The Coca-Cola Company's Human Resources and Capital Management Strategy

Description of the Organization 

The chosen organization with which I have experienced is the Coca-Cola Company. Founded in 1886 by John Pemberton, the company has emerged as the global leading in the beverages for the last 120 years. The company has managed to position itself as a global firm, with its branches located all over the world. The company has it’s headquarter located in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States. Coca-Cola has many brands in all the countries that it operates. Some of the major brands include Powerade, Dasani, Nesta, and new coke. Despite facing competition from Pepsi, the company has remained the leading in the beverage industry based on the market shares and capital. Based on the competent of its current CEO, Coca-Cola Company has stayed at the top of the industry for many years positioning itself as a global brand. 

The rise and maintenance of the global position by Coca-Cola Company have been due to its wrong leadership which has always relied on the values, objectives, vision, and mission of the company. The primary goals of the Coca-Cola Company are to be a company that is known globally as a business that conducts itself responsibly and ethically and to promotes sustainable growth in a way that supports the future operations. The objective of the company forms a foundation on which the decision-making process is derived. Through this objective, Coca-Cola Company has managed to operate within the line that leads towards meeting the objective. The success of the company has also been attributed to the mission and vision statements of the company. The mission of the company forms the roadmap within which it views itself. The mission of Coca-Cola Company is to refresh the world in body and mind, to create value and make a difference to the customers and to make an inspiration to the moments of optimism and happiness through its brands. This mission statement declares the purpose for which the organization exists while also acting as a standard along which to weigh the actions and make a decision. 

The organization also have a vision which serves as a framework for the roadmap and provides guidance on the aspects of the business and provides what needs to be accomplished to continue existing into the future. Its vision, the organization has six areas of focus. The first is the people. It aims at providing people with a great place to work and get inspired to do their best. The second aspect is the portfolio where it focuses on bringing quality products and satisfy the desires and the needs of the people. It also aims at partnering and nurturing a winning network of suppliers and customers in a way that adds value to all the partners. To be a responsible business entity which takes part in the community development activities and corporate social responsibility. In addition to the mission, vision, and objectives, the organization also has values that guide its actions and how they operate and relate with the outside world. Some of the values of the company include leadership, integrity, collaboration, accountability, quality, diversity, and passion. These values guide the actions of the company and dictate how they relate to the outside world as well as customers. To be accountable, provide quality brands, show integrity, provide effective leadership and have a diversified brand for the customers. 

Leadership Practices 

The primary leader under focus is the current CEO of Coca-Cola company. The leader has demonstrated exemplary leadership practices which have been one of the reasons for the continued success of the organization. The three primary leadership practice that has been demonstrated by the organization include modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision and enabling others to act. Modeling the way involves a leader being head and prepared to show others the way. The CEO of Coca-Cola company demonstrates the behaviors that he would wish others adopt by always acting as a role model and as an example to others. In most circumstances, employees will want to believe in what a leader does than what he says. As a result, a leader has to show at all times the behaviors that are consistent with the values of the organization. The leader shows behaviors that are consistent with the values of the organization by demonstrating high levels of integrity, accountability, and honesty. This has made employees to use him as a role model and to learn from him at all times. 

The second leadership practice demonstrated by the leader is the inspiration of the shared vision. The CEO always communicate the shared vision of the organization in a way that captures the imagination of the employees. He uses his leadership practice and skills to energize and motivate others to share the vision of the company with passion and emotions. Effective communication of the broader vision of the organization so that followers can also capture the broader picture is essential in motivating people towards the goals of the organization. The leader focuses on effective communication of the mission and vision so that employees share that purpose of the organization. This is done by envisioning an ennobling future and enlisting other people in a shared vision by appealing to the values and interests. 

The third leadership practice that has been demonstrated by the CEO of Coca-Cola Company is enabling others to act. This is a leader who does not seek to realize success by himself but does it through the engagement and involvement of others. This is done by fostering collaboration and encouraging others to act. People love to feel that they are capable of acting and the leader must offer the necessary support to enable them to convert their ideas into action. The leader focuses on collaboration through trust building so that employees can do it by themselves. He also shares information and ideas with the employees so that they can be strengthened to convert ideas into productive actions. Through this, employees feel engaged and as part of the success of the company. 

Effects of Current Leadership on the Organizational Culture 

The CEO of the organization displays leadership practice of modeling the way. This, he does by leading by example and acting as a role model. In every action that he undertakes, he adheres to the values of the organization which is integrity, accountability, ethical leadership, diversity, quality, and passion. By being at the forefront to demonstrate the values of the organization, he is influencing the culture because followers will adopt what they see from the leader. As a result of this, most employees of the Coca-Cola Company have been known to have a culture of integrity, accountability, and passion. This is because of the leader acting as a role model. He has also instilled the culture of action and employee engagement through his leadership practice of enabling others to act. He supports collaboration with and information sharing in a way that provides more ideas to the employees to act. Through effective communication of the values and vision of the organization, the employees have developed a culture of believing in quality, customer satisfaction and offering the best. His leadership practices have been at the forefront in determining the way employees act and what they believe in as a culture. For example, employees’ belief in a culture of customer satisfaction and quality has been due to the effective communication of the vision and mission of the company to the employees. 

SWOT Analysis of Coca-Cola Company 

A SWOT analysis is the planning tool that is used by the businesses to identify the existing strengths and weaknesses while also taking a look into the future threats and opportunities that could exist in a particular business situation. 

Strengths 

One of the major strengths of Coca-Cola Company is its large market share and the vast global presence. There are only two main competitors in the beverage industry; Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Out of the two, Coca-Cola has emerged as the winner thus its large market share. The company has its products present in 200 countries across the globe its vast presence in the majority of the countries has led to its large market share compared to Pepsi which is mainly present in the United States. Due to its presence in many countries, it has witnessed an ever-growing market share. Among the beverages of the company present in the market include coke, sprite, thums up and Fanta. These products are found in most of the countries where the country operates thus acting as the drivers to its growth. 

The second strength of Coca-Cola Company is the brand name and customer loyalty. Coca-Cola has a strong brand name that is identifiable almost everywhere in the world. Due to its vast global presence, it has gained a brand identity that is unique to itself compared to that of its competitor. Due to this brand name, the company has earned customer loyalty across the globe. With its strong brand, customers have become loyal and are always willing to buy the brand in preference to that of the competitor. Most of its products have a massive following across the world due to the good taste that has made it difficult for the customers to find a substitute. Due to this brand identity and customer loyalty, the company has enjoyed massive sales across the world compared to its competitor who still lacks customer loyalty. 

Weaknesses 

One of the weaknesses of Coca-Cola Company is a low presence in healthy drinks. Currently, customers are slowly moving towards healthy drinks, and this is an area where Coca-Cola Company brand has a low presence. Most of its products are considered to contain a lot of calories,and this is affecting its revenue because of the current demand for healthy drinks from customers. In 2015, the company saw a drop in its revenues due to changing customers’ tastes from products with high-calorie content to those with low-calorie content. This is affecting the revenue and profits of the company given that many firms have ventured into producing healthy drinks thus taking away some of the customers from Coca-Cola Company. 

The second weakness of Coca-Cola Company is low product diversification. While its main competitor, Pepsi, has diversified in other products outside beverages, Coca-Cola Company has kept its diversification low, specializing mainly in the beverage products. While diversification in the other products outside beverages is an additional source of revenue to Pepsi, Coca-Cola is missing in this segment. This could risk the revenue of the company should there be a decline in the beverage market demand since the company has specialized within one industry. 

Opportunities 

The company has an opportunity to diversify its product base by venturing into other segments to increase its revenue base. Venturing into areas such as health and food businesses can help improve the market base of the company and increase its offering to already loyal customers. The company can utilize this opportunity because it already has a brand name and customer loyalty which it can rely on to market its new products. This will help the company increase its revenue base instead of relying only on the beverages which could affect the revenue generation in case the market has declined. 

Another opportunity that is available for the Coca-Cola Company is the packaging of bottled drinking water. Because hygiene is rapidly becoming a major global concern, the company has the opportunity to expand its products to the packaging of bottled drinking water. Even though the company has partnered with Kinley on this, the rate of expansion of Kinley has been very slow. Coca-Cola Company should take advantage of its vast global presence, brand identity and customer loyalty to venture into marketing bottled drinking water. This will provide it with an opportunity to increase its revenue generation sources. 

Threats 

The two major threats that Coca-Cola could face are the sourcing of raw materials and indirect competitors. The company uses a lot of water in its processing even in the regions where water is a problem. The major threat is, therefore, the rapidly emerging scarcity of water across the globe due to the changing climatic conditions. Soon, the beverages companies might run out of water unless they find ways to conserve their waters. Therefore, water scarcity is a threat that could emerge anytime for Coca-Cola Company, and this can have huge effects on its processing and subsequently revenue generation. 

The beverage company could also be faced with indirect competitors shortly. The coffee chains such as Starbucks are rapidly rising. These brands are healthy competitors to the Coca-Cola brands, and soon, they could act as a substitute. This is because these coffee brands are considered to be healthier than the Coke brands, and soon they cool offer stiff competition even if they are not within the beverage industry. 

Strengths of Current Leader 

The leadership theory that is applicable in this scenario is the behavioral leadership theory. According to behavioral theory, leaders can be made rather than being born. The effectiveness of a leader is based on the behaviors which can be learned and defined ( Derue et al., 2011). It focuses on what the leaders do and not the inborn traits. Successful leaders according to the behavioral theory are based on the way a leader behaves and what a leader does. Based on this, the first leadership strength of the CEO of Coca-Cola is inspirational. He is a leader who will always inspire the followers by sharing the common vision of the organization and motivating them to work towards the goals of the firm. Based on the behavioral leadership theory, we can say that the leader is inspirational’ which is his behavior of a successful leader. Inspirational leaders can motivate the followers to work towards the realization of the set target. 

Another leadership behavior of the leader is honesty and integrity. This is a leadership strength that can make the leader successful. Based on the behavioral leadership theory, a leader who demonstrates high levels of integrity and honesty has the qualities of a good leader. This trait is useful because a leader acts as a role model to the followers and by showing integrity and honesty, he can influence the culture of the organization towards that direction. He can influence followers, to be honest, and show high levels of integrity. Thisis based on the behavior of the leader as described in the behavioral leadership theory. 

Another strength of the leader is his excellent communication skills. The leader can communicate the vision and mission of the organization to the followers with passion and commitment. This leads to a broader understanding of the overall mission of the organization by the employees thus motivating them to work towards meeting these objectives. This still falls under the behavioral leadership theory. Communication is an external trait of a leader that determines whether that leader is effective or not. Without effective communication, the employees will not understand the overall goal of the organization and will thus not be motivated to work towards it. 

Weaknesses of the Current Leader 

Based on the behavioral leadership theory, the weaknesses of a leader are seen from his leadership behaviors. Leaders with weaknesses demonstrate certain traits that according to the behavioral theory, are possessed by ineffective leaders. The first weaknesses of the CEO are lack of empathy. A good leader should understand the feelings and problems of followers and even assist them to solve these problems ( Lussier & Achua, 2015 ). The leader does not show empathy to the followers and expects them to work according to the policy of the company irrespective of what problem they are undergoing. Based on the behavioral leadership theory, lack of empathy is a behavior demonstrated by ineffective leaders. Successful and effective leaders must understand the feelings and problems of the employees and be willing to assist them where possible. 

A second weakness of the leader is lack of emotional intelligence. According to the behavioral leadership theory, effective leaders are determined by how they manage their emotions. Good leaders must understand how to manage and control their emotions and feelings and should not get angry at any slight provocation. They must understand that they are the role models of the employees and therefore controlling their emotions is crucial. This was the weakness demonstrated by the primary leader. He could get angry sometimes with the supervisors and shout at them on a loud voice whenever something seemed not to be going on well. 

The third behavior with the leader which showed his leadership weakness is failing to provide feedback. Leaders should always give feedback to the employees and mention areas of success and where improvement is necessary. By failing to give feedback, employees will not understand their level of performance, and this could also affect their motivation level. Good leaders must provide feedback to the team members while also identifying areas that need to be improved. 

Recommended Theory-Based Practices 

The three theory-based practices recommended maximizing the future success of the primary leader include inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, and feedback delivery program. Inspirational motivation is a situation in which a leader provides a broader understanding of the vision and the goal of the organization in a way that will make the followers identify with the goal ( Ernst & Chrobot-Mason, 2011 ). This is achieved through constant communication of the clear purpose and goal of the organization so that employees are motivated and feel part of the goal. The importance of inspirational motivation is that it will motivate employees to work hard towards meeting the goals of the organization and success will be shared by the manager. 

Individualized consideration is the rate at which the leaders are willing and able to give support to the employees through engaging and coaching them so that they can turn their ideas into practice. Engaging employees and supporting them to perform specific actions can help build confidence amongst employees and make them be part of the success of the organization. Continuous employee engagement and support can help make them more experience in their fields, and this can lead to organizational success and success of the manager as well. 

Feedback programs can be designed to help the leader provide feedback to the employees so that they can know how well they have performed and areas where they need to improve. Feedback act as a motivation for employees to work extra hard to achieve better results in the future. By creating a program to give employees the feedback on their performance, they are motivated to work towards the goals of the organization. 

References 

Derue, D. S., Nahrgang, J. D., Wellman, N. E. D., & Humphrey, S. E. (2011). Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: An integration and meta‐analytic test of their relative validity.  Personnel Psychology ,  64 (1), 7-52. 

Ernst, C., & Chrobot-Mason, D. (2011).  Boundary spanning leadership: Six practices for solving problems, driving innovation, and transforming organizations . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. 

Lussier, R. N., & Achua, C. F. (2015).  Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development . Nelson Education.