Globalization and the Coca-Cola Company

Introduction

The Coca-Cola company is an American multinational corporation, and manufacturer, retailer and marketer of nonalcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. It is one of the most renowned brands in the world and the world’s most valuable beverage plan with over 500 beverage brands and 4300 products worldwide. The Coca-Cola Brand has become a symbol of globalization- and a fast fact on coca cola brand is that it is the most recognized phrase world-wide after “OK”.

I think the Coca-Cola company operates as a “multi-local” business operation as a form of global strategy dealing with insights of local bottling partners and allow its business operations across 200+ countries and territories and act accordingly to their local need, local laws, local cultures and so on, allowing for different packages, distribution and media that are important to a particular country or geographical area. The Coca-Cola company being the same global product but different locally. This is just saying, if the local colleague develops a plan or strategy and it is the right thing to do for the community as well as it fits within the fundamental values, policies, and standard of integrity and quality of the Coca-Cola company, then they have the authority and responsibility to do so. At the same time they will be accountable for the outcomes of the strategy or idea. But I also feel this type of strategy can affect the Coca-Cola brand like if there is a crisis in a particular country, this can affect other regions and territories an example is the Coca-Cola Belgium crisis where people began falling ill after consumption of the product and where people in other regions started panicking and Coca-Cola had to reassure customers in other regions that the products made in their factories were safe and had to develop a crisis management strategy.

Coca-Cola Globalization

I feel the Coca-Cola brand has embraced technology in the sense of globalization compared to the traditional method of using newspapers, radio etc. The internet being an ideal medium for globalization, given its capacity for expanding geographic locations, they have used the internet for extensive corporate communications between themselves and the public and manage their resources and image on a global scale. An example where the use of technology was demonstrated by Coca-Cola was to break into the Chinese market by making a website for coca cola in Chinese and this wasn’t the translation of the English website and  so this shows that the website is designed to address and cater for the taste of the local Chinese publics.

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Coca-Cola has also embraced the use of technology in terms of marketing with its marketing initiatives and socializing with the general public by partnering or sponsoring with major events, organizations and projects around the world which includes American Idol, Apple iTunes, BET Network, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA, Olympic Games, FIFA and recently just embarked on a “share a coke” campaign whereby it swapped out its logo with names of individuals and consumers were encouraged to find bottles with names that meant something to them and share their experiences by the use of social media with the hashtag #ShareaCoke helping them connect with consumers on a personal level and also the consumers helping them to create online media content

Coca-Cola also uses corporate websites in terms of public relations as it enables stakeholders to seek information on the brand and also gives the brand the opportunity to gather information on the region like customer feedbacks. Coca-Cola home websites has 3 links, one linked to “Coca-Cola company”, one linked to “Coca-Cola in the USA”, one linked to “Coca-Cola worldwide” which provides links to 94 countries and regions in the world which signifies it’s global orientation and its global market and also the use of social media for advertisement, data mining tracking how it’s product is being represented across the world giving them insights into who is consuming their drinks, where their customers are, and in what situations prompted them to talk about their products and also the use of artificial intelligence as a technology tool to spot when pictures of their products and uses algorithms to determine the best way to serve them as advertisement.

I feel some of the challenges the Coca-Cola brand might face in terms of technology could be due to illiteracy of some regions and unwillingness to embrace and adopt new practices of the internet and might find it difficult to break into such regions or territories.

The word social means relating to society or its organization. With respect to Coca-Cola in the social context my perspective would be how Coca-Cola as a company related with the people in the society and the effect it has had on the general public. Based on the video and extra materials, I could see that the major reason for expansion was as a result of its social state. Using catching phrases that appeal to the public like “demand the genuine”, “accept no substitutes”, “Things go better with coke” and so much more was a form of interaction with the public as well as a unique form of advertisement.

Another major social exploit was the sale of coke to uniform men for 5 cents as a symbol  of friendship and listening to the request of the public by creating varieties of different other products in different shapes and sizes to provide satisfaction for its customers and therefore created some sort of emotional attachment between the company and its customers.

Carrying out Social responsibilities in communities like recycling of their bottles, starting a  water stewardship programs in the quest to achieve a “water-sustainable” business as water is one of the main ingredient as this can become a challenge in water-stressed area.

A challenge I feel the Coca-Cola company faced was the high level of social status made them vulnerable to imitating and production of similar products. And I also feel, while their motivations seem to be primarily driven by the need to maintain a resource for its supply chain inputs (e.g., to maintain commercial sustainability), I do believe that the outcomes of their actions are resulting in a greater good for the world. Although the efforts seem to still be under development, with figuring out a way to create socially responsible water in a method that is good for the community as well, in the long run, this is an issue that human kind will need to solve, and it is refreshing to see corporate capital being put towards it.

Conclusion

In Conclusion, I think the factors discussed earlier in class all contributes to the development and the globalization of the Coca-Cola company and cannot exist on its own. Though the development is progressing rapidly, still many basic problems like corruption, political instability remains unsolved

References

• Tian, Y., 2006. Communicating with local publics: a case study of Coca-Cola’s Chinese web site. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 11(1), pp.13-22.
• Johnson, V. and Peppas, S.C., 2003. Crisis management in Belgium: the case of Coca-Cola. Corporate Communications: an international journal, 8(1), pp.18-22.
• Svensson, G., 2001. “Glocalization” of business activities: a “glocal strategy” approach. Management decision, 39(1), pp.6-18.
• Sustainability of CocaCola pdf