand leadership and management. It is not magic that makes big companies such as the coca cola company succeed in achieving their objectives. Success in any organization is substantially determined by the management and the decision-making process. Leadership can be said to be the act of leading people into achieving a common goal. Leaders do this by influencing the actions of the employees in several ways. First, a leader sets the best example and sets a clear vision, motivating the employees and giving guidelines to the employees. In the Coca-Cola Company, the management is charged with the responsibility of performing the leadership roles that lead to the organization achieving its goals. To gain the recognition that the company has in the entire world, it takes a lot of professionalism in leadership and management. As said earlier, management and decision making are the key factors to the success of the organization. Usually, success in the organization involves the attainment of the goals of the company (Pendergrast, 1993). Stating a clear vision for the company means that the management must report the vision as well as influence the employees to understand the vision and work towards achieving it. Motivating the employees usually involves providing the best working environment and understanding their needs. Building the morale or the employees is also another task of the management which involves pulling everyone together to achieve the goals. We will, therefore, take the example of the Coca-Cola Company and examine its success basing on the management function of planning and decisions making.
History and Background
The Coca-Cola Company was started in the year 1886 by a retired civil war fighter is known as John Pemberton after the end of the War. After the war, he decided to try his luck in business and find something that would bring him economic success. In Pharmacy, he had tried his luck to invent drugs, but the results never proved successful. Losing hope in the medical field, he decided to venture and use his knowledge in beverages. In those times, soda had just started gaining popularity so coming up with a soda fountain made sense (Hays, 2004). However, after failed attempts to come up with a beverage, Coca-Cola was eventually made. However, John did not have any information or knowledge about marketing and advertising. This is where Robinson Frank took advantage and came in. The coca cola company was registered by the patent office and assigned the logo. The first slogan for the company, “The pose that refreshes” was assigned to the corporation by Frank Robinson (Pendergrast, 1993). In the first periods, the company did not do so well and to make matters even worse, the founder died in the year 1888 which meant that he would never see the financial success of his company.
After the death of Pemberton, Assa Griggs took over the company and became the sole owner of the enterprise. It was during the ownership of Assa that one of the most innovative marketing techniques was invented. He used salesmen to travel and give the soda for free. The aim was to make sure that the product was tested by everybody so that they would buy it later on. Apart from this tactic, he also decided to paint the log in shops, calendars; this was the first step to making the coca cola company a worldwide brand. One very controversial move was that the coca cola would be sold to sick patients as medicine. They claimed that the drink possessed remedial effects for headaches and fatigue. After some time, all medicines have levied the tax and Coca-Cola had no other option but to be sold as a beverage only. It was the high bottling system that has developed the coca cola company to what is currently is. In 1916, the bottling for the enterprise was changed as the straight sided bottle was easily imitated by other businesses and, therefore, consultations were made to give the company a distinct appearance of their bottles (Johnson, 1988). Therefore, the contour bottle was invented, and it was the first bottle to be granted the trademark status from the patent office of the United States. Currently, it is one of the most identifiable icons of the world.
It was between the 1920s and the 1930s that the Coca-Cola Company expanded and grew under the management of Robert Woodruff. The company started major marketing schemes which included bottling outside of the United States, and different plants were opened in various places some being Mexico, Italy, Spain, South Africa d Honduras. After the Second World War, more than 64 bottling plants were set up in the United States with Eisenhower’s base demanding more bottling equipment than any other. These plans were later converted to civilians’ use which further r increased the recognition and the growth of the company.
It was in the 1950s that consumers of Coca-Cola had a variety of sized to pick from; there was the original 6-ounce contour bottle and the larger 10-ounce bottle. Cans were also introduced in the 1950s. In the 1960s, more brands of Coca-Cola were introduced such as Fanta, sprite, minute maid and tab. Currently, hundreds of other brands of Coca-Cola are available in the beverage market around the entire world. As technology advanced in the 70s and 80s, Coca-Cola retailers grew to big chain distributors which therefore led to the bottlers becoming bigger and bigger. Economic and political changes later changed the market system, and small, underdeveloped markets were opened and expanded, after the Berlin Wall had fallen, the company took advantage and built many plants in Eastern Europe. Towards the end of the 20th century, more than 1.5 billion dollars were allocated to the company for expanding the bottling plant to Africa and other continents (Johnson, 1988). The Coca-Cola Company has grown so far, and the heritage of the company has continued to serve the company because people are always after using the brands that honor the identity of the local markets. The first relationships of the Coca-Cola Company with the communities and customers are the foundation that has given birth to the current Coca-Cola Company.
Coca-Cola Products
Apart from its namesake product, Coca-Cola beverage, the Coca-Cola Company currently offers more than 350 brands of soft drinks and beverages from more than 200 countries in the world. Some of the most recognized brands are tab. This was the first ever attempt by the Coca-Cola company to come up with a diet drink. The drink used saccharin as sugar. It was developed in the year 1963 and is still sold up to date. Although the market for the drink has reduced since the introduction of the diet coke and it is difficult to find in the current market. The company has produced several other drinks which have also gained recognition which include sprite and fantasy. Fanta was introduced during the Second World War due to the German cola syrup which diminished the market for Coca-Cola beverage. The manager at that time, Max Keith, decided to come up with a product that would strive well in the German market. At that time, Fanta was only sold to Germans (Pendergrast, 1993). The drink proved to be a hit, and when Coke took over after the war, Fanta was adopted from German. It was originally an orange flavored drink which had plastic bottles and cans. Currently, it has many different flavors such as grape, apple, pineapple, and strawberry. Sprite w...