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Case Study

The Cola-Cola company

By John W. Walsh and Alyson Woolfrey

34 pages

December 2008

Reference: IMD-5-0741

When E. Neville Isdell returned to The Coca Cola Company (TCCC) as CEO in 2004, he brought a vision for change and sustainable growth. Working with his senior management team, he created the “manifesto for growth” which defined sustainable growth in terms of profit, people, partners, portfolio and planet, providing ten-year objectives for each. In 2005, Muhtar Kent, a 28-year veteran of the Coca-Cola System, was appointed president and COO. He was destined to succeed Isdell. When he took the reins of TCCC in July 2008, he was faced with an increasingly complex and evolving environment: sensitive bottler relationships within the System, potentially dynamic growth in emerging markets, evolving consumer tastes, changing shopper behavior, a retail landscape that was consolidating in ownership and innovating in formats, shifting competitive dynamics, and a growing portfolio of products, acquired companies and partnerships. TCCC, as a total non-alcoholic beverage company, faced a new set of challenges and an unclear destiny as it moved forth in the 21st century. How should TCCC innovate, and more generally, how could it accelerate sustainable growth? And, how would its competitors – its old rival Pepsico and the plethora of others with smaller scale and more-focused product and/or geographic scope – address the same issues?

Learning Objective

The objective of the case is to 1) illustrate all important aspects of “The Coca-Cola System”, that is the relationship The Coca-Cola Company has with its network of bottlers; 2) outline The Coca-Cola Company’s historical success in sparkling beverages and its recent major moves into non-sparkling categories, 3) describe options facing The Coca-Cola Company are it strives for continued growth.

Keywords

Franchising, Growth

Settings

World/global
2005-2008

Type

Published Sources

Available Languages

English

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This case study is part of a series

The Cola-Cola company
The Cola-Cola company (Abridged)

This case study is part of a series

The Cola-Cola company
The Cola-Cola company (Abridged)

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