Operational Strategy of the Coca-Cola Company - Assignment Example

Operations Management Assignment This work reports the study of the Coca-Cola Company on how it has been managing its business using its set operational strategy. On this work, I will look at the functions of the organization, their functional structure or relationship within the organization, reconstruct their operation strategy with respect to the four perspectives of operation strategy that is marketing, evaluation of operational, resource and sustainability. It also presents the flow process of Coke, one of the products of the company. According to Henry and Quinn (1992) “Operation strategy is how the operations function contributes to competitive advantage.” (p.89). It addresses the question of how the organizational resources can be used to achieve the set organizational objectives. An organizational strategy indicates on how the organization can prioritize and utilize effectively and efficiently its resources so as to gain competitive advantage in the market. Question 1 The Coca-Cola Company has been chosen for this work due to its popularity globally and therefore rich in information to support this study. Besides , it is the world’s leading manufacturer of soft drinks with very many products to choose from, for example, Diet coke, Sprite, Fanta, Minute maid to mention a few. Coca-Cola Company operated in many countries in the world which are approximately over 200 countries. Coca-Cola was invented by Dr. John S. Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia in 1886. It was first made by mixing Coca-Cola syrup with carbonated soda in Jacobs Pharmacy in Atlanta and then sold as a soda fountain. In 1893, the company was incorporated in United States, and more investment was done to expand the company. Since then, Coca-Cola Company has various functions to do so as to penetrate the market. The various functions were; administration, marketing, packaging, finance, research and development, sales and human resource management. These functions are discussed as follows; Fist, the administration function, is one of the major functions in the Coca-Cola Company. It is essential for ensuring that the company keeps going, and its set objectives are met as stipulated in its plan. It operates as a help support to the company. It ensures that all business operations are organized to prevent conflict of roles and tasks in the organization. It is the communication center for the organization as it receives and disseminates the information to other functional areas. It also does enquiries, produces documents and liaises with the public to create good company reputation. It handles the customers’ problems and gives them the appropriate information that they need. In addition, the problems are transferred to the research and development department to ensure the products better or solve their problems so that the company’s objectives are met (Slack & Lewis 2008). The administration is left with the task of overseeing the overall performance of the organization. Second, is the marketing function, which is creating awareness of a product, attracting and maintaining the customers. The Coca-Cola Company at the Atlanta develops strategies for the company brands which are applicable to all other branches in the world so that all communications across the globe is consistent in every market. For this reason, the Coca-Cola Company ensures maximum utilization of its resources for marketing leadership. The marketing departments are responsible for advertising, promoting and marketing the various brands of the company so that it realizes profitable growth and to achieve its established objectives. Third function of the Coca-Cola Company is a finance function. This involves financial recording, measurement, investing and reporting the operations outcome to the owners of the company inform of financial statements. It keeps a record of money received and paid by the organization. Final statements are used by the shareholders of the company to see the company performance. It is also responsible for the management accounts of the business. Other areas that the financial looks at are making the budgets for the company and other departments and are also involved in planning the process for the company. Fourth function is packaging. This is one of the functions that the operational strategy as been dwelling on so much. It involves on how the products should be packaged to make them unique from the competitors’ products. The packaging of the Coca-Cola products has been changing all along with the customers’ perception and preference. It ensures that the products are attractive soaps to meet the eyes of the customer. Bringing new products package is their responsibility. Besides it works with the company bottling partners to produce attractive packages (Harris 1992). Last is the sales function. It is involved in coordinating sales program, and other functions such as distribution decide on the amount to sell and amount to keep in the store, choosing the appropriate method of transport which is faster and reliable. The last function and the most crucial to the operation strategy is the research and development. Its responsibility is to do more research on the existing and the new products. It works towards bringing new products into the market so as to maintain or increase customer satisfaction. Improving quality is also one of its functions. Te Coca-Cola company has done a lot of research and recently launched new products such has minute maid, fanta tropical, fanta blackcurrant, fanta raspberry and many others. Question 2 Question 2 Coca cola’s operation strategy is to keep growing its core brands , to ensure that the company is respectful corporate citizen, provide value to its customers, recognize the value of its associates and focus on the growing the overall profits from the beverage category. The reconstructed operational strategy of the company based on the evaluation of operational, resource, market, and sustainability requirements with reference to the four perspectives on operations strategy are as discussed below. To begin with the operational requirement of the coca cola company is to use the knowledge gained from day to day activities as it is illustrated in the Bottom Down operations perspective. This form of perspective as explained by Slack et al (2009, pp.19-22) involves operations improvement cumulatively building a strategy. It is further explained by Slack and Lewis in (2008, p.9) as the perspective that shapes a firms operations from knowledge it gains from the day to day activities. This can be reconstructed by ensuring that the company offers strong brand portfolio so as to gain more knowledge from the customers and then use those knowledge to gain or capture growth in different markets. It may also do so by creating collaborative customer relationship. This will deepen customer relationship hence providing more information to the business which would be used to develop good customer satisfaction and good competitive edge. The organizational strategy may be reconstructed by looking at the organizations resources. The resource based view, one of the perspectives of operations shows that an organization inherits, acquires, or develops its operation resources as explained by Slack at el (2009) “…is the way an organization inherits, acquires, or develops its operations resources over the long term as it will have a significant impact on its strategic success” (p.19). Some of the resources that the coca cola company needs so as consider are managerial expertise. The company should focus on the management quality as the key element of its operations strategy and should remain committed to fostering development of quality management at all levels. Offer management training programs to enhance management capabilities. It should also ensure maximum operating potential. The company should optimize the manufacturing and distribution capacity to maximize its operations efficiency, and it should rely on the state of the operations to ensure effective and efficient use of resources for the benefit of the organization. The other factor to evaluate in reconstruction of the organizations strategy is the market. According to the market requirement perspective as it is put by Slack et al (2009) is an organization trying to satisfy the recruitment of its market. The company should create flexible sales and distribution models depending on the geographic condition and profile so as to attract more customers. Ensuring market leadership, this can be done by setting appropriate prices and quantity before their competitors so as to gain big market share. It should also use channel marketing; this is through classifying the market and develop targeted effort for each consumer segment also to tailor the products, price and packaging strategies to meet the particular needs of the customers and the market. The sustainability is another factor to evaluate in reconstructing the operations strategy. This is more illustrated by the top down perspective, which has to do with what all group and the business want to do. According to Hill (2000), “This can also be called corporate strategy, and it concerns the business as a whole in terms of industrial or service sector in which it wishes to compete” (p.6). Therefore, the company should ensure sustainable development. They should continue to develop programs that ensure economic and social value establishment by looking at the employees’ ability and what they can achieve in the long run. Question 3 Flow process map of diet coke. The second process of the flow map can be improved or should be improved because it is a major process that determines the success of all process. The products, coke and the syrup should be checked for it quality before being filled into the bottles for further production of diet coke to guarantee good quality. This is shown in the diagram as below. The appropriate bottles created for the diet coke should also be checked in the second stage to prevent misunderstanding among the various products that are being produced by the company. This can be ensured if there is initial check-up before coke and the syrup are filled in the bottles. References Harris D, and Walter D, 1992, Retail operations management, Prentice Hall. Hill T, 2000, Operations management: strategic context and managerial analysis, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Henry Mintzberg and J.B Quinn, 1992, The strategy process: concept and contents, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Slack N, and Lewis M, 2008, Operations strategy, 2nd Ed, Essex: FT Prentice Hall. Slack N, Johnston R, Brando-Jones A, 2011, Essentials of operation management, Financial Times: Prentice Hall. Slack N, Chambers S, and Johnston r, 2013, Operations management, Financial times. Read More