ASSIGNMENT 2

CHANGE MANAGEMENT
CASE STUDY - COCA COLA
CORPORATION

Change management in Coca Cola Corporation

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.
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. 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.
Coca Cola Company also responded to consumer changing behaviors in effective way by developing new
products like Diet Coke and Coca Cola Zero. The company also committed a marketing blender when a
rival company launched a black beverage with comparatively sweet and smooth taste. The product was
named as new Coke. But the sales gradually went down and company faced severe consumer critics and
protests. The company managed this situation very commendably by restoring the old formula and naming
the bottle as diet coke (Kotler and Armstrong, 2010). As people are becoming more health conscious and
willing to invest on health based products, coca cola is developing juices and various energy drinks as well.
This shows the companys strategy to responding varying consumer tastes and expectations and changing
itself according to it.
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.
The well known CEO of coca cola Corporation Mr. Gouizetta who remained CEO of the company for
seventeen years determined and solved the problem in manufacturing of drinks. He was the one who
appointed talented human resource like Ivester who took great part in covering the weaknesses and
exploiting the opportunities for the company.
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
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.
Changes Suggested :

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.

First of all the company should ascertain the core problems exist in the company for the change
management. The company may develop a change management program for responding to financially
uncertain environment of the world. It can also develop change management programs for better operations
and logistics. The company can introduce new procedures and technological systems to carry out operations.
Programs can be introduced in forms changing companys mission and corporate culture enhancements.
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).
Systems thinking can be used to guide the successful change in the organization. The model is based on
an integrative and interactive open system which consists of the variables, attributes, internal relations and
environment. The system is based on characteristics like wholeness, interdependence, chain of influence,
need for balance and adaptability etc in an open system where communication is seen as an integrated
process that facilitates change within the organization.
Establishing new structure : 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 machine bureaucracy
which Henry Mintzberg (1992) 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.
Develop strategies to reduce employee defiance to change. Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) explained six
strategies which can be useful for coca cola Company in employee defiance management. First strategy is
to involve the employee in change process and make them participate as far as they can. Second strategy is
to communicate the change management programs to the people effectively as educate them about the
benefits the programs would bring. This will make them comfortable in adopting the change. Third strategy
is negotiation and agreement. The company should create a consensus on important change issues and with
the agreement of all important stakeholders; it should launch the change management program. The
resistance level will be zero on change programs that are being launched with the mutual agreement of all
relevant stakeholders. Fourth strategy is that to support the employees who are due to some disability or
emotional or psychological issue or some other threat unable to adapt to the change. If the company
develops and proper channel to feel such people taken care of, they would adjust gradually to the change
management program. In case of failure of above mentioned four strategies, company can manipulate the

employees by calling union leader other relevant ones as fifth strategy. Sixth strategy is to force the
employees with articulate or non-articulate methods but this is not a very good approach.