BUS3003 Corporate Responsibility: Coca-Cola's Ethics and Governance

This report assesses the impact of Coca-Cola Company's use of App Annie to gain a competitive advantage. It discusses the ethical implications of using market data to improve business strategies and increase profits. The report provides a brief history of Coca-Cola, discusses the case of using App Annie, presents different arguments for and against this practice, and highlights ethical decision-making approaches relevant to the situation. It also explores how understanding customer needs through App Annie can help Coca-Cola overcome marketing challenges and improve its services, ultimately aiming for bottom-line growth and enhanced customer experiences. The analysis also considers criticisms of relying on external data and emphasizes the importance of ethical considerations in strategic business management.

Running head: CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY, ETHICS AND GOVERNANCE
Corporate Responsibility, Ethics and Governance
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1CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY, ETHICS AND GOVERNANCE
Abstract
The purpose of the following report is to assess the impact of using the App Annie by Coca-Cola
Company to gain the competitive advantage. The Coca-Cola Company has been one of the
leading companies in the food and beverage industry and the organization is a largely spread one
that is becoming very problematic for them to control properly. In this scenario, they have
decided to take the help from App Annie that provides the market data to improve their business
strategies and make more profits. The different arguments in this factor have been discussed and
the ethical approaches have been highlighted.

2CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY, ETHICS AND GOVERNANCE
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Brief history of the organization......................................................................................................3
Discussion of the case......................................................................................................................4
The different arguments...................................................................................................................6
Ethical decision making approaches................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................10

3CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY, ETHICS AND GOVERNANCE
Introduction
The following report addresses the several ethical issues and their resolutions in the
background of the Coca Cola Company. Some ethical issues will be discussed and the critical
arguments will be made in this discussion report indeed. The important matter that will be
highlighted in this report is that of the different ethical matters that have arisen in the due to the
use of the App Annie by Coca Cola to satisfy the different needs of their customers. This issue is
very much prevalent since there have been some significant market challenges for the company
in the recent past (Babatunde and Adebisi 2012). Coca Cola will have to get around these market
challenges to be successful in their domain. The fierce competitive environment for gaining the
competitive advantage will play a big role in adopting the best strategies for the organization.
Brief history of the organization
Coca cola is one of the most successful and leading brands in the beverage industry. The
company is based in United States of America (Coca-cola.com 2018). The company was set up
in the year 1892. They prepare a wide range of beverage products for their customers. It has been
a very successful company in terms of the revenues and the brand reputation. They have various
brands of their products that they provide to the customers. The headquarters of the company is
located at Atlanta in USA. They have gained a huge brand reputation and they act as the
sponsors for the several theme parks, sports organizations and television shows. The current
President and CEO of the company is James Quincey (Coca-cola.com 2018). The flagship
product for the company is Coca-Cola i.e. a beverage drink product. They have a wide variety of
branches in all the regions of the world in all the continents. Innovation has been one of their
biggest strengths to be successful in the competitive business environment. The total number of
people working for Coca-Cola is simply more than 700,000 (Coca-cola.com 2018).

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Discussion of the case
This case deals with the several implications of using the apps Coca-Cola Company is
one of the major distributors of several brands across the world. Some of the leading brands of
the company are the Dasani Waters, Gold Peak teas and coffees, Honest tea, Minute Maid juices,
Powerade sports drinks, Simply juices, vitamin water, Sprite and many more (Appannie.com
2018). All these brands have been very much famous since they have met the desires of the
customers in te best ways. There are several mobile apps developed by the Coca-Cola Company
so they can provide the best services to their customers. Coca-Cola Freestyle is one of their most
favored apps since they help the customers to get their best services (Babatunde and Adebisi
2012). The Coke Notify Service Request is also a very important app for the retailers as well.
Another developed app for the college students is the Dasani Purefill i.e. designed to help them
to reach self-serve water stations so they do not get dehydrated in the extreme heat of the
summer (Appannie.com 2018).
As per the case, it has been noted highly, that the consumers use the various products of
the company almost 1.7 billion times per day. If it can be counted in a minuter manner, the data
that comes out is the consumers use the beverage products of the Coca-Cola almost 19,400 times
(Appannie.com 2018). The Coca-Cola Company has thousands of outlets all over the world. This
is why the consumers get to discuss and interact with them through the various secondary outlets
that they have. These consumer interactions are very much important for the increasing brand
image of the company (Bovee and Courtland 2012). It has been a great fact that the company has
several marketing challenges and these challenges will have to be tackled properly in order to
retain their competitive advantage. It is indeed very important to note that the Coca Cola
Company has been facing many problems in their marketing operations. In order to cope up with

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this they will need to adopt some strategies by which they can be able to find a way through. It is
only possible when the company will have the proper data and numbers that will help them to
address the proper situations (Santos-Vijande, López-Sánchez and Trespalacios 2012). If they
get the get the proper data and ideas about the several challenges they will be able to plan
something comprehensive in this regard. There are no doubts that the Coca Cola Company is a
multi faceted brand. This is why they have these kinds of challenges as well. In this way they
must be looking to put these challenges through and find the proper solution. There are several
opportunities as well that come along with these challenges. The company will have to capitalize
on those facts as well.
The main discussion then revolves around the proper solution of the problem. It is very
important to depend upon the software apps for the correct data on utilizing the several
opportunities (Santos-Vijande, López-Sánchez and Trespalacios 2012). They might have opt to
optimize their own apps or they also might go on to optimize the several software apps
developed by the retailers. In this case, Coca Cola will depend on the App Annie Intelligence for
the relevant market information and data so they can make out the digital condition through the
actionable data. App Annie will always supply them with the proper data and make them utilize
that data to cope up with the challenges (Wagner and Hollenbeck 2014).
Thus the use of the App Annie will help them to understand the several issues like the
optimizing of the keywords to the color schemes used for the screenshots and the media buys.
The help from the data of the App Annie to the Chambers notes will direct them to attain a better
understanding of the various marketing strategies so they can gain the competitive advantage.
The Coca-Cola Company customer base is full of diversity and this is why the use of the App
Annie database will be very much helpful for them from several aspects as well.

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Coca Cola will be able to get a better understanding about the desires of their customers
and how they can be able to provide the proper things to the customers by the dataset of the App
Annie database. The customers will be able to understand these things in a better way about the
services of the company (Wagner and Hollenbeck 2014). Thus they will depend on Coca-Cola
products all the more indeed. If Coca-Cola understands the needs of their customers by the help
of the App Annie dataset they will be able to add some extra features into their products and
services. This will be a boost for them to get over the several marketing issues and challenges.
The consumers can also get engaged in using these apps or collect the relevant data so they can
get the proper information of how they can improve their experience in the better ways indeed
(Campbell, Coff and Kryscynski 2012).
In this way the distribution network of the company will be improved in a much better
way and this will in turn help the customers as well. The company will surely be able to gain the
bottom line growth through these experiences indeed. The mobile ordering experiences will also
gain the betterment in the food services (McGrath 2013). The Chambers Data is also of the
opinion that the Coca-Cola Company will be able to gain a much better customer response in
terms of their services and products if they use the App Annie database. The best marketing
strategies will be utilized for the betterment of the company (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick 2012).
The different arguments
One of the most important issues in this context is the critical aspects and the acceptance
of this method by the customers and the marketing managers. Both of them are very important
stakeholders of the same (Armstrong et al. 2015). This decision by the Coca Cola Company has
been criticized sometimes for being positive and in the negative ways as well. According to some

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people, it is very problematic for the Coca Cola Company to keep the proper track of all their
marketing issues that arise in their different secondary outlets across the several countries.
However, it can be said to be much difficult to say how the data providing companies are in a
complete basis (Berthon et al. 2012).
It is not sure to say that the data that App Annie provides will always be very much
appropriate. However, the companies like Coca-Cola will have to rely on this app when it comes
to satisfy the needs of the customers. The Coca-Cola has always faced several strong challenges
in the marketing process. Some senior managers have sometimes opined that the company must
be able to do their own research in finding the problems and their relevant solutions indeed.
Some scholars have shunned this viewpoint and they have said that the use of App Annie is very
reliable indeed since this gives the marketing managers the proper opportunity fix the several
strategies by which the organization should operate. The marketing data analysis by App Annie
will surely decrease the responsibilities of the marketing managers to some extent helping them
to get over these problems (Berthon et al. 2012).
The demand of some critics can be countered by saying that the marketing data analytic
companies like App Annie will always provide the various companies with the proper data and
the recommendations by which they can improve their services and implement some strong
strategies indeed (Gillespie and Riddle 2015). They will surely make a thorough analysis of the
several market trends and suggest the ways the companies can improve their business strategies
for the best. It can be argued that the proper suggestions of App Annie will lead the companies
like Coca- Cola to utilize the several opportunities. As Coca-Cola will get to know the several
things like the revenue of their competitors, the engagement metrics and all other details, this
will surely be helpful for them in many ways. They will highlight the competitive threats for

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Coca-Cola. Thus the company will be highly benefitted as per the expert critics (Lee and Raghu
2014).
Ethical decision making approaches
Some of the useful ethical decision making approaches in the business marketing and
management are the Utilitarian Approach, Rights Approach, Fairness/ Justice approach,
Common good approach and Virtue approach. The Common good approach can be followed in
this section since this factor will give the company much benefit in the strategic business
management (De Mooij 2013). However, it has to be said in this context that an organization like
Coca-Cola must be able to produce the benefits as their products and services vary a lot all over
the world (Ferrell and Hartline 2012).
The proper and thorough communication will have to practice in this section to make the
organization gain the competitive advantage. This will serve the common good for both the
organization and their customers as well. The entire society will be benefitted if the Coca-Cola
takes the help from the App Annie in order to improve their services and product quality. They
will gain the competitive advantage and serve their customers in a better manner (Shenkar, Luo
and Chi 2014). This will do the common good for the society.
Conclusion
As per the above discussion, it can be concluded that the use of the App Annie to delight
the customers of Coca-Cola can be a very useful thing. This will surely bring the competitive
advantage for the Coca-Cola Company in a large manner. It must be mentioned that the Coca-
Cola Company has many opportunities to grow in this competitive business environment since

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they have a large number of branches all over the world. This is why it becomes very rough for
them to assess the market risks all over. Thus the organization will need to take the assistance
from the App Annie to assess the certain risks by a thorough analysis and take the proper steps to
overcome them. The common good ethical approach can be applied to this context.

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References
Appannie.com (2018). Coca-Cola Relies on App Annie to Help Amaze & Delight Its Customers.
[online] App Annie Content. Available at: https://www.appannie.com/en/insights/customer-
stories/the-coca-cola-company/ [Accessed 11 Sep. 2018].
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction.
Babatunde, B.O. and Adebisi, A.O., 2012. Strategic Environmental Scanning and Organization
Performance in a Competitive Business Environment. Economic Insights-Trends &
Challenges, 64(1).
Berthon, P.R., Pitt, L.F., Plangger, K. and Shapiro, D., 2012. Marketing meets Web 2.0, social
media, and creative consumers: Implications for international marketing strategy. Business
horizons, 55(3), pp.261-271.
Bovee and Courtland, 2012. Business Communication Today, 10/e. Pearson Education India.
Campbell, B.A., Coff, R. and Kryscynski, D., 2012. Rethinking sustained competitive advantage
from human capital. Academy of Management Review, 37(3), pp.376-395.
Chaffey, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2012. Digital marketing: strategy, implementation and
practice (Vol. 5). Harlow: Pearson.
Coca-cola.com (2018). Coca-Cola Global. [online] Coca-cola.com. Available at:
http://www.coca-cola.com/global/ [Accessed 11 Sep. 2018].
De Mooij, M., 2013. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. Sage
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Ferrell, O.C. and Hartline, M., 2012. Marketing strategy, text and cases. Nelson Education.
Gillespie, K. and Riddle, L., 2015. Global marketing. Routledge.
Hartley, R.F. and Claycomb, C., 2013. Marketing mistakes and successes. Wiley.
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McGrath, R.G., 2013. The end of competitive advantage: How to keep your strategy moving as
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