Coca-Cola From Then To Now Coca-Cola enterprises Incorporated is a giant company that employs 66,199, operates 444 facilities, uses 47,235 vehicles, 1.9 million pieces of cold drink equipment and sold nearly 5.1 billion cases all over the world (Coca-Cola facts 99). These numbers are very impressive, and Coca-Cola may be the most powerful company in the world. An, Atlanta Pharmacist Dr. John Slyth Pemberton founded Coca-Cola on May 8, 1886. The drink was made with the caramel colored ingredients, coca leaves, kola nuts and a little something I like to call narcotics.
The drink was first designed as a drug that will help people feel better. For five cents, you could enjoy a refreshing drink, and get laced into wit some potent drugs. These days, a crackheads dream, and also a sick reality. Some time later carbonated water was added to the syrup and that is how Coca-Cola was invented. Dr. Pemberton sold Coca-Cola out of the pharmacy he worked at.
The pharmacy was owned by, a man named Frank M. Robinson. Robinson suggested Coca-Cola as a name for Pemberton’s drink. The two men made a sign and hung it in the window saying Drink Coca-Cola. They sold around 9 cups of their drink a day.
In 1886 Pemberton became sick and sold his interests, and shares to Asa G. Candler. In 1888 Pemberton died, and Asa Candler bought the outstanding shares. Candler was an Atlanta drug salesman and businessman. Candler had a feeling Coke was going to be big.
He had complete control by 1891 for twenty-three hundred dollars. In 1892, Candler, his brother John Candler, Frank Robinson, and two other associates formed Coca-Cola Company in Georgia. Candler was a master at marketing. He handed out coupons for one free glass of Coca-Cola. He also promoted the beverage by painted walls, Clocks, outdoor posters, serving trays and fountain urns. Candlers marketing strategy worked, and soon Coke was available everywhere.
The sales sky rocketed. People started calling Coca-Cola Coke They urged the customers to call it by its full name, but Coke just stuck. In 1894, the company opened its first syrup manufacturing plant outside Atlanta in Dallas Texas. The following year plants opened in Chicago and Los Angeles.
Three years after the Coca-Cola Company’s incorporation Candler announced in the annual report: Coca-Cola in the now drank in every state and territory in the United States (History of Coca-Cola Company). Joseph A. Biedenharn, of Vicksburg, Mississippi installed bottling machinery in his candy store in 1894 and became the first person to bottle Coca-Cola in the United States. Candler sold the Coca-Cola Company in 1919 for $25 million to an Atlanta banker named Ernest Woodruff . In 1923 E. Woodruff’s 33-year-old son Robert Woodruff was elected president of Coca-Cola Company.
The Business was re-incorporated as a Delaware corporation, and 500,000 shares of common stock were sold publicly for $40 per shares. Robert Woodruff bought Coca-Cola Company to even greater highs for more then six decades. In 1960, the Coca-Cola Company purchased minute Maid Corporation; adding frozen citrus juice concentrates along with the trademarks minute maid and Hi-C to the company’s beverage line. The company later acquired Duncan foods, a coffee producer, and formed the Coca- Cola company foods Division in 1967, now known as the Minute Maid Company.
From 1977-1983 the company produced and marketed wine in the United States. In 1982 Coca -Cola company bought Belmont Spring Water company Incorporated. Coca- Cola thought the Entertainment business would be good for them so, in 1982, the company acquired Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc, which joined Tri Star Pictures in 1987, to form the independent corporation Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc. Coca-Cola then sold Belmont Springs Water Company, Inc.
1989, closing out a decade of accelerated growth and change. In 1981 Roberto Goizueta a Cuban born chemical engineer rejuvenated the business. Although Coca-Cola had dabbled on several industries over the years, Goizueta engineered the largest of this diversification; the $700 million acquisition of Columbia pictures in 1982. In 1985, Coke changed its original recipe because the price of shares fell, but the “New Coke” bombed big time.
The company was forced to change back to the original recipe. In 1986, it consolidated the U.S. bottling operation it owned into Coca-Cola Enterprises and sold 51% of the new company to the public. In 1997, Robert Goizueta died of lung Cancer. While Robert was in the company, the value rose from 4 billion dollars to 145 billion dollars. Douglas Ivester, the architect of Coca-Cola’s restructured bottling operations, took over the company when Guizueta past away.
Coca- Cola and Ivester ran into some legal problems when Ivester took over. In 1997, the French government blocked the company from trying to buy Orangina from Peknod Ricard. Then in 1998, an antitrust lawsuit from Pepsi – Cola challenged Coca-Cola’s dominance in the U.S. fountain -drink business. In June of 1999, products bottled where shut down for two weeks because some of the bottles where contaminated in Belgium and France. This was the company largest product recall in the company’s history.
Corporate Culture The Coca-Cola Company provides assistance to American Red Cross and Big Brother Big Sister. These are just a few of the noble acts the Coca-Cola Company has become involved in over the years. Coca-Cola is a leading company, which will continue to grow in all respects. Most importantly, it will grow because of the company’s value system, and quality for not only its product but also life.
The company offers a great 401k plan, with a full range of options. The first benefit that may attract an employee to work for Coke is their company-paid coverage. This would include basic life insurance, basic long-term disability and health insurance. Retirement, Pension, and Other Post Retirement Benefit Plans For retirement, the company offers a 401k savings plan with matching company contributions, an employee pension plan, and retiree medical and life insurance.
The company offers all of their employees some paid time off. This time off would include sick pay or short-term disability, vacations, and holidays. The company also provides an opportunity for employees to receive flexible benefits. These options would be medical coverage, including vision and prescription drugs, dental coverage, health care and dependent care reimbursement accounts, supplemental long-term disability insurance and supplemental and dependent life insurance.
Coca-Cola also provides educational assistance and employee assistance programs. Employees have access to a variety of health management programs such as on site health club, cholesterol/blood pressure screenings and other wellness programs. Coca-Cola provides a variety of benefit pension plans covering all of its employees in North America and Europe. Additionally, the company is involved in a number of multi-employer pension plans worldwide. Coca-Cola also sponsors a post-retirement plan that covers substantially all of American and Canadian employees who qualify before retirement or termination.
In European Countries, primarily government-sponsored programs cover retired Workers. The total pension expenses for all benefit plans, including post-retirement health care and life insurance benefit plans, amounting to approximately $119 million in 1998. In addition, they also contribute to a voluntary beneficiary association trust, which will be used to partially fund health care benefits for future retired employees. Seeing how Coca-Cola employs thousands of people, they try to increase scouting their young employee’s talent for potentially higher positions. These people start their jobs in front line beverage sales, distribution, production, or service positions. The biggest thing Coke is looking for is long term thinkers, says one insider, They don’t want cowboys.
They want conservative people who are into adding shareholder values (Coke insider, Investors Business Daily Coca-Cola). In 1994, the Coca-Cola Company was awarded the Optimas Award for global outlook in success for developing the standardized corporate culture. The company maintained a long-standing commitment to equal opportunity, affirmative action, and valuing the diversity of their consumers. The company’s aim to create a working environment free of discrimination and harassment with respect to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, sexual orientation, disability, being a special disabled veteran. They also have commitment to make reasonable accommodations in the employment of men and women who are qualified with disabilities.
In addition, it tries to create a working environment free of discrimination and harassment with respect to sex and sexual orientation. Even more important, the company maintains an open door policy where employee related issues could be raised freely. The whole idea of the open door policy is to provide an effective and timely means for all company associates to find solutions to work related questions, problems, and concerns that may effect the culture of the organization. The company has management programs for potential management and people already in the management program. Managers and associates work together on the development process.
This process includes determining development needs and agreeing on the development methods. The approach to development may include on-the-job experience, specific training programs, and other approaches to the development of the company. Feedback is an essential factor in the appraisal process. It will prepare the associates for future business needs. This is all part of there equal Opportunity Policy, Employees are trained extensively nation wide.
Coke provides its South African divisions with programs to university students with the opportunity to learn new business skills by working within the company. These specific programs allow employees to further build new skills, while it also allows employees to build skills for the first time. The skills the employee’s posses aid the company in share-owner value. The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s largest bottler of liquid nonalcoholic refreshment in which they produce, market, and distributes their products in nearly 200 countries throughout the world.
Each day these countries consume 100 billion servings of Coca-Cola products which stresses the importance of the valuable service that Coca-Cola’s distribution and bottling centers provide for the company. The World’s most effective and pervasive distribution system is broken up into two different sectors which are then divided even further into sub-units such as the following: 1.) The North American Sector – Coca-Cola USA [which operates in the U.S.] – Coca-Cola LTD [responsible for soft drink operations in Canada.] – Houston Base Coca-Cola Foods [produces and markets juices and juice like drinks.] 2.) The International Business Sector – The Greater Europe Group [manages the regions that are part of the European Union.] Central & Eastern Europe * Scandinavia * Soviet Union – The Latin American Group Overseas * Mexico * Central & South America – The Middle and Far East Group * Asia & Pacific Rim * Middle East – The Sub Sahara African Group * Manages any countries below the Sahara Desert. This distribution system provides the backbone needed to support the company and help them remain competitive in the cold-beverage industry. The company is always striving to maintain quality products while maximizing customer satisfaction. Distribution has become an intricate part of the companies success in being able to successfully produce quality products that are delivered and sold around the globe in a cost effective and time efficient manner. Coca-Cola’s North American Distribution Sector deserves to be mentioned first, because this is the region in the world where the Coca-Cola empire first evolved and continues to prosper and grow.
Coke has become an American icon that has managed to transform itself from a profitable fountain soda into a generational product that Americans have grown to love. The North American Sector operates under DSD policies (Direct Store Delivery) inwhich the products are delivered to the store directly from the distribution center. This is in an effort to maximize profits and maintain a quality image for their products freshness. By contract with the Coca-Cola Company or it’s local subsidiaries, local businesses are authorized to bottle and sell company soft drinks within certain territorial boundaries and under conditions that ensure the highest standards of quality and uniformity.
This affiliation is being created by Coca-Cola’s Project Infinity, which is being implemented by upper management to consolidate independent bottlers in an effort to cut costs, pool resources, generate more buying power, improve overall communication throughout the organization, and increase profits. This strategic alliance allows the company to produce products that taste consistently good, contain the same amount of ingredients, are packaged interchangeable, and are stocked and served to the customer in a systematic way all across the country. One of the main components of Project Infinity is an application for sales and distribution that Coca-Cola built for the bottling companies years ago, called Basis (Beverage, Analytical, Sales, Information, Systems), which is used for routing delivery trucks and determining specific customer needs in terms of volume. In addition Basis serves other functions as well including such responsibilities as accounting, logging in order entries, and payments.
Basis is the central piece of Coca-Cola’s distribution center because it is used primarily as their dispatching and replenishing system. Without Basis Coca-Cola would be unable to keep track of their inventory and supplies, which would eventually have a dissolving effect on their overall internal structure. Unfortunately, Coke realizes that their dominance in the cold-beverage industry will not continue unless they come up with new innovative ways to remain competitive in a global market. Therefore Coca-Cola is installing a massive integrative system called SAP Applications (Strategic Alliance Program) which will eventually replace the outdated Basis.
This program is designed to share knowledge with each bottler and set up common systems and applications that are integrated with each and every bottler within the Coca-Cola organization. SAP is in the beginning stages of development, but Coca-Cola plans on using SAP for multi purposes which include keeping track of their financial data, purchasing, human-resources management, …
