Globalisation and Standardisation of Products

Questions: 1. Discuss and compare the success (or lack of success) of their strategy. 2. Do you agree or disagree with the thesis statement above. Why? Why not? Answers: Nowadays, Coca-Cola is considered as one of the most successful brands all over the world. The company has gained pace and growth while expanded itself in a quite rapid manner and thereby becoming the largest beverage manufacturing company in the world. Coca Cola company has increased its global market share extensively and presently it operates in more than 200 countries accompanies by more than 84000 suppliers (Banutu-Gomez 2012). During the present period most of the revenue of the company is generated from outside the United States. In order to achieve this extensive development in business, Coca Cola Company had adopted the strategy of globalization. The process of globalization started during the early stages of 1900. Primarily the bottling plants of the company were set up in Panama and Cuba as the United States military were spread in these regions, which gave rise to an increase in the demand for Coca Cola. These plants became very successful as these helped to reduce the cost associated with delivery and shipping process (Arzaba 2013). After the success of these plants, Coca Cola opened its next bottling plants in Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Philippines. During the year 1926, the company had set up a centre for foreign relationships and manufacturing units all over the world in order to support its present global operations. According to Arzaba (2013), the Coca Cola Company continued on its path of producing in a mass and expansion in the upcoming decades. The company had established local branches accompanied by local partnerships for the effective and efficient production and distribution of the renowned Coca Cola products all over the world. In order to examine the globalization activity of the Coca Cola Company the three major strategies that have been adopted by the company must be discussed. These three strategies are namely global marketing, differentiation of products and use of advanced technologies (Saylor.org 2016). The marketing strategies adopted by Coca Cola have helped the company to globalize successfully. The popular slogans added with the rhythmic songs compelled the consumers to remember the particular brand. Moreover, added with the advertising initiatives Coca Cola became the first and foremost commercial sponsor of the Olympic Games (Toma 2012). Another, key strategy is product differentiation. The company has effectively differentiated its products for meeting the needs of customers from different classes. Such as in order to meet the needs of young customers the company has manufactured flavored coke. On the other hand, for the health concerned population the company produces diet coke, vitamin water along with Odwalla products (Toma 2012). For building up a proper understanding about the market segments, lifestyle, age and buying behavior of the population, Coca Cola has invested a significantly high amount of money. Finally, technology is the last strategy that the company used for the successful globalization. The use of advanced technologies has enabled the company to reduce the cost of transportation and it became able to transport larger amount of products more easily and quickly by using cargo ships, jet aircrafts etc. In addition to these, advancement in technologies became a driving force that enabled easy availability of information. Reference List: Arzaba, A., 2013. Coca-Cola: Globalization in the Modern Mayan World. Banutu-Gomez, M.B., 2012. Coca-Cola: International business strategy for globalization. The Business Management Review, 3(1), p.155. Saylor.org. (2016). Saylor Academy. Toma, G., 2012. THE CULTURAL DIMENSION OF GLOBALIZATION. Strategic Impact, 42(1).