CRM in the Coca-Cola Company

CRM in the Coca-Cola Company

Customer Relationship Management, which is commonly referred to as CRM, is a critical element in every organization. Some organizations employ the use of CRM in their daily operations, while others do not. The primary aim of Customer Relationship management is to build healthy or strong relations between an organization and its customers. The relationships that CRM helps in building enable customers and businesses to prosper (Abdelhadi, 2016). Organizational leaders and managers should identify their clients based on their individual personalities, needs, and requirements. Apart from building relationships, CRM helps in managing systems and relations that cater to both external and internal stakeholders of an organization (Abdelhadi, 2016). Examples of CRM stakeholders include advisors and investors, media, suppliers, partners, leadership, employees, and customers. The Coca-Cola Company is one of the international organizations that have successfully employed the use of customer relationship management in a diverse way.

The Coca-Cola Company is an international organization that focuses on marketing, selling, and producing non-alcoholic syrups and soda drinks. The organization was started by John Stith Pemberton in 1886. The organization is a giant in the global market due to its superiority in managing customer relations. In CRM, Coca-Cola focuses on three primary concepts. First, the organization sells its products at more comfortable and convenient points (Ling, 2017). The company is the world’s first and largest soft drink Organization. Additionally, it has expanded its operations to more than 200 countries globally. The organization is well known around the world to for the production of quality drinks and the fact that it is easier to access its products in different regions. The Coca-Cola company accounts for half the soft drinks that are sold in the world market (Ling, 2017).

The Coca-Cola company pays attention to customer relationship management through the implementation and understanding of the 3A strategy. The strategy includes Acceptability, Affordability, and Availability. The firm’s leadership employs the use of the 3A strategy in almost all areas of operation in order to sell goods and services to consumers’ hearts and hands (Ling, 2017). Availability is a critical element of CRM because it enhances sales. Customers can only purchase products if they meet them at the point of sale. The Coca-Cola company has been able to address the issue of availability by opening up premises and sales points in different regions of the world.

The second element or concept of CRM that Coca-Cola focuses on is terminal channel development. For instance, there are more than 100,000 Coca-Cola sales outlets in Beijing. The outlets include convenience stores, internet cafes, hotels, nightclubs, street shops, departmental stores, and supermarkets, among others. The organization is unique as compared to other companies offering similar products and services since it is widely ubiquitous (Irefin & Mechanic, 2014). Additionally, the development of new channels in the company is facilitated by upgrading, excavation, and discovery. For instance, the organization has categorized its products depending on the categories and characteristics of different buyers, which enables the sale of products in the diabetes food market. Similarly, the organization uses indicators of new customers active to ensure that it reaches a wide variety of people and, at the same time, meets the needs and requirements of customers.

The third aspect of CRM used in the Coca-Cola company is terminal channel management. Instead of putting their products in shops, the organizations strive to put them in the hands of the customers to facilitate a purchase. The concept is critical in improving performance in diverse ways. First, if the firm’s products are put on a shelf for a long period of time, they may get dusty or expire (Irefin & Mechanic, 2014). Therefore, such products may not be appealing to clients and may lead to reduced performance. On the contrary, delivering the products in the hands of customers is crucial because it reduces cases of expiry or destruction of products (Irefin & Mechanic, 2014).

Similar to most successful firms, the Coca-Cola company has leaders that influence change and promote performance. Although the terms manager and leader are sometimes used interchangeably, there are differences between the two. Firstly, leaders in an organization are not for setting the vision of the firm while their manager counterparts set goals. Although visions are critical for an organization to achieve its goals, there is a need for leaders who would help to turn them into reality. The second distinction between leaders and managers is the type of vision that they have toward an organization’s final goals. As opposed to managers who focus on short-term goals, leaders concentrate on achieving long-term goals. Thirdly, leaders should encourage their teams to be innovative in order to enhance performance in an organization. The critical difference between them and managers is that they favor change while their counterparts favor the status quo.

As opposed to being authoritative, leaders in the Coca-Cola company are charismatic and support workers to work in teams. Leaders in the organization also lead from the front as opposed to micromanaging their workers. The guidance offered by the leaders is crucial in facilitating CRM in the organization. The organization is different from its rival companies because workers are offered requisite training to have appropriate customer relation management and to address the needs of clients. Lastly, managers promote the growth of companies because they encourage ideas, as opposed to managers who like delegating and assigning tasks to their juniors. An individual who has leadership skills will always be involved in teamwork duties and would welcome different opinions, ideas, and suggestions offered by other team members as opposed to managers who like giving directives.

Coca-Cola’s management practices enhance its customer management practice in different ways. For instance, the organization operates in more than 200 different countries all over the world. For the company to operate efficiently in all the networks, its management team utilizes an efficient and powerful distribution network and capability. For the distribution of products, the organization relies on bottler partners, which facilitates its operations.

For an organization to be successful in implementing customer relationship management, it should have leaders that focus on different management styles and theories that impact positively on the firm. The structure and style of leadership are critical in the Coca-Cola company (Veale et al., 1995). Basically, the leadership styles utilized in the organization are transformational and participative styles. For instance, the CEO of the organization gives and receives constructive feedback to and from different stakeholders. Since he commits to act, process, and listen to the opinions and ideas of the stakeholders, team members in the organization participate in decision-making processes and different projects. Participative initiatives are essential in the organization because they enable leaders and employees to come up with innovative ideas that help in handling complex situations (Veale et al., 1995). To maintain existing relationships between stakeholders and the organization, the leaders of the company decided that it was appropriate to integrate the participative style since it helps in bringing transformation to the firm’s culture and management structure.

The Coca-Cola Company has five primary departments that work together to achieve the organization’s goals, vision, and mission. They include the finance department, human resource department, marketing department, innovation department, and planning department (Veale et al., 1995). Although the top-level management is responsible for making critical decisions in the organization, departmental heads are allowed to offer their ideas in order to enhance performance in the firm. Coca-Cola has a vertical hierarchy, which allows top-level managers to make critical decisions (Veale et al., 1995). However, routine and daily decisions are the responsibility of line managers.

If the Coca-Cola company effectively implements customer relationship management in all its operations, it would be in a better position to achieve its vision, which entails 6P’s that are productivity, profit, planet, partners, portfolio, and people. For the organization to have a winning culture, it should focus on different values, which are quality and diversity, passion, accountability, integrity, collaboration, and the value of leadership. Secondly, if CRM is properly integrated within the organization, the Coca-Cola company will be in a position to achieve its missions and strengthen its management structure (Cruz-Jesus et al., 2019). The firm’s mission is to make a difference, create value, and inspire happiness and optimism. The Coca-Cola Company has employed more than 700,000 employees globally; if the CRM program is effectively and efficiently implemented in the organization, it is possible that the organization will employ more people since it will have more clients in different regions of the world (Cruz-Jesus et al., 2019).

Conclusively, it is easy to note that the Coca-Cola company is among the most successful international organizations. The success of the company results from the type of leadership structure in the firms, which are mostly the transformational and participative types of leadership. Secondly, the firm’s high performance in the global market is enhanced by the employment of CRM in different organizational operations. Customer relationship management is critical in international companies because people in various parts of the world have divergent cultural practices, values, and beliefs. Therefore, it is advisable for company managers and leaders to integrate CRM into divergent organizational operations.

Reference

Abdelhadi, M. A. (2016). The Success of CRM. J Account Mark, 5(197), 2.

Cruz-Jesus, F., Pinheiro, A., & Oliveira, T. (2019). Understanding CRM adoption stages: empirical analysis building on the TOE framework. Computers in Industry, 109, 1-13.

Irefin, P., & Mechanic, M. A. (2014). Effect of employee commitment on organizational performance in Coca-Cola Nigeria Limited Maiduguri, Borno state. Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 19(3), 33-41.

Ling, X. (2017). Customer Relationship Management: Case study Coca-Cola Company.

Veale, D., Oliver, L., & Van Langen, K. (1995). Three Coca-Cola perspectives on international management styles. Academy of Management Perspectives, 9(3), 74-77.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

Assignment Content

Based on the CRM work you have done throughout this course, you are now called on to act as a consultant to apply your knowledge to other industries that have an existing CRM program that would be beneficial to employees and organizations to reduce human error and improve employee efficiency.

CRM in the Coca-Cola Company

Select one agency that employs a CRM program.

Research how this agency employed a CRM program in a similar or different way than was identified in the aviation article from Week 2.

Write a 1,400- to 1,750-word paper in which you provide evidence of how this CRM program was implemented. Include the following in your response:

Distinguish between various team concepts as they relate to performance during and after this training program.
Explain the difference between leaders and managers, as well as the influence and power they may have on the success of this program.
Evaluate at least two theories of leadership and the role that leaders utilizing these theories play in facilitating this program.
Analyze the general effects on the organization that may result from this program, referencing the concepts of organizational development and various organizational theories.