Supplemental Assignment #2
The business-level strategy of the Coca-Cola Company
The organization has been evolving its business strategy to be a beverage company. It has attained its business-level strategy through producing more drinks that suit the customers’ needs, tastes and prefernces.For instance, they have manufactured drinks with low or no level of sugar content to consumers who don’t like sugar content. By manufacturing drinks that satisfy their customers, they have been able to attract more customers thus maintaining customers’ loyalty in different market segments. Other products, such as Dasani drinking water, have also been packed and sold in different market locations.
The organization has focused more on what its customers want to buy rather than what it wants to sell to its consumers. Focusing on customers as a business strategy has enabled the organization to stay relevant and practical because they only manufacture what its customers want (Ling, 2017). Producing products that meet the consumers’ needs has also been one of the company’s missions realized through their business-level strategy that intends to steer the organization towards greater heights. As compared to other different companies such as Pepsi, the organization has attained its anticipated mission successfully.
Apart from evolving tastes that meet its consumers’ needs, the organization has always responded to its customers’ demands. It has multifaceted strategies that have enabled it to meet changing needs and tastes that include reducing sugar content and calories in different brands it manufactures.It has also manufactured new drinks with significant health benefits, such as boosting the consumers’ nutrition and hydration. Its mode of convenient packaging has enabled its consumers to control sugar with less difficulties. To show that the organization is concerned with the consumers’ wellbeing and nutrition, it has provided an essential piece of information regarding calories to help them make informed decisions regarding what they should take without guessing.
An approach of putting its consumers first has enabled the organization to rethink some of the suitable and healthy recipes that would allow it to reduce sugar content as it intends to make zero-calorie sweeteners. It aims to provide low and no-sugar drinks without giving up the great tastes their customers have always known and loved. The organization has also supported recommendations of different leading health authorities such as the World Health Organization that have advised people to limit added sugar intake to below 10% of the daily calories being consumed(Jones & Comfort, 2018). The organization has been one of the beverage companies that have heeded to the recommendations regarding people’s health by ensuring it produces beverages suitable for the consumers’ health, more visible beverages, and easier to find in different parts of the world. Additionally, it has brought other products that include coconut water, juices, purified water, and organic tea that have been consumed by its consumers in different geographical locations.
Its business-level strategy has been enhanced by building portfolio awareness. The organization has invested its marketing dollars in building awareness of the importance of beverages with a low sugar content level. For instance, it launched a marketing strategy in 2016 known as ‘One Brand’ that united all its four trademarks such as coke zero,coca-cola life, Coca-Cola light, and diet coke, in the taste that was known as ‘Taste the Feeling.’ Its creative campaign managed to underscore its dedication to providing Coca-Cola that suited consumers’ preferences and lifestyles.
The organization has also ensured that it is receiving feedback from its consumers. It is listening and working extra hard to make sure that its consumers are firmly at the center of its business to enable it to grow as a leading and responsible organization. Its business-level strategy has been geared towards making sure that it embraces its clients, brands, and system to trigger their growth.
The corporate level strategy of the Coca-Cola Company
The organization’s corporate scope is limited to beverages, contrary to PepsiCo, which is its competitor. While PepsiCo produces soft drinks and snacks, Coca-Cola has always produced energy drinks, carbonated soft drinks, water, and juices, among other products. At the corporate level, the organization strategy has revolved around two major axes. The first significant axes at the corporate level are vertical integration, where the organization can acquire bottling companies (Mazzei & Noble, 2017). The second significant axes under the corporate strategy are the horizontal diversification of its various beverages range by creating new products. These two significant axes at the corporate level have enabled the organization to establish an emergent strategy that has helped it follow changes in the company’s market segment and conditions.
One of the axes implemented by the organization has been the vertical integration that has enabled it to buy some of the independent bottling companies that were initially managed as franchises. The organization has turned them into Coca-Cola enterprises, which has enabled the organization to buy more bottling companies in different countries. For instance, in 2010, it managed to purchase additional interests of its enterprises, hence obtaining more than 90% of North America’s market availability. Initially, it limited its activities to the manufacturing of concentrates and only market its final beverages; however, due to an increase in the product line and high cost it encountered while operating independent bottlers, it decided to initiate forwarding integration.The main reason for adopting forward integration was to enable it to reduce costs, control its distribution processes, and control its production.
Furthermore, the organization also initiated a related diversification approach via an acquisitive mode that would enable it to expand various brands it provided by adding juices and bottled water to the already existing product portfolio. Making these adjustments would allow the organization to respond to changing consumers’ tastes. The change expected was to be from concentrated carbonated soft drinks to a more fragmented product. The changes made by the organization made it adapt to a new distribution system that made it to shift from direct store delivery where bottlers delivered to stores directly to a centralized distribution channel or system characterized by the use of warehouses.
The business level strategy and corporate level strategy are working effectively for the organization, and no adjustments need to be made. For example, the business level strategy has enabled the organization to correspond to an outside aspect or perspective, where the organization has managed to expand its product portfolio. Through this strategy, it has successfully been able to attract large market segments and opportunities. The demand for healthier beverages such as drinks with low or no sugar content has made it manufacture energy drinks that its consumers have enjoyed in different market segments (Torkornoo & Dzigbede, 2017). It has also shifted from the traditional carbonated beverages to healthier and drinks with less calories, thus satisfying customers’ needs. The corporate level strategy has enables it to establish various bottling companies in different parts. By having different enterprises in various countries, the distribution of its products has been less difficult. Moreover the consumers have been able to acquire products that meet their needs with less difficulty. Currently the organization does not need to address any issue because the two strategies have enabled it to attain success in different areas that include maintaining its brand, producing healthier beverages and focusing more on the consumers’ needs.
References
Jones, P., & Comfort, D. (2018). The Coca Cola Brand and Sustainability. Indonesian Journal of Applied Business and Economic Research, 1(1), 34-46.
Ling, X. (2017). Customer Relationship Management: Case study Coca-Cola Company.
Mazzei, M. J., & Noble, D. (2017). Big data dreams: A framework for corporate strategy. Business Horizons, 60(3), 405-414.
Torkornoo, H., & Dzigbede, K. (2017). Sustainability Practices of Multinational Enterprises in Developing Countries: A Comparative Analysis of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Full Issue V11N2, 11(2), 19-30.