Analyzing Strategic Operations Management Decisions at Coca-Cola

This report provides an overview of Coca-Cola Company's operations strategy, focusing on key strategic decisions such as differentiation and cost leadership. It begins with an introduction to the company and its global presence, emphasizing its mission and vision. The report defines operations management, cost management, and differentiation, highlighting their importance in Coca-Cola's competitive landscape. Strategic decisions related to location, layout, HR and job design, supply chain management, and managing quality are discussed. The competitive strategies employed by Coca-Cola, including revenue and profit growth, brand investment, efficiency improvements, and simplification of operations, are examined. Detailed evidence of strategic operation management decisions, particularly differentiation through branding, logo, and unique packaging, and cost leadership through efficient supply chain and bottling facilities, are presented. The analysis concludes that these strategies help Coca-Cola maintain a competitive advantage in the global market. This comprehensive analysis offers valuable insights into how Coca-Cola leverages its operations to achieve its strategic goals.

Operations strategy – Coca-Cola Company 1
OPERATIONS STRATEGY – COCA-COLA COMPANY
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Operations strategy – Coca-Cola Company 2
Table of Contents
Organization Overview (Coca-Cola Company)..............................................................................3
Definition of operations management..........................................................................................4
Definition of Cost Management...................................................................................................4
Definition of Differentiation........................................................................................................4
Strategic decisions...........................................................................................................................4
Location.......................................................................................................................................5
Layout..........................................................................................................................................5
HR and Job Design......................................................................................................................5
Supply chain management...........................................................................................................5
Managing Quality........................................................................................................................5
Competitive Strategy of Coca-Cola Company................................................................................6
Detailed evidence of the strategic Operation management decisions in place................................7
Differentiation..............................................................................................................................7
Cost leadership.............................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
List of references...........................................................................................................................10

Operations strategy – Coca-Cola Company 3
Organization Overview (Coca-Cola Company)
Coca-Cola Organization is a firm that operates its business by dealing with productions,
distributions, together with sales of different drinks that are non-alcoholic around global
marketplaces. The firm develops its operational strategies to concentrate on processes of
marketing its services along with products on the global foundation (Gupta 2011, p. 60). The
firm has been able to compete with its chief competitors such as Pepsi Company by developing
different strategies for managing its operations. The company offers at least five hundred
different brands in lower level of sugar in about two hundred countries around the worldwide.
The organization is the largest marketer of Coke as well as other soft drinks, teas, and waters
among other products that are non-consumable. Proper operation strategies as set by managers
have made the firm to be the trademark of soft drink that had been in existence since early days
of 1893 (Foster 2014, p. 248). Moreover, Coca-Cola Company operates by establishing a firm
production system and bottling facilities in the entire global society. These systems play the
essential role in their business operations since they are one of the finest of the industry that
deals with production, distribution, and selling of soft drinks. Additionally, Coca-Cola Company
operates under one mission that aims at refreshing mind, body, and spirit of an individual in the
society. It also works with the vision that aims at attaining working with their bottlers to ensure
that they deliver soft drinks to targeted consumers (Sundar 2012, p. 2). The company uses
marketing analysis to monitor its external along with external environment. Therefore, primary
focus of this research paper is to explore major competitive strategies that Coca-Cola Company
employs in its operations to shape how it approaches various decisions in Operation
Management (OP).
Definition of operations management
It is the management area that concern with ideas of designing and controlling the process of
redesigning together with production of operations of business in the production of services or
goods. It comprises of responsibility of ensuring that operations of business are efficient
regarding applying few resources as required along with effective regarding meeting
requirements of clients (Gertner and Rifkin 2017, p. 3). It is administration of different practices

Operations strategy – Coca-Cola Company 4
of business with the aim of developing the highest level of efficiency possible within the
corporation.
Definition of Cost Management
Management of cost is the process of preparing as well as controlling financial plan of business
operations. It remains to be the form of management accounting that enables different business
to predict impending expenditures in assisting in reduction of opportunity of going through the
budget (Sundar 2012, p. 2). It is an approach that aid reduction of operations or expenses of
production to offer cheap services or products to targeted clients.
Definition of Differentiation
Differentiation is the process of marketing that showcases the variation that exists between
products and services on offer. It focuses on making the product to remain more attractive by
contrasting its exclusive qualities with various competing products (Ivanov and Bondarenko
2013, p. 328). Successful process of differentiation of products develops the competitive merit
for the seller of products as targeted customers view these products as being superior or
exclusive.
Strategic decisions
Strategic decisions have made operations of Coca-Cola Firm to be recognized in global society.
Strategic operations remain to be part of the turnaround of the company, and it also enables its
operations to be more flexible and survive the economic catastrophe without taking bailouts from
different authorities (Yuvaraju, Subramanyam, and Rao 2014, p. 127). Coca-Cola firm uses
different strategic decisions as the guide to its management of operations. Other strategic
decisions consist of designing of services and goods, process with designing of capacity,
management of inventory, schedule, and maintenance.
Location
In considering the development of this strategy, Coke Company has been able to consider its
supply chain and how its location will receive supplies. It also considers how its services and

Operations strategy – Coca-Cola Company 5
products will move internally and to targeted customers (Foster 2014, p. 248). The strategy helps
the company to develop function of promotion with public dealings in spot of preference.
Layout
The policy enables organization to consider assignment of desks, its stations of work, together
with how different equipments are utilized or delivered around the market. In this policy,
managers of operations of Coke Company are concerned with ideas of optimizing placement of
stations of work together with movement of essential resources to support operations that are
productive.
HR and Job Design
The strategy allows the company to continuous improvement plans with reviews that are regular.
According to Regondola (2015, p. 1145), this strategy offers continuous training for workers,
and it also institutes worker satisfaction plans to attain success in the area of operations.
Supply chain management
It has the vital purpose of determining appropriate strategies that can be utilized in streamlining
operations. It also helps in improving operation costs of the company to be effective as it aims at
developing trusted partners that deal with non-alcoholic beverages.
Managing Quality
The strategy allows the company to remain clear on the demands of customers and then meet
those expectations as set by the management. It uses different market investigation to determine
needs of clients as well as batch quality assurance testing on different services and products in
promotion.
Competitive Strategy of Coca-Cola Company
Competitive strategies of Coca-Cola Company are all concerned with decisions concerning the
future of its operations and the manner in which the management has responded to the myriad of

Operations strategy – Coca-Cola Company 6
pressures together with influences that result because of immediate and macro business
environment. The company focuses on attaining the best competitive strategy as a way of
earning public support in daily operations (Wang 2015, p. 23). The other aim of competitive
strategies of Coca-Cola Company is to obtain the competitive advantage in markets by defining
it feature and quality that position its operations above the competition in sustained and general
manner. Some of the strategies that this company uses include idea of focusing on driving
revenue together with profit growth. Every nation where the company operates performs an
essential purpose in their growth plans. The company uses strategies of segmented revenue
growth across its business in the manner that varies by type of market. Furthermore, the other
competitive strategy employed by Coca-Cola Company is the idea of investing in its brands and
business (Blair, Hand, Hebert, and Archer 2012, p. 95). They enable the company to focus on
aiming at continuous investment as way of attaining its large market share during operations.
The company had chosen of investing in more together with enhanced promotion of its products,
escalating amount, and quality of its advertising. For instance, Coke Company has increased the
amount of money that it spends on advertisement through media by more than two hundred and
fifty million and uses those funds to share stronger and more ads that are impactful to targeted
clients.
The company has focused on becoming more efficient as another strategy that it uses for
competition. The management of the company has taken different steps that aim at rebuilding the
growth moment of operations. The management of the company has been keen on the need to
invest in more and better strategies of marketing while they increase their financial flexibility.
Additionally, another competitive strategy used by the company is the idea of simplifying its
operations (Elmore 2013, p. 722). It is evident that few organizations have been able to change
faster in past few years than the industry that deals with nonalcoholic organization. Coke
Company has improved its competitive strategy by evolving tastes and preferences of
consumers, coupled with sweeping innovations in the landscapes that deal with supply and
retails. The company has also created the environment where the speed, precision, together with
empowered workers have the opportunity of determining who wins in the market. Another
competitive strategy used by the company is the technique of refocusing on its core model of
business (Yuvaraju, Subramanyam, and Rao 2014, p. 127). Here, Coca-Cola Firm has always

Operations strategy – Coca-Cola Company 7
remained as the creator of refreshing brands of beverages. Presently, the company’s expensive
portfolio consists of more than five hundred brands such as sparkling beverages, tea, sports
drinks, juices drinks, water, energy drinks, and enhanced hydration drinks among other drinks.
Detailed evidence of the strategic Operation management decisions in place
Several strategic operation management decisions are aligned with strategies of operations of
Coca-Cola Firm. Two major strategic decisions in its operations consist of differentiation
together with cost leadership. The competitive scope of these two strategic decisions is broad
target and narrow target (Regondola 2015, p. 1145). The other strategic decision that the
company uses is focus that is further simplified into other two categories that consist of cost
focus and differentiation focus. These strategies used in operation management by Coke
Company can assist the company’s brand to create a competitive advantage and later overcome
competitive pressure imposed to them by other products being produced by chief competitors of
Coker Company. However, different operation management strategy decision of any company
depends on various elements such as cost, quality, speed, flexibility, dependability, together with
speed (Mubayi 2012, p. 541). Differentiation along with cost leadership remains to be vital
decision generic as well as intensive strategies of operation management tat Coca-Cola
organization has used and still use to develop sustainable competitive advantage. These strategic
decisions also help the company to grow its market presence in the global markets.
Differentiation
Through strategy decision of differentiation, Coca-Cola firm has been able to try to position its
product in the approach that it stands out to be varied from the product of similar category. It is
evident that Coca-Cola remains to be the oldest carbonated beverage organization, and since
then, the firm has been utilizing strategy decision of differentiation to create its services together
with products to stand out of other products of similar category (Sun 2015, p. 12). The firm has
been able to spend approximately twenty percent of its yearly budget on advertisement so that it
could maintain the strategic decision of differentiation. Furthermore, another differentiation
element that Coke organization uses is its logo. The use of logo is critical as it helps the company
to differentiate its existence from its chief competitors such as Pepsi. Coke’s logo was first

Operations strategy – Coca-Cola Company 8
founded in early days of 1923, and since the time of establishment, management of company has
not changed the logo (Ivanov and Bondarenko 2013, p. 329). The idea of having same logo from
time of establishment has helped the organization in establishing an exclusive image of the brand
of products in the mind of the esteemed and targeted clients.
Coca-Cola firm uses the exclusive blend of marketing as well as advertisement strategy decision
that assists it to be the manager among various companies that deal with soft beverages. One of
the strategies decisions utilized by the organization is that it goes together with the mindsets of
individuals that they feel slimmer if the container is also shaped in a curvy manner (Pendergrast
2013, p. 73). Hence, packaging of different beverage drinks is completed and done in various
shapes of containers or bottles. Additionally, another differentiation strategy decision of
operation management that the organization utilizes is Coca-Cola Freestyle device where the
customers can match as well as add various flavors to their beverage drinks (Sundar 2012, p. 3).
Besides, Coke firm also use soft spell technique to create the differentiation that helps in
ensuring that operation management goes effectively.
Cost leadership
In strategic decision of operating management of cost leadership, Coca-Cola Firm always
concentrates on setting out to become the low producer among industries that deals with
production, distribution, together with sales of non-alcoholic drinks. The source of cost merits is
always varied and depends on the structure of organization within different markets (Gupta 2011,
p. 61). These sources of cost merit may consist of the pursuit of different economies of scale,
proprietary on advanced technological usage, with preferential access to different raw materials
among other operational factors. Consequently, in case of low-cost producer, it needs to find and
exploit all sources that deal with cost advantage. The strategic competition allows Coke
Company to maintain and sustain overall cost leadership during its operations in competitive
settings (Gertner and Rifkin 2017, p. 3). The ability to achieve and sustain overall cost merit then
make the company and its operations to be above average performer among non-alcoholic
industry provided it can command chares at or near the organization average.
Through decision strategy of cost leadership, Coca-Cola firm tries to position its product cheaper
when compared to its chief competitors such as Pepsi. The idea helps the company to try to

Operations strategy – Coca-Cola Company 9
minimize charges of producing different soft beverages (Hartogh 2013, p. 4). The idea to make
this reduction in production to occur, the organization manages its operational costs in the
efficient approach. Moreover, the organization administers its operating expenses together with
manages the cash flow in operation. Management uses the strategy to ensure that investments
during operations are made in different departments that seems profitable to the operations. The
organization also makes production of soft drinks on large scale so that the costs of operating are
low and the clients of organization to benefit from the plan (Wang 2015, p. 12). Therefore, it
becomes a beneficial situation for company and its customers during business operations.
Additionally, another winning factor of Coke organization is that it does not vary or change its
prices as soon as it attains popularity in global markets. It operates by static price factor for
extended period that as assisted it to remain as cost leadership.
Conclusion
From the discussion in this research paper, it is clear that Coca-Cola firm uses different strategies
to improve its operations in the competitive market for non-alcoholic products. There are many
approaches it applies to create cost advantages. The company work under the formation of ideal
operation strategies decisions in ensuring that its productive resources of systems of production
are well managed to deal with designing and managing of production processes, products,
services, and its supply chains. Operation management strategic decisions allow Coke Company
to maintain and sustain overall operations in competitive settings.

Operations strategy – Coca-Cola Company 10
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