Coca-Cola Company: Analyzing Business, Society, and Stakeholder Roles

This essay analyzes the Coca-Cola Company, a major beverage manufacturer, focusing on its business operations and societal impact. It examines key external factors like weather and competition that influence Coca-Cola's success. The paper discusses how primary stakeholders, including employees, consumers, suppliers, and stockholders, can affect the company's profitability through ethical practices and customer relationship management. It also addresses a controversial corporate social responsibility concern related to the marketing of Coca-Cola Life and its perceived health benefits. This analysis provides insights into the complexities of balancing business goals with social responsibility within a global corporation. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and resources for students.

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BUSINESS AND SOCIETY
BUSINESS AND SOCIETY
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BUSINESS AND SOCIETY
Coca-Cola Company
The paper focuses on Coca-Cola Company that is a private and individual brand under
the category of food and drug administration. Coca-Cola is a beverage company that distributes,
markets and manufactures non-alcoholic syrups and concentrates. The company offers more than
400 brands over 200 countries (Spar & Bebenek, 2008). The product structure of the company is
ideal for all ages. For example, old people prefer non-sugary drinks while young people prefer
sugary products. Therefore, Coca-Cola Company has produced both sugary and non-sugary
drinks that meet the needs of each customer. The products nature is believed to be healthy and
with great taste having low calorie and fats like coke zero and diet coke. Furthermore, the
product type is convenient as the consumers have developed a repetitive purchase pattern
regardless of the season. Furthermore, despite the company producing beverages products, it also
produces non-beverage products.
Key Factors In the External Environment That Affects Coca-Cola Success
The key factors that affect Coca-Cola’s success are weather and competition. Various
products like juices, water, coffee and tea fill the beverage industry and tend to be great
competitors of the Coca-Cola Company. Weather is a key factor that affects the company as
during winter Coca-Cola records low sales as customers prefer hot drinks like coffee. However,
despite the products targeting hot regions other competitors like Pepsi has also been a great
competitor.
Ways in Which the Primary Stakeholders (i.e. Employees, Consumers, Suppliers,
Stockholder) Can Influence Coca Cola’s Profitability.

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BUSINESS AND SOCIETY
Primary stakeholders of Coca-Cola can influence the company’s profitability through
maximizing profits that are a primary focus of the company’s business operations and
governance (Torres et al., 2012). For example, customers are the main influence for Coca-Cola,
not because they do not aim at maximizing profits, but because the company has realized that
long-term relations coupled with customer build a sustainable success. Therefore, Coca-Cola has
implemented customer relationship management strategies, which is a data-driven process of
business marketing whereby organizations collect customer data for more efficient and targeted
sales efforts and marketing. In addition, primary stakeholders of Coca-Cola can improve the
company’s profitability through adhering to requirements of ethics and increasing their focus on
the company’s business operations. According to Kumar, Teichman & Timpernagel (2012)
employees should promote a non-discriminatory work environment and be actively involved in
decisions that are important and organizational activities which promote Coca-Cola’s
profitability.
Controversial Corporate Social Responsibility Concern Associated With Coca-Cola
In recent months, Coca-Cola has run afoul after launching Coca-Cola Life in different
countries. The drink which is sold in a recyclable bottle or a green can trick the consumer of the
company’s corporate social responsibility of providing a healthy product. Research by Karnani,
(2014) shows that the organization tried to increase its profits in the disguise of corporate social
responsibility by selling the 68 calories per serving the soft drink.

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BUSINESS AND SOCIETY
References
Karnani, A. (2014). Corporate social responsibility does not avert the tragedy of the commons.
Case study: Coca-Cola India. Economics, Management and Financial Markets, 9(3), 11.
Kumar, S., Teichman, S., & Timpernagel, T. (2012). A green supply chain is a requirement for
profitability. International Journal of Production Research, 50(5), 1278-1296.
Spar, D., & Bebenek, K. (2008). Profitable springs: the rise, sources, and structure of the bottled
water business. Entreprises et Histoire, (1), 100-118. DOI: 10.3917/eh.050.0100
Torres, A., Bijmolt, T. H., Tribó, J. A., & Verhoef, P. (2012). Generating global brand equity
through corporate social responsibility to key stakeholders. International Journal of
Research in Marketing, 29(1), 13-24.