Marketing and Sales Management

This document discusses the marketing and sales strategies of Coca-Cola, including the evolution of the company's marketing approaches, sales functions, recruitment and retention of salespeople, and the marketing mix used by the company. It also explores the leadership strategies employed by Coca-Cola and provides recommendations for improving the current strategy.

Running head: MARKETING AND SALES MANAGEMENT
MARKETING AND SALES MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Evolution of coca cola............................................................................................................2
Strategies of Coca-Cola..........................................................................................................4
Sales Functions:.................................................................................................................4
Recruitment, Selection and Retention of Coca Cola Sales People....................................4
The marketing strategy of Coca-Cola................................................................................5
The leadership strategy......................................................................................................6
Recommendation on improvements of the current strategy..................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The discipline which deals with the practical presentation of various sales techniques
as well as the sale’s operations management of an organization is known as sales
management (Johnston and Marshall 2016). The commercial business aspects of an
organization are determined by the net sales values of products and services. The long-term
goals includes sales volume, continuous growth and improvement and contributions of
various sales function in the profit margins (Ingram et al. 2015). The sales managers have a
set of roles and responsibilities including sales forecasting, budgeting, establishing objectives
for the sales team, organizing, selecting, training, compensating and performance evaluation
(Augustine 2018). The purpose of the paper is to assess the sales and marketing strategies in
the changing business environment. The paper will highlight the recruitment, selection and
retention plans of the selected organization The organization selected for this paper is Coca-
Cola. The paper will prepare sales presentation for the organization.
Discussion
Evolution of coca cola
The company adjusted the marketing approaches and tactics in order to incorporate
innovation for the changing market and consumer preferences of consumer. Consumer
developed concerns in regards with sugar content. Customer not only wanted control but they
wanted choices in the product range. They also wanted natural ingredients in the product
ranges. The company decided to shape the choices instead of offering choices to the
consumers. Innovation and marketing communication tactics were the key strategies for
responding to the consumer concerns and preferences (Sun et al. 2019). The company
introduced ‘Diet Coke’ and Minute Maid. They adopted the strategy of including healthier
options for shaping the consumer preferences (Wilson 2017). For the evolution of strategies,

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the company shifted its focus to value from volume (Hayran and Gürhan-Canli 2016). The
company implemented ‘One Brand’ approach and marketing strategy by grouping Coca-
Cola, Diet Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Life and Coca-Cola Zero under the same umbrella brand
for pushing the sales for the variants of lower calorie with the leading flagship beverage
Coca-Cola.
The company has redesigned its growth model and shifted from the concept of the
unit case volume to the value by changing its packaging options to more convenient and
smaller sizes. The company has also expanded or rather diversified its offerings related to the
low calorie group. The people want smaller packages and demonstration tells that they are
also willing to pay for a better and smaller packaging system. Although, the volume of the
Coke in the US has recently declined but it has been seen that the total transaction rate has
increased to a large extent and is still increasing.
The current needs of the human are related to the health also. They are becoming
more health conscious and hence they are demanding the company to be more sustainable
and more health conscious. The company therefore is diversifying their portfolio very
frequently whether it is packaging related, variant related, flavor related or entirely a new
concept. These shifts in the thoughts and the landscapes of the consumers have inspired the
company to think more on the core success metrics of the company. The company wants to
measure themselves on the basis of how much the consumers are willing to pay for their
products and not on the volume they purchase. The company has also focused on the health
related matters and sees the concern on the sugar concentration of the beverage as an
opportunity rather than a threat (Dipboye 2016). The company is taking measures to reduce
the concentration of the sugar in the drinks and is also introducing no sugar and it is also
providing transparent and clear ingredients information on the packages so as to attract the

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consumers towards the concern of the company regarding the peoples’ changed demand and
requirements (Gehani 2016).
Strategies of Coca-Cola
Sales Functions:
The sales function of the organization includes the following:
 Developing a strategic plans and strategies for business
 Detailed sales forecasting and tracking the market trends
 Assembling of data and information regarding customer and prospect interactions
 Monitoring competitor, customer and market activities which can act as a feedback
for the company (Johnston and Marshall 2016).
 Keeping team members motivated in order to achieve desired results.
 Working in coordination of marketing functions for implementing channel partner
program.
 Looking after the national sales, which include the sales from distribution networks.
 Establishing consumer base in targeted regions.
 Managing sales teams, resources and operations for delivering profitability (Johnston
and Marshall 2016).
 Controlling the sales team for the alignment with other functional areas.
 Coordinating sales training program in order to help team members in developing
potential skills (Johnston and Marshall 2016).
Recruitment, Selection and Retention of Coca Cola Sales People
The company follows several strategies in order to attract the best talent from the
market. Job analysis and job designing is done in the initial stages. The job analysis is again
divided into job description and the job description. The HR department of the company

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conducts analysis on the activities of work to be performed, the human behavior required the
context of the job and the standard of the performance, based on which the respective job
description is constructed. All these information related to the requirements for a particular
job position is being used by the company for the recruitment, staffing and selection, training
and development, incentives and compensations and performance appraisal. A set of job
qualification is developed.
The sources of recruitment can be people within the company, competitor and non-
competitor companies, educational institutions, employment agencies and advertisements.
The company forecasts the number of employees needed for the organization for a particular
job profile and then the report is sent to the head office for approval. The recruitment process
of the company begins right after the approval from the head office. Advertisements are
provided in the websites, institutions and several newspapers. The CVs are received by the
company and thereafter recruitment takes place both internally and externally. The selection
process depends on the job post applied for and the job role of the employee. The common
method that the company usually uses for the process of selection are the initial screening
interview, application form screening, psychometric tests, in depth interviews, reference
check group exercises, role play and situational exercises (Reid et al. 2017). The company
tries to retain its employees and the several other staffs by providing several financial and
non-financial rewards like increase in the pay and appreciation and recognition of the hard
working and sincere employees.
The marketing strategy of Coca-Cola
Like all other organization, this company also have a specific marketing mix that
clearly discusses the marketing strategy used by the company.

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Product- The Company has a diversified range of products. It has the widest portfolio of
products in the beverage industry and is having a total of 3300 products. The category is
divided into non-alcoholic carbonated drinks, fruit drinks, fruit juices, energy drinks, mineral
water, tea and coffee (Coca-cola.com 2019).
Price –The pricing strategy used by the company is competitive pricing. The largest threat of
the company is Pepsi and therefore the company makes sure to fix the price after judging the
prices set up by its competitors. The price is set in a manner so that the company earns a
profit more than its competitors. The fact is that the beverage market is an oligopoly market
and hence the companies creates curtail and sets the price accordingly. The company
therefore tries to compete with costs more than the price. The lower the company can keep its
cost the higher will be the profit of the company (Malek, Sarin and Jaworski 2018).
Place– it is one of the largest beverage products and is spread all over the world. The
distribution patter of the company is similar to the distribution of a FMCG product. The
company has a highly integrated distributed system and it owns its distribution system. It has
good forward as well as backward market integration (Coca-cola.com 2019). This helps the
company penetrate in many rural areas as well and helps in the extensive distribution of the
product.
Promotion- the company tries to increase its demand by the means of advertising through
television, artists, and movies and by sponsoring several events. It mainly aims in the value
based advertising and the advertisements generally carry a positive message. The company
also performs several CSR activities that increase the goodwill of the company (Coca-
cola.com 2019). It also provides several discounts and offers to the distributors and the
retailers to push the product into the retail markets. The company therefore uses both push
strategy (by promotions) and pull strategy (by advertisements).

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The leadership strategy
The Chairman and the CEO of the Coca-Cola was Kent Muhtar until he retired in
2016 December and James Quincey held the position. The company is composed of a very
strong, qualified, diverse, competitive and international management team. The human
resources are usually placed at different places than their position of origin and thereafter
several training, development and orientation facilities are being provided. The company tries
to create a sustainable cross cultural diversity within the organization and therefore it can be
said that the company follows a global leadership strategy (Lee and Scott 2015). The several
other leadership pattern that has been seen in the company are cross cultural leadership,
visionary leadership and innovative leadership.
Recommendation on improvements of the current strategy
The company has a huge threat from Pepsi. It also has its absence in the health drinks
segment. There are several issues related to the water management system of the company.
So the company can change its strategy in a manner to improve its current weaknesses and be
more competitive in the market. The company can:
i. Diversify its product to the health beverages and it can also enter into the snacks
sector like Pepsi has done.
ii. The developed nation has been penetrated by the company but the main growth of
the company lies in case of the developing nations and therefore it can penetrate
into the developing nations that will help the individuals in the summers and will
also help in the employment of many.
iii. The improvement in the supply chain. The main cost is the cost in the
transportation and distribution and hence the company must search for an
alternative to reduce the cost on the same so as to increase the profitability
keeping in mind the concept of the curtail pricing.

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iv. Bisleri has much more market share than that of Kinley and hence the company
must put more efforts in order to penetrate into the packaged drinking water
sector.
Conclusion
It can be inferred from the above discussion that marketing and sales strategies are
very important in relation to the evolution and the expansion of a company. In the above
discussion it has been seen that the company has evolved in various ways by diversifying its
products and by using several leadership techniques. The company puts a lot of emphasis in
the recruitment and the selection of the employees in order to acquire the best resource. It
follows a proper set of sale function and follows a proper set of marketing strategies that has
helped in its growth. It also uses the several leadership strategies like the visionary strategy,
cross cultural strategy and the global leadership strategy. After analyzing all these marketing,
sales and the leadership strategies it can be said that the company must focus on its product
diversification and penetration strategies in order to be more competitive in the market.

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