Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand
In a wide-ranging interview, the former CEO and chairman of The Coca-Cola Company, Neville Isdell, discusses his decision to take on the role of CEO after he had already retired from the company; the inherent challenges of working with a world-famous brand; and how Africa is the final frontier for business. In a sidebar to the interview, Coca-Cola's VP of Innovation, David Butler, describes the wide variety of global initiatives Coca-Cola is undertaking to make Isdell's vision of 'Connected Capitalism' a reality.
Authors :: Neville Isdell, Karen Christensen, David Butler
Swot Analysis of "Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand" written by Neville Isdell, Karen Christensen, David Butler includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Coca Cola facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Strategy and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Coca Cola, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Coca Cola operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Coca Cola
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Coca Cola
Strengths Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Coca Cola in Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Coca Cola is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management
– Coca Cola is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Coca Cola is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Neville Isdell, Karen Christensen, David Butler can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Coca Cola digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Coca Cola has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Coca Cola in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Coca Cola has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Coca Cola to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Coca Cola has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Coca Cola has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Coca Cola in the sector have low bargaining power. Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Coca Cola to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Coca Cola is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Coca Cola are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Coca Cola is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand are -
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Neville Isdell, Karen Christensen, David Butler suggests that, Coca Cola is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Coca Cola, firm in the HBR case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Coca Cola is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand HBR case study mentions - Coca Cola takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Coca Cola 's lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand, in the dynamic environment Coca Cola has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Coca Cola has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Coca Cola needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Coca Cola is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Coca Cola has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Coca Cola has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Opportunities Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand are -
Manufacturing automation
– Coca Cola can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Coca Cola can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Coca Cola operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Leadership & Managing People sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Coca Cola can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Coca Cola can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Coca Cola in the consumer business. Now Coca Cola can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Coca Cola can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Leadership & Managing People segment.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Coca Cola has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Coca Cola to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Coca Cola to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Coca Cola to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Coca Cola can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Coca Cola to increase its market reach. Coca Cola will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Coca Cola can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Loyalty marketing
– Coca Cola has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Coca Cola has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Coca Cola to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand case study. Coca Cola can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Leadership & Managing People industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Coca Cola can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand, Coca Cola may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Coca Cola in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Coca Cola demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Coca Cola
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Coca Cola.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Coca Cola has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Coca Cola needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Coca Cola can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Coca Cola.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Coca Cola high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Coca Cola can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand .
Environmental challenges
– Coca Cola needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Coca Cola can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Coca Cola in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Coca Cola with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Coca Cola will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Inside Coca-Cola: The Evolution of an Iconic Brand is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Coca Cola needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.