Description

Company Analysis

Coca-Cola Company is the biggest independent bottler of Coca-Cola, located in the United States. The company is famous for its flagship product, Coca-Cola, among other beverage products. John Stith developed the brand in 1889, and the company has been in existence since then. Coca-Cola faces stiff competition from its peers like PepsiCo and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, who are also in the same industry. However, the firm triumphs over all its competitors, making huge revenues from its subsidiaries across the globe. In this regard, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of the Coca-Cola company highlighting its competitors and financial performance.

John Pemberton, an American pharmacist, developed the Coca-Cola formula and brand as a medicinal drink in 1886. He later sold the brand to Asa Chandler, who officially founded the company in 1992 with Coca-Cola drink as the flagship product. The company was incorporated in Delaware in 1980, and it has been manufacturing and distributing nonalcoholic beverages since 1902, together with its predecessors ("Coca-Cola," 2019). Throughout its operations, the company has grown tremendously establishing branches in more than 80 countries. Besides, Coca-cola has made numerous acquisitions of other companies such as Minute Maid in 1960, Fuze Beverage in 2007 among other subsidiary companies. The company became a public company in 1980. The company owns 35% of the shares, while individual shareholders own the rest.

The company is in the liquid refreshment beverages industry where it manufactures, distributes, and markets nonalcoholic beverages in various states in the United States. The Coca-Cola Company is also involved in the distribution of beverage products for some other different beverage brands such as DPSG, Monster Energy, and Sundrop ("Coca-Cola," 2019). The beverage products include sparkling drinks such as Coca-Cola and beverages like energizing drinks and other noncarbonated drinks which are called still beverages and include, enhanced water, juices, ready to drink coffee, sports drinks and tea. In this regard, the core business is to manufacture and distribute beverage drinks. The company supplies drinks to other bottling companies to distribute the products on behalf of Coca-Cola.

The Coca-Cola bottling company consolidated executive offices are found in Charlotte, North Carolina. The management team comprises of a chief executive officer, who chairs the board of directors and a vice-chair as well as the president and eight vice presidents in charge of various divisions. J. Frank Harrison III is the current chief executive officer of the company ("Coca-Cola," 2019). On the other hand, Henry W. Flint is the vice president of the company and also the chief operating officer. He has eight vice presidents in charge of various departments such as accounting, franchise beverage operations, and human resources, among other areas. Umesh M. Kasbekar is the vice-chair ("Coca-Cola," 2019). The executive works with regional managers across the various locations to run the company.

There is a lot of competition for both still and sparkling beverages. Competitors for Coca-Cola include various distributors and bottlers of products that are advertised and marketed nationally and regionally, private label beverages bottlers and distributors. The main competitors include PepsiCo’s local bottlers and, in some regions, DPSG local bottlers and local bottlers of Royal Crown ("Coca-Cola," 2019). The competitors in the beverages industry use different methods in competition. The main techniques are point-of-sale merchandising, introducing new products in the market, changing packaging, improving quality of the product, pricing and price promotions, customer service, frequency of distribution, and dispensing machines.