Case Study on Coca cola Corporation

Why change management is important in any

organisation? And what are the reasons of
adopting change in organisation?
The need for change in an organization is often created by external and internal
factors, where external ones encompass governmental laws, labor markets, market
conditions, economin scenario etc. and internal factors are the workforce, resources,
attitudes of workers and strategy adopted by the organization

Reasons of adopting change

Organizations need change for the following reasons:

 To respond to the rapidly changing environment

 To improve the overall performance of the company
 To rapidly respond to the customers’ demands
 To improve the effectiveness and efficiency
 To increase the employee performance
 To create the best practices inside the organization and setting standards for
the industry
 To improve profitability and return on overall investment

Change management is needed for organizational survival. So the company should

adopt to change management techniques in order to maintain its worth in the
industry.

Why Coca cola adopted change management

techniques and when?
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.
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

Strategies Coca cola Use to adopt change :

Barton et al (2002) reported that Coca Cola Corporation adopted acquisition strategy
in time of Asian financial crisis. The company acquired bottling, coffee and tea shop
businesses in Korea and Malaysia. Beverage is a type of industry where tastes and
preferences of the consumers change on continuous basis. Coca Cola Company also
responded to such consumer changing behaviors in an effective way by developing
new products like Diet Coke and Coca Cola Zero.

The coco cola company used theory of organization change presented by Kotler
(1996) which elaborated the procedure to manage change on the people dimension
of the organization. In addition to making operational and strategic changes, the
company also changed its advertising strategy by targeting various groups of
consumers like American consumers, African consumers, Middle and far eastern
consumers and European consumers. The company altered the packaging of its coca
cola brand and developed more product lines and broadened them globally

Change management process In coca cola :

According to “Lewin’s 3 step model”, change is “episodic” i.e. it can be easily planned
into three stages:

1. “Unfreezing
2. Changing
3. Freezing

Managers at Coca Cola Company can motivate workforce in the “unfreezing” stage
by informing them about the vitality of change being planned in context of
organization benefits. Training to the staff members can make them more adept at
accepting the transformational stage.

In the “changing phase” the company can initiate practical steps with regard to the
strategic plan for change. It can be achieved by developing strong relationships and
offering rewards.

“Refreezing” phase allows Coca Cola Corporation to make recently innovated change
a part of their strategy so that workforce does not get back to the previously used
operational methods of the organization
Coca-cola believes that their business results hinge on the dedication of their
employees to operational excellence. The company truly recognizes the importance
of the people to the business, and knows that to continue to bring about
tremendous results it is bringing in, employees throughout the world should believe
in the values intrinsically, and therefore the employee engagement is being focused
on all the countries the company serves to align, thoroughly integrate and align the
company so that operational efficiency can be achieved.

Importance of change to coca cola:

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

Conclusion :
Coca cola is one of the most oldest and well known corporations working for
beverages since 1892. Change in any organisation is very important because of
dynamic environment and external and internal factors company face. Coca cola
adopted different strategies to adopt the change in the organisation and successfully
adopted and implemented change in the organization with the change of time .It
clearly shows how any organisation should understand the need of change and how
it should be implemented in the organisation for its success