Change Management Strategies at The Coca-Cola Company

This report provides an in-depth analysis of change management strategies employed by The Coca-Cola Company. It begins with an introduction to the company and its global presence, highlighting its diverse product portfolio. The core of the report focuses on Coca-Cola's change management plan, detailing objectives such as improved profitability and employee performance. It examines key elements of organizational change, including thinking, behavior, and infrastructure. A significant portion is dedicated to employee engagement, illustrating how Coca-Cola aims to align its operations through internal branding and employee surveys. The report identifies barriers to change, such as lack of employee involvement and ineffective communication. It concludes with a discussion on the importance of communication and positive attitudes in successful change management, along with an overview of the company's approach to change. The report also incorporates tools such as Force Field analysis and AKADAR model for stakeholder analysis. The report emphasizes the importance of adaptability for organizational survival.

Running Head: CHANGE MANAGEMENT 1
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AUTHORS NAME
UNIVERSITY OF AFFILIATION

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Introduction
The Coca-Cola Company is the world's number one maker of soft drinks, selling 1.3 billion
beverage servings every day. Coca-Cola's red and white trademark is probably the best-known
brand symbol in the world. Headquartered since its founding in Atlanta, Coca-Cola makes four
of the top five soft drinks in the world, Coca-Cola at number one and Diet Coke, Fanta, and
Sprite at numbers three through five. The company also operates one of the world's most
pervasive distribution systems, offering it's nearly 400 beverage products in more than 200
countries worldwide. Among the company's products are a variety of carbonated beverages
(including the aforementioned brands and many others, such as Fresca, Barq's, and Cherry and
Vanilla Coke); sports drinks (Powerade and Aquarius); juices and juice drinks (Minute Maid,
Fruitopia, Hi-C, Five Alive, Qoo, Maaza, and Bibo); teas (Sokenbicha and Marocha); coffees
(Georgia); and bottled waters (Ciel, Dasani, and Bonaqua). Moreover, the company holds the
rights to the Schweppes, Canada Dry, Dr. Pepper, and Crush brands outside of North America,
Europe, and Australia (Referenceforbusiness.com, 2017). Change management plan developed
by project management team for implementation of new administration system. The plan aims to
provide a framework for managing and coordinating communication across all departments.
These plans identify goals and strategies for goals implementation. The person to ensure to
change implementation is implemented successfully. The objectives that the project will achieve
upon implementing the new change. The constraint for change management. Analysis of stalk
holder response to change. Assessment of the readiness of change by the organization. The
organization wants to change to adopt new administration system to help it achieve its target.
The organization needs to change and adopt dynamic survival strategies to stay alive in uncertain
political economic and social environment.Its human nature to resist change and to implement
change in management strategies for managing resistance.
Project sponsor.
Sponsor is the person who oversees the entire change management initiative (Brighthub Project
Management, 2017) .The sponsor is the figurehead of the project .for a project to achieve its
anticipated benefits, real change can only be affected by proactive sponsor. Too often sponsors
believe that their role is limited to securing project funds or attending a kick-off meeting.

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Effective sponsorship requires more than that: Active involvement and support throughout the
change management effort are critical elements for success (Change Champions Consulting,
2017). Educate sponsor on his/her role in the change management project. Sponsorship is not
limited to securing resources. It also includes active communication about the change, support
for key decisions and removal of roadblocks, and—most importantly.
Project objectives
The following objectives can be achieved through implementation of new administration system:
• To improve profitability and return on overall investment
• To rapidly respond to the customers' demands
• To increase the employee performance
• To respond to the rapidly changing environment
• To improve the overall performance of the company
• To improve the effectiveness and efficiency
• To create the best practices inside the organization and setting standards for the industry
Change management is needed for organizational survival. So the company should adapt to
change management techniques to maintain its worth in the industry.
Change elements
Three important elements of organizational change are
1. Thinking: How people understand the organization and their ability to learn. How well ideas
(management concepts) are tailored to meet the organization's needs, and how well managers
communicate them (Anon, 2017).

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2. Behavior: How people react to change, how it is discussed and the attitudes that exist related
to the proposed change.
3. Infrastructure: The physical environment in which the change takes place, including
technology, procedures, organizational structure and the various systems that are of relevance to
the work (Anon, 2017)
Change in the structure is maintaining the span of control, specifying different work roles,
redesigning job scenarios, etc. Change in technology could be an introduction to new innovative
methods for improving the product's quality launched by the organization. While the change in
people is to bring about alterations in the way people think and act. It means to modify their
behavior towards the betterment of organization (Google Books, 2017).
Employee engagement
The recent change management at coca cola is directed towards the intrinsic values and
motivations of the employees and can be referred to as 'employee engagement.' The change
management process, together with internal branding programs is expected to bring about ideal
behaviors in employees, which would align the operations of coca cola worldwide, and bring
about efficiency throughout coca cola across all its business segments.
Coca-Cola hopes to bring about a thoroughly integrated system of communications, and focus on
creating brand relationships with their employees. This would enhance the operations of Coca-
cola, as an integrated approach would mean all employees believe in engaging fully in the
values, and this would become an inherent part of the employees at a personal level. Coca-cola is
actively seeking to incorporate the change into its company for "building capability in
engagement, maintaining engagement momentum and ensuring that engagement is integrated
into CCR's people practices" (Samdahl,2011). For this purpose, employee engagement surveys
are conducted twice every year for all the coca cola associates, which serve to highlight the areas
where the action is required, and further actions and implementations can henceforth be
executed.

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Coca-cola believes that their business results hinge on the dedication of their employees to
operational excellence. The company truly recognizes the importance of the people to the
business, and knows that to continue to bring about tremendous results it is bringing in,
employees throughout the world should believe in the values intrinsically, and therefore the
employee engagement is being focused on all the countries the company serves to align,
thoroughly integrate and align the company so that operational efficiency can be achieved.
Barriers to change management
Lack of Employee Involvement
This is perhaps the most common barrier to change management. Employees always have a fear
of change, and unless they are involved in the change process, it is highly likely that even the
most loyal member of your employees will resist the change. The biggest mistake some
organizations make is a failure to involve employees in the change process.
Lack of Effective Communication Strategy
Some organizations have no effective communication strategy. In fact, some top leaders always
assume that once they announce the change, people will adjust and be ready to get started with
the new development.
Unknown Current State
Change is always difficult for organizations that lack the idea of their current state. Trying to
introduce and implement change without conducting an assessment and understanding the
current blueprint of the organization is a common habit by many entities.
Organization Complexity
There comes a time when organizations begin to develop complex processes, making the process
of planning and implementing change a bit more complex. The complexities include complex
processes, products, and systems, all which contribute to change barriers because they are often
quite difficult for the members of the organization to understand.

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Key stakeholders analysis
Coca-Cola Company can use two change management tools to make sure that all people who are
required to be the part of change management process. These tools are Force Field analysis and
AKADAR model. Force field analysis is a technique developed by Kurt Lewin to scrutinize the
forces that are causing an opposition to change process ((Change Management Coach, 2017). By
doing Force Field Analysis, Coca-Cola Company will be able to induct people who are in need
of appropriate training. Another useful tool is AKADAR model which stands for Awareness,
Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement. Through AKDAR model, firm creates
awareness about the need of change, generate desire in the people to help in transitioning
process, give knowledge to the people that how they can help the change process, and develop an
ability in the people to go through the change and provide them with continuous reinforcement to
withstand the change).
Conclusion
To conclude, it may be said that communication can be a key element to successful change
management. Communicate the changes to the employees; tell them why the change was
inevitable and how they will benefit from the change. The management should itself adopt a
positive attitude towards the change so that employees can follow their lead and welcome the
change. Coca-cola as a company has a heritage of embracing change rather than resist it, and it
should translate into their future endeavors towards change management to ensure that the
organization is best poised to market under all sorts of environmental conditions

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