Coca Cola Essay

Organizations need to change and adopt dynamic survival strategies to stay alive in uncertain political, social and economic environment (Hiatt and Creasy, 2003). All environmental factors present in the nature experience change on continuous basis. Human nature resists change, so managing that resistance requires well planned change management strategies. A structured approach to transfer organization, its people and processes from current state to a desired future state is called change management. This process gives employees the ability to accept changes in the existing environment of the business. Change can be of different type for example, change in technology, operations or strategies etc. company needs to implement individual strategies to cope with each type of change. Coca Cola Corporation is among one of the oldest corporations of the world. It has gone through many internal and external changes since it has been in existence. The company has used techniques of change management in order to survive from the consequences of those events. Coca Cola is a type of company that requires making changes in its products and business strategies according to the consumer expectations and external environment. Here in this study we would quote different examples from coca cola corporation’s history and will examine that what were the triggering events for opting the change and what strategies the company developed and implemented in order to successfully going through the transitioning process. Coca Cola is a type of company that requires making changes in its products and business strategies according to the consumer expectations and external environment. Here in this study we would quote different examples from coca cola corporation’s history and will examine that what were the triggering events for opting the change and what strategies the company developed and implemented in order to successfully going through the transitioning process. It is a well known fact that Coca Cola Corporation is an entrepreneurial venture started by one person who bought the formula from another firm and laid foundations of that beverages manufacturing firm. Current structure of the coca cola company is simple with minimal labor and management division. New system that can be adopted by the company may be the â€Å"machine bureaucracy† which has been defined as an organization with clearly defined hierarchy, well defined area of operations, standard operating procedures, proper rules and regulations, well division of labor, formal relationships among the member of organization, centralized decision making, technical competence and standardization of work. The company has faced a lot of external changes, for example in world war II, the company was able to manage its existing position at that time and also entered in many new markets and discovered new niches. The company established 64 plants across the world to supply drinks to the troops (Coca Cola Company, 2006-2011). The company also provided free drinks to soldiers which were the part of its strategy to become a patriotic symbol for the people of the country. Also it boosted the sales, so the company achieved two objectives by carefully planning to respond to that external environmental change. The plants developed by the company in war era helped its expansion after the war. The recent change management at coca cola is directed towards the intrinsic values and motivations of the employees and can be referred to as ‘employee engagement’. The change management process, together with internal branding programs is expected to bring about ideal behaviors in employees, which would align the operations of coca cola worldwide, and bring about efficiency throughout coca cola across all its business segments. Coca Cola Company can use two change management tools to make sure that all people who are required to be the part of change management process. These tools are Force Field analysis and AKADAR model. Force field analysis is a technique developed by Kurt Lewin to scrutinize the forces that are causing an opposition to change process (Bass, 2009). By doing Force Field Analysis, Coca Cola Company will be able to induct people who are in need of appropriate training. Another useful tool is AKADAR model which stands for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. Through AKDAR model, firm creates awareness about the need of change, generate desire in the people to help in transitioning process, give knowledge to the people that how they can help the change process, develop an ability in the people to go through the change and provide them with continuous reinforcement to withstand the change (CMLR, 2011). Coca cola hopes to bring about a thoroughly integrated system of communications, and focus on creating brand relationships with their employees. This would enhance the operations of Coca cola, as an integrated approach would mean all employees believe in engaging fully in the values, and this would become an inherent part of the employees at a personal level. For this purpose, employee engagement surveys are conducted twice every year for all the coca cola associates, which serve to highlight the areas where action is required, and further actions and implementations can henceforth be executed. Employee engagement is very significant to all segments of operations at coca-cola and has translated into performance in areas where employee engagement is higher. For coca-cola, an engaged workforce means: A more committed workforce Employee performance aligned with organizational objectives Employees have a clear idea of what is expected of them and what are the deliverables Customer experience focuses an inherent part of employees’ values, who strives to provide a better experience to the customers. Customer focus was identified as a central tenant of the multi-year engagement strategy to be implemented in 2011(Gee, 2011) Change in inevitable. Therefore, the focus should not be on avoiding change, rather bringing about a smooth transition towards the new change by communication about the change, and ensuring all parties of the change that it is for the best of all those involved. To successfully implement organizational change of any nature, a specific regards to organizational structure, design, culture, management and leadership is required to see whether the change would make a best fit with the organizational goals and objectives. To conclude, it may be said that communication can be a key element to successful change management. Communicate the changes to the employees, tell them why the change was inevitable and how they will benefit from the change. The management should itself adopt a positive attitude towards the change so that employees can follow their lead and welcome the change. Coca-cola as a company has a heritage of embracing change rather than resist it and it should translate into their future endeavors towards change management to ensure that the organization is best poised to market and environmental conditions.