STC5MSI: Developing an Issue and Crisis Management Plan - Coca-Cola

This report presents an issue and crisis management plan focusing on Coca-Cola, addressing problems such as off-quality carbon dioxide and offensive odors from packaging. The plan outlines key steps including monitoring the business environment, identifying critical elements, prioritizing issues based on impact and probability, and analyzing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). It further details strategy decisions, such as targeting youth and innovating health drinks, and implementation strategies. A crisis management plan and communication plan are also included to manage negative public, media, and governmental reactions, aiming to mitigate brand value loss and maintain customer loyalty. This document, contributed by a student, is available on Desklib, which offers study tools to assist students.

Running head: ISSUES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
Issues and Crisis Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ISSUES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Issue Management Plan:............................................................................................................2
Step 1: Monitoring.................................................................................................................2
Identification:.........................................................................................................................4
Prioritization:..........................................................................................................................5
Analysis:.................................................................................................................................6
Strategy Decision:..................................................................................................................8
Implementation:.....................................................................................................................9
Crisis Management Plan:...........................................................................................................9
Communication Plan:...............................................................................................................12
Reference:................................................................................................................................13

2ISSUES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
Issue Management Plan:
The issues are mainly describes the problems related with a particular organization.
Issues in an organization has a vast negative impact over the organization. Large companies
faces this type of issues frequently due to fault in the internal process of the organization. In
this paper issues related with the Coca Cola Company will be discussed. The main
highlighted issues in this case is the off quality carbon dioxide which affected the taste of the
coca cola product and the other issue is the offensive odour issue which is arising due to the
packaging can issue. To manage all the issues an effective issue management plan will be
discussed in this case which some of the steps (Scarborough, 2016). These steps are the
monitoring, identification, prioritization, analysis, strategy decision and the implementation.
In the following section these steps will be discussed briefly.
Step 1: Monitoring
 Business Environment: The Coca Cola company has is currently consists of both the
macro and the micro environment. The macro environment consists all the externals
factors of the Coca Cola organization. This external factor includes the social,
technological, political, economic and legal factors (Hilton & Platt, 2013). All of this
external factors is responsible to bring changes in the operations of the business
model of the organization. The micro environment consists the internal factors of the
Coca Cola Company. This includes the environment of the workplace, relations of the
employees and the motivational factors in the organization.
 Reaction of the Public, Media and Governments: After realising the production
issues of the coca cola company which was actually having the off carbon di oxide
issue and the packaging cans related issue the media, publics and the government
reacted very much negatively (Marchewka, 2014). The public sector immediately

3ISSUES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
stopped the drinking the products of the coca cola company. The media was also
sharing a negative report about the products of the coca cola as many of the customers
are hospitalized after drinking that product and more than 100 peoples reported about
the odour of the coca cola drinks. The government takes immediate actions and
banned the products of the coca cola in several areas.
 Social Media Statements: The coca cola was criticised by most of the audiences who
were presented at the time of the production related issues of the coca cola. All the
statements given about the products of the coca cola were negative and the peoples
were influenced by the statements of those and stopped using the products of those
(Lenhart et al., 2015).
 Impact of the Social Trends: The organization is vulnerable to two main trends due
to the issue. First vulnerability issue was with the whistle-blowers and the other one
was with the environment. The whistle-blowers was able to impact the business about
the organization by clearly stating the negative issues of the organizations and by
taking legal steps against the organization (Paniagua & Sapena, 2014). Also,
environment at that time was not good as the coca company was getting various type
of negative feedback. Thus marketing at that time can impact the business of the
organization heavily.
 Impact on the organizations: The main and most negative impact on the organization
may be the loss of the brand value. The coca cola is already having a big brand value
but this type of small issues can impact on the brand value of the organization
(Iglesias, Ind & Alfaro, 2017). With this the loyal customers may opt some different
brands in the same segment which is also a negative impact on the organization. For
this reason the market share percentage of the coca cola will be decreased.

4ISSUES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
Identification:
 Important Elements: The important elements for the business is assessed from the
environment of the business. The important elements are the customers of the
organization, suppliers for the organization, economy and the technology for the
organization (Rosemann & vom Brocke, 2015). The customers are the very much
important element to the organization because the customers are the main source of
income for the coca cola company. Without the suppliers the coca cola company
cannot produce new products. Thus it is also important. Strong economy and the
technology helps to gain competitive advantage over the competitors. For this reason
this two elements are important.
 New Patterns: In this case the coca cola company has opted some patterns to improve
the quality of the organization. The first opted pattern is driving the profit growth to
its highest, second one is the investing in the business, third pattern is about more
efficient operations and the last pattern opted by the organization is the renovating the
core business model of the organization (Hwang et al., 2013).
 Issues Identified: The main issues identified with the organization is the production
of the soft drinks related issue. This issues raised because of the use of the off-quality
carbon di-oxide in the products and the second issue was container related issue in
which the container was having a bad odour (Strudwick et al., 2014). For this reasons
the customers rejected the coca cola in the beverage section in the Bulgaria.
 Type of Issue: The issue was related with the production of the coca cola company.
So, it can be considered as a production issue. In this case the issues are the use of the
off-quality carbon di-oxide issue and the bad odour issue of the containers. This issues
arises because of the fault in the early life cycle of the project but this faults assessed

5ISSUES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
in the last stage where the consumer tastes the products and then it treated as an issue
(Burke, 2013).
Prioritization: How far reaching will an issue’s impact be?
There are different kinds of issues that the company is facing in the present world. There
are issues related to the human rights of the employees. Employees get demotivated in the
workplace due to different reasons, which in turn cause employee job dissatisfaction (Gunia,
2014). This can have an overall effect in the proper working of the organization. There are
also other issues related to the pro\ducts of coca cola (Irefin & Mechanic, 2014). The
consumers are becoming more and more health conscious around the world and are slowly
shifting their preference s from carbonated drinks to health drinks, which is turn is affecting
the global business of the organization. The company is also facing different ethically
answerable questions form the different countries regarding the kind of raw materials it is
using in order to manufacture their drinks. Another major issue that is facing is the quality of
the cans they are using in order to bottle their products.
The quality of the carbon dioxide that the company is using is reported to be
degrading day by day and the company has been facing ethically answerable situations in the
recent past (Leung, Caramanna & Maroto-Valer, 2014). In addition, the quality of the tin that
is used to manufacture the cans of the carbonated drinks is found to be poor in quality. The
company is reported to manufacture cans that are made from a metal apart from aluminum
which degrades with usage and also releases harmful chemicals and toxins due to natural
oxidization. This in turn is causing health concerns for the consumers and the company
should look forward to address these issues within the organization.

6ISSUES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
The quality of the carbon dioxide used to carbonate the drinks as well as the quality of
materials used for making the cans are affecting not only the customers but the overall
business of the company also (Raptopoulou et al., 2014). Additionally, it is also causing a bad
image of the company, which is known in the market for the last few decades. Recently in an
article it has been stated that the popular drinks Coca-Cola and Fanta are poisonous in nature
and Coca-Cola is also often being used as a toilet cleaner in any countries due to its corrosive
nature. This has caused massive downfall in the sales of these products worldwide because
customers re getting increasingly health cautious. Coca cola had to answer these ethically
answerable questions in front of the media in the recent past.
The probability of occurrence of these kinds of situations is increasing for the
company. In the recent past these kind of incidences where the credibility of the drinks as
well as their bottles in which they are sold have re occurred in a number of countries and their
different factories worldwide and the issue is happening on an immediate basis (Salar &
Salar, 2014). Every now and then, there are news in the television about the defamation of the
brand and its different drinks. The company should look forward to more health friendly
drinks, which do not make use of carbonated water, or they should consider better
purification process of the carbon dioxide, such as making the carbon dioxide pass through a
stream of gas which in turn passes on the gas to a filtering system for the gas.
Analysis:
A SWOT analysis, which will describe the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities as
well as the threats for the company, will be studied in details under this section of the study.
Strengths in the SWOT of Coca Cola:
1. Brand Equity:
The company was given the honor of holding the highest brand equity in 2011.

7ISSUES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
2. Company valuation:
The company has a value of around 79.2 billion dollars.
3. Vast global presence:
Present in more than 200 countries (Pendergrast, 2013).
4. Fantastic marketing strategies:
The company has strategic marketing plans for the future.
5. Customer loyalty:
This again is a major strong point for the company since it has a very strong customer loyalty
all across the world.
Weakness:
The weaknesses can be summarized below as:
1. Competition with Pepsi:
Competition with Pepsi is the biggest challenge faced by the company (Friedersdorf,
2014).
2. Absence in health drinks:
This is again an issue since Coca Cola has still not started its business in the health
drinks sector.
Opportunities:
The opportunities for the company can be identified as:
1. Diversification:

8ISSUES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
The company can look forward to opening its factories and expanding its business across
other countries where it has still not reached.
2. Bottled water business:
The company can also look forward to open its chain of business in the bottled water industry
since it does not make use of the metal or tin bottles and can easily win the trust of the
customers back, and therefore also expand and improve their business figures all across the
world.
Threats:
1. Sourcing of raw materials:
This is the e issue in question in this report. The raw materials such as the carbon dioxide
gas used for carbonating the drinks as well as the metals used for manufacturing the cans
should be much more purified so that the drinks do not form any kinds of toxins on storage
(Massari & Ruberti, 2013). This in turn will help the company win back the trust of its
customers.
2. Indirect competitors:
There are many smaller companies like Gatorade, red bull that may come up as major
competitors to the company in the market in the future.
Strategy Decision:
The company should come up with more strategic decision and should mainly target
the youth because they are the ones who tend to get more attracted towards carbonated drinks
(Lin, Tsai & Wu, 2014). It can also plan and come up with innovative health drinks, which
are presently not offered by any other companies in the market.

9ISSUES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
The resources that are needed to implement these changes are strategic surveys across
the world regarding calculating the percentage of population who still prefer carbonated
drinks and the reasons behind customers change of preferences.
These decisions have to be taken by the top leaders in the sales division of the
company that will ensure increase in productivity of the employees and workers in the factors
as well as improved customer satisfaction with the different lines of products.
Implementation:
In this case the program and the policies which are decided by the management of the
organization is implemented to mitigate the assessed risks. To mitigate the assessed risks in
this case the quality of the carbon di-oxide is checked with higher precession. Whenever any
type of issues is found with the carbon di-oxide the whole production process is stopped and
necessary actions is taken to change the carbon di-oxide. As the coca cola company does not
manufacture the cans by themselves, they contact with the existing supplier for the cans and
take necessary actions (Webster, 2016). In critical cases the coca cola organization changes
the supplier of the cans to ensure good quality of cans which can mitigate the second issue.
To avoid the negative impacts on the organization of these type of issues a quality test is
required. A quality test before finalising the product can identify this type of issues early and
thus it can reduce the negative impacts of these issues in the organization.
Crisis Management Plan:
1. Preventing a crisis: Prevention of` the crisis has been a major thing and is
considered as one of the most important aspect in the commencing of the business in most
efficient manner. In case the crisis that is present in the processing of the business is present
and is not mitigated, the main problem that will be taken into consideration is the prosecution
of the data management and this is the reason that the iteration of the crisis management must

10ISSUES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
be performed (Taneja et al., 2014). In this case the local residents of Belgium was facing the
crisis. The crisis that the residents of Belgium was facing states the fact that the prosecution
of the data management of the entire business management was hampered in a negative
manner. This crisis was mitigated with the help of implementation of extra simultaneous test
methodology that prosecutes the mechanism of determining the functioning of the business
management. After introduction of the tests the main benefit that is enjoyed incurs the
flawless manufacturing o the product and this leads to the fact that the quality of the product
is maintained and this is the main reason that the prosecution of the quality management is
performed with the help of commencing of the crisis prevention.
2. Responsibility and procedures: The procedure that was used for mitigating the
issue includes the processing of the testing methodology in a sole new way. The main
concept that was implemented in the projection of the data management includes the
terminology that the testing team that is hired in the projection of the entire project must be
much more responsible and the projection of the project will be then performed with higher
proficiency (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). This leads to the fact that the quality of the product
that is to be projected will include the projection of the terminology that will help in better
commencing of the entire project. The responsibility of the crisis analysis is to analyze the
crisis that are present in the completion of the project and this helps in understanding then
entire process of increasing efficiency in functioning the project.
3. Make -up and responsibility of crisis management team: Crisis management team
is a set of well-trained employees who are responsible for the management of the crisis that
occur during the completion of the task. This is the reason that the 6ask that is to be
completed requires the projection of the task management and this is the reason that the crisis
management team finds such high importance in the processing of the data management
process (Booth, 2015). The team of this management requires a leader that portrays the crisis

11ISSUES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
that might occur during the completion of the project. This is the reason that the projection of
the task as are completed with least crisis possible in the core of the project feasibility and
sustainability of the project.in case the team o the crisis management is not very efficient In
entire it is very obvious that the projection of the task will not be performed with higher
efficiency. This is the reason that education in the field of data management the crisis
proclamation area is very important.
4. Arrangement for crisis control and media centers: Arrangement of the crisis
control and the media center includes the fact that the crisis management team that is present
in the organization is responsible for the projection of the data management that are required
or the mitigation of the crisis that reoccurring in the course of data management. The
arrangement that are required for the projection of the crisis management will require
extensive quality check of the Coca Cola products as the product that is served in the process
of generalizing of the data management, the product will it serve its purpose to the ultimate
level as the quality that the product is providing is not very high and the acceptance of the
product will gradually decrease (Coombs, 2014). This is the reason that the project
management will be processed with the help of the data correlation and the process is termed
under the heading of arrangement of the crisis control
5. Emergency contact list: Preparing of the contact list must be processed with the
help of the personnel’s that are involved in the commencing of the project. The main fact that
the requirement of the contact, it is important as the Coca Cola Company needs to gain access
to the documentation includes the better man management system. In case the contacts of the
employees of Coca Cola is present the projection of the project gets easier as they will be
having a detail regarding the completion of the project. This is the reason that the keeping
contacts gets important. In this crisis the contact details of the employees who are interlinked