Comprehensive Analysis: Coca-Cola's Business Success Strategies Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Coca-Cola's business strategies, examining the key factors contributing to its global success. The introduction highlights Coca-Cola's history, global presence, and brand recognition. The report delves into Coca-Cola's marketing strategies, including pricing, logo, sponsorships, social media marketing, and advertising, emphasizing their role in customer acquisition and retention. It then analyzes Coca-Cola's supply chain management, focusing on upstream and downstream activities, distribution models, and operational procedures. The report further explores Coca-Cola's brand positioning, examining its strategic approach to maintaining a consistent brand image across different markets. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and suggests potential areas for further growth, emphasizing Coca-Cola's ability to adapt to local consumer needs and maintain high engagement around the brand. The analysis underscores the importance of Coca-Cola's marketing, supply chain, and brand positioning in achieving its competitive edge in the global market.

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COCA COLA
Business Studies

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Table of Content
Introduction........................................................................................................... 2
Marketing Strategy-Recipe for Success.................................................................3
Pricing Strategy.................................................................................................. 3
Coca Cola Logo................................................................................................... 3
Sponsorship........................................................................................................ 3
Social Media marketing...................................................................................... 3
Advertising......................................................................................................... 4
Supply chain analysis- Space X for Success...........................................................4
Upstream activities............................................................................................. 4
Downstream activities........................................................................................ 4
Operations.......................................................................................................... 5
Distribution......................................................................................................... 5
Positioning of Coca Cola........................................................................................ 6
Conclusion............................................................................................................. 7
References............................................................................................................. 8

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Introduction
Coca cola is the world’s fourth most valuable company and is recognizable all
across the world. The 131 year old company with it’s headquarter at Atlanta,
Georgia, United States is headed by James Quincey. Coca Coal and its products
are available all across the world including Cuba and North Korea which are
known as the grey markets (Gattorna, 2017). The brand needs no introduction, it
was initially intended as a patent medicine, eventually in the 19th century, the
carbonated drink was developed and with the brilliant marketing tactics of Asa
Griggs Candler the company soon became popular in rest of the world. The name
Coca cola is derived from two of its derivatives Kola nuts and Coca leaves. The
current formulae of Coca cola are a trade secret with a lot of speculation in and
around its trade secret. Coca cola Zero, DASANI, Diet Coke, Fanta, Minute Maid &
Sprite are some of the brands which operate under the brand umbrella of Coca
Cola. The success of Coca cola can be attributed to a lot of contributing factors,
but primarily its leadership, marketing strategy, supply chain and distribution
strategy are the pillars of its business sustainability and constant growth (Grant,
2016).
The purpose of the assignment here is to identify the success strategy of the
company which gives it a competitive edge over its competitors. Analyse the
factors behind its success strategy and to give recommendation to further
enhance its growth.

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Marketing Strategy-Recipe for Success
The company focuses on building and improving the community relationships
and puts in efforts to increase their happiness, which reflects on their public
image which results in customer acquisition and retention and increase in its
profits. Coca cola’s marketing strategies is one of the most comprehensive
marketing strategies the world has ever seen (Quirke, 2017) The marketing
strategy can be understood under the following heads:
Pricing Strategy
In today’s world, a lot of start-ups are using the penetration pricing strategy,
wherein they give the products initially for free or at a very low price to make
people fall in love with the products and eventually increase the prices. Coca
Cola has been quite unique in its pricing strategy, the company from 1886-1959
did not change the price of the drink and it was available at the same price for
73 years, which hooked the customers to its refreshing taste. In the present day,
due to Coca cola’s biggest rival Pepsi, the company has to keep its price
competitive, change in price will make any of the brand suffer. Thus, the price
today is more or less same to its rival (Collier, 2014).
Coca Cola Logo
The absolutely refreshing red logo of the company has been same since 1923,
when it was normalized for the company for the very first time, the company
decided to keep its logo the same just like the drink’s recipe. Coca cola has been
doing it to have a high brand recall, recognition and reputation around the world
(Flint, 2018).
Sponsorship
Coca Cola spends big money on sponsorship, the company has been an official
sponsor of some of the biggest sporting events, television shows and industry

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shows across the globe. Some of its prime sponsorship includes Olympic Games,
American Idol and Prime sponsor of NASCAR (Sinha & Sheth, 2017).
Social Media marketing
Social and digital marketing has turned the entire world into one big village
which is connected via the Internet. Coca cola has one of the largest followers on
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+, the company’s strategy is to create
the rand awareness regarding its future business strategies and advertisements.
The company does a lot of social listening and is believes in driving conversation
and engagement around the brand (Pullizi, 2014).
Advertising
Coca-Cola’s advertisement are designed to create an impact on the minds of
consumers, besides drawing awareness about the brand and increasing the
sales, the company creates campaign for its CSR activity as well. Coca cola has
been a revolutionary organization which taught the world how to create
engaging advertisements. Some of its best advertisement includes; Twist the
bottle, life is good, Coke is it and I would like to buy the world a coke (Bakan,
2016).
Coca cola is one of the most recognizable company of the world and as much as
98% of the 7 Billion people recognize the brand, undoubtedly the marketing
strategy of Coca Cola is the biggest factor in its success and high brand
recognition(Holt, 2016)
Supply chain analysis- Space X for Success
Coca Cola’s supply chain is one of the largest in the world and the prime driver
for its success; it is its supply chain management which makes the products of
the brand available all over the world even in the remote location. At a
macroscopic level, the supply chain of Coca Cola is more or less similar to that of
any other beverage company, but to understand the customization the company
does to its supply chain strategy, one has to get to a very microscopic level (Lee
& Vachon, 2016). The supply chain activities are divided into the following three
layers:

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Upstream activities
The upstream activities of Coca Cola are limited to the manufacturing of its
concentrate. The formulae to make the drink is a highly guided secret and is
locked in Sun trust’s bank of Atlanta. Carbonated water, sucrose and sugar syrup
are the major ingredients of the drink, but no one is aware of the proportion in
which the three key ingredients are mixed to bring out the refreshing taste of
Coca Cola (Goodier, 2015).
Downstream activities
Coca Cola works on an exclusive Franchise distribution model, the company
provides only the syrup concentrate which is sold to the different bottlers across
the globe that holds an exclusive territory. It has been said that the local bottlers
produce almost half of the Coca cola sold in the entire world (Fernie, 2014).
Bottlers have been advised to sweeten the drink according to the taste and
preference of their country, thus giving them a power of customization with the
drink. However, the company reserves the rights to create the marketing
campaigns, product related advertising program and sells syrup to the local
bottlers (Marshall, McCarthy, McGrath & Harrigan, 2016).
Coca cola is a commodity and the company follows an intensive distribution
system where it partners with local bottlers across the globe. Most of the bottlers
have exclusive rights of distribution in their geographic areas (Lambert & Enz,
2017). The company however has set up basic guidelines for the business
conduct, in terms of the operational procedures, customer relationship
management and query management, some of the bottlers have been given the
rights to create their own standard operating procedure for the delivery, fleet
management and forming credit cycles. Coca Cola Export Corporation also
called as TCCEC is the body which is responsible for selling the concentrate to
different bottlers around the world. TCCEC and its regional offices which are
located around the world create partnerships with the local bottlers who then
manufacture the drink using the highly guarded syrup and then distribute it in
their respective territories (Bowers, Petrie & Holcomb, 2017).

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Operations
As mentioned above, Coca Cola gives a set of guidelines for the bottlers across
the globe to bring standardization in its operation policies and procedures, this
way company executes a high level of centralization in its organization and
thousands of its bottlers and distributers across the globe. The regional offices of
Coca cola serve as the headquarters for its various bottling partners which serve
in their geographic regions. An amazing insight into this structure is that, the
bottler’s head office links the production plant with different distributors’ sales
centres and numerous trade zones to complete the supply chain system. Once
the bottlers receive the concentrate from the company, they send it to their
manufacturing plants, wherein they add rest of the ingredients to prepare the
drink. It is from there; the product is send across its distribution channels and
reaches every corner of the world, covering the entire spectrum of the
distribution channels. The company uses SAP to handle its operation process and
keeps a check on the production capabilities of partner bottlers (Wisner, Tan &
Leong, 2014)
Distribution
It is from the production plants, the beverage is sealed in bottles and cans and
sent across the distribution and sales centres across the country. It is the
responsibility of the distribution centres to stores and manages the inventory
according to the strategic Kiosk unit and dispatches them to different retailers.
The distribution centre has the following department to aid the sales of the
company:
Sales and Dispatch
Customer service and query management
Logistic department
Fleet department
Storage and warehousing.

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Even the biggest and the best supply chain management of Coca cola have some
troubles, TCCEC is doing efforts to maximize its operational efficiency and further
improve its 130 year old process.
Positioning of Coca Cola
The simple understanding of positioning is where the product stands in relation
to others offering of similar product and services in the marketplace and in the
minds of customers. Mind map is a tool which depicts how one thinks about the
company on hearing or watching the name. The mind map of Coca Cola can be
constructed as:
Refreshing Drink
Trust
Relationship
Great advertisement
Amazing promotional campaigns
Red Logo
Diet coke
Better than Pepsi
Attractive designing of the bottle
The company has positioned itself strategically in the marketplace, although the
company has understood and adopted the principle of “ Think Global and act
local”. The reason for adopting the principle of Think global and act local is to
adapt to the local needs of the consumers. The company uses strategic
positioning to keep its brand image same across all markets, Coca Cola is a daily
part of lives of people across the globe. The first thing which comes in the mind
of consumers on hearing the word Coca Cola is fun and entertainment. USP of
coca cola is its ability to create a positioning in the minds of consumers which

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says “Live the Coke side of life”, which is related to joy and happiness. The
perception of the people about Coca Cola leads to high purchasing decisions and
high brand loyalty. The drink is highly popular among all age groups and in a
number of markets Coca Cola is treated as the symbol which brings joy and
happiness to the families. The company has changed its position in the recent
few years, now the company is focussing on enriching the customer experience
in their transactions with the brand. It has recently added a journey section to its
website where people are allowed to share their favourite Coca Cola experience.
It is focussing on building large communities in and around the world and give
everyone a taste of the world’s best refreshing drink.
Conclusion
Coca Cola which has been the symbol of success and integrity of over 130 years
has been focussing on building great communities around the brand. The
company has a well-guarded recipe secret and log which it has kept unchanged
for a lot of time. The company with its brilliant advertising campaigns and highly
targeted marketing campaigns try to keep the engagement and conversation
high in and around the brand. Although, the company has been doing terrific
jobs by reaching to the world’s 98% of population, the company can certainly do
a few more things to ensure the momentum in its business. Company seems to
be very less active on Facebook, they sent out a post once in a week, which is
extremely low in comparison to what its competitors have been doing. Hence, it
is advised that the company should leverage the world’s biggest social media
platform to increase the engagement and build a community with its target
audience. Another thing the company should do to ensure the success is by
bringing new products in the market, in the present day cold pressed juices are
the first choice of millennial, which is a big section of the society. The company
has to ensure that it does not lose out on health conscious generation and design
products which keep their interest high in the company’s product offering.
References
Bakan, J (2016). Social marketing: thoughts from an empathetic outsider. Journal
of Marketing Management, 32(11-12), pp.1183-1189.

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Bowers, M.R., Petrie, A. and Holcomb, M.C (2017). Unleashing the Potential of
Supply Chain Analytics. MIT Sloan Management Review, 59(1), p.14.
Collier, K (2014). A Case Study on Corporate Peace: The Coca-Cola Company:
Coke Studio Pakistan. Business, Peace and Sustainable Development, 2014(2),
pp.75-94.
Fernie, J (2014) 02 Relationships in the supply chain. Logistics and retail
management: Emerging issues and new challenges in the retail supply chain,
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Flint, S.W (2018). In response to ‘Are Big Food’s corporate social responsibility
strategies valuable to communities? A qualitative study with parents and
children’by Richards and Phillipson. Public Health Nutrition, pp.1-2.
Gattorna, J (2017). Introduction. In Strategic supply chain alignment (pp. 15-21).
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Grant, R.M (2016). Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John
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Holt, D (2016). Branding in the age of social media. Harvard business
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Lambert, D.M. and Enz, M.G (2017). Issues in supply chain management:
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Lee, K.H. and Vachon, S (2016). Supply Chain Sustainability Risk. In Business
Value and Sustainability (pp. 245-280). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Marshall, D., McCarthy, L., McGrath, P. and Harrigan, F (2016). What's Your
Strategy for Supply Chain Disclosure?. MIT Sloan Management Review, 57(2),
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