The report is a critical assessment of the Coca-Cola’s mission, vision, and values to be submitted to the company’s CEO. In effect, this paper is going to critically evaluate the mission and vision of the Coca-Cola Company.
Executive Summary
An identification of the main issues in the mission and vision statements reflect that the mission statement is precise and simple, but inadequate because it does not identify the customers of the business, the need for survival, and the company products, among other critical issues. However, the vision statement takes the places of the mission statement, considering crucial issues like profitability, planet, people, and portfolio. In effect, the writer seeks to focus on how an alignment of these issues can be done to ensure better service value to the main stakeholders. Further, the author will discuss and critically evaluate how the company values integrate and meet the needs of the stakeholders, as well as recommendations for improvement. Finally, a summary of the ideas presented will be offered at the conclusion.
Background Information
The Coca-Cola Company is a non-alcoholic, multinational beverage company headquartered in Atlanta Georgia. The company is renowned for manufacturing, retailing, and marketing its products and syrups globally (“Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc.” 2). The firm’s products are distributed and sold to various bottlers in the countries around the world, located within exclusive territories. The company happens to be one of the most successful enterprises in the United States, as measured by customer volume, existence period, and amounts of profits. Overall, the company operates a winning strategy, though there is a need to synchronize all the elements of the business to ensure efficiency. As Hammonds states, the primary purpose of a strategy is to, “inform each of the many thousands of things that get done in an organization every day, and to make sure that those things are all aligned in the same basic direction” (par. 12). Therefore, there is the need to have the Coca-Cola Company refine its operations to ensure an effective mission and vision.
Coca-Cola Mission Statement Analysis
Coca-Cola’s mission statement reads: “To refresh the world in mind, body and spirit, so as to inspire moments of optimism through the company’s actions and brand, with the need to create value and make a difference in everywhere they engage” (“The Coca-Cola Company SWOT Analysis” 3). A company’s mission statement is its standard of measure and a benchmark through which a company gauges its actions. The mission statement helps one to deduce that the primary function of Coca-Cola is to offer refreshment to the world, inspire happiness, and make a difference. Secondly, the company seeks to create value, as well as cause a difference in the lives of the users of its products and services. Seemingly, this mission statement is customer-oriented, revolving around the demands and needs of the company’s clients.
An analysis of the company’s mission statement helps in the evaluation of several areas. First, the mission statement is somewhat useful. For instance, it is simple and easily understandable to both the internal and external stakeholders (Mirvis, Googins, and Kinnicutt 312). In fact, the statement places an emphasis on creating an excellent customer experience through the definition of product expectations. It is also a reaction as to how the company tries to treat its investors through focus on creating value for their investment. Another important aspect of the mission statement is Coca-Cola’s market and philosophy. However, the mission does not include the company’s customers, the use of technology, the need to create a good public image, the firm’s products, and how Coca-Cola hopes to survive. It also fails to include the main values of the company, like teamwork, integrity, excellence, and citizenship. In essence, the statement is ambiguous due to the least consideration for specific products and direct markets. In fact, it is hard to determine the organization’s clientele, as it focuses on global markets. As it is, the company does not define its customer focus or include its primary values, yet it is imperative that an enterprise’s mission addresses its primary purpose of existence.
Coca-Cola Vision Analysis
A vision statement explains a company’s operations explicitly. An analysis of Coca-Cola’s vision statement clearly explains the nature of the business, as well as the critical elements that make it possible to execute its operations. Specifically, Coca-Cola’s vision incorporates the employees, the portfolio, the planet, the organizational partners, the productive nature of the business, and how it seeks to maximize its profits (“The Coca-Cola Company” 5). All these elements are a clear description of how the company runs its operations. Notably, the company’s vision is more explicit compared to its mission.
Coca-Cola Values Analysis
Company values are directional fronts that help to align organizational behavior. In line with this, the Coca-Cola Company boasts of many values that guide its behavior. The values include collaboration, leadership, integrity, quality, passion, diversity, and accountability. Essentially, these values guide how the company interacts with its primary stakeholders during service delivery. Notably, the business values reflect concern for its primary stakeholders, who are its employees, the customers, the general community, and company shareholders.
Coca-Cola and Stakeholders’ Interests
The Coca- Cola Company has four primary stakeholders. These are the company employees, its customers, shareholders, and the community in which it operates. Ideally, any operating business should understand the interest of its stakeholders and strive to deliver to their expectations. Notably, the company aligns the mission, vision, values, and goals to meet the stakeholders’ interest. One way that the company makes this possible is through forming collaborative relationships with its stakeholders. One element of the company’s vision is to foster partnerships. Essentially, Coca-Cola lives up to this mission through engaging stakeholders at both the national and global level. For instance, the company is able to infuse sustainability in line with community needs through the Global Triangle partnerships.
Secondly, a key tenet of the company’s mission statement is to create value and make a difference. Specifically, the Coca-Cola Company is living up to this mission through an active supplier engagement program. The program is meant to facilitate and oversee development of better product quality and value, in line with its vision of being productive. This program is a platform through which various suppliers of the company’s raw materials are able to discuss how to improve Coca-Cola beverages. Thus, there is great consideration for customer needs by offering superior products through high supplier involvement.
Further, the Coca-Cola Company has done much to ensure that it integrates both stakeholders’ needs with the company’s values. For instance, one major goal of the company is to promote environmental sustainability, a behavior that is evident in how the company operates (Perez 312). This goal is in line with the community’s need to ensure that it lives in a clean and sustainable environment. The Coca-Cola Company seriously considers how its actions and production processes impact the lives of the communities living around the manufacturing plants (Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc. 6). Thus, the actions of the company are made to ensure minimal environmental impact, mainly through waste disposal and the transmission of waste gases into the air. For instance, the company has come up with environmentally friendly means of disposing waste around the community. Also, the company has developed some projects that are keen on ensuring the availability of water to various communities. All these efforts are geared towards ensuring that while the company benefits in their operations, the communities living around also to enjoy locational benefits. In effect, tries to balance environmental needs with business needs the business while maximizing profits..
Recommendations
Overall, Coca-Cola’s vision statement overrides the purpose of the mission statement. In fact, the vision statement offers a clear picture of what the company does, the customers it serves, and how it goes about attaining its purpose. In effect, it is essential that the company evaluates and redrafts its mission to incorporate these values so that one can easily gain an understanding of the company’s purpose. Thus, most of the values mentioned separately should be incorporated into the mission statement to make it more effective.
Secondly, the company should reorganize its values to incorporate stakeholder contribution. While there is much collaboration between the company, suppliers, and the communities, there is a limited involvement of the retailers. Retailers are important to the company, as they provide continuous supply and delivery of the products to the consumers. In effect, they are the most appropriate people to offer product feedback as they receive it from the consumers. In retrospect, the mission of the company about refreshing and inspiring the world should be reconsidered to enable an all-inclusive approach, where people have a voice on the quality of the products that the company provides. Thus, there is a need to change the company’s mission to incorporate a statement that encourages stakeholder involvement in quality development.
Conclusion
The Coca-Cola Company’s mission is inadequate in stating what the company does. While the mission is enduring and flexible, it fails to explain the business concept, the type of customers it targets, and the future survival. On the other hand, the company’ vision does more than the mission. It is based on an application of the six P’s, which are imperative to business continuity and leveraged on the company’s fundamental values. Thus, the company should borrow some of the vision statement values and incorporate them into the mission statement. This way, it is easier to enforce understanding on business purpose and direction. Moreover, it is imperative that the company aligns its strategy and culture to enforce better stakeholder contribution. As it does so, Coca-Cola should consider the business retailers, who are in most cases neglected, despite their importance in informing better product quality. Despite issues in the mission statement, it is notable that the organization is keen on aligning its values, vision, and mission with the stakeholders’ needs. These elements are clearly emphasized in Coca-Cola’s environmental sustainability plans, collaborative partnerships, and concern for quality.
References
“Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc.” Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc. SWOT Analysis (2015): 1-8. Business Source Complete. Web.
“The Coca-Cola Company SWOT Analysis.” Coca-Cola Company SWOT Analysis (2015): 1-10. Business Source Complete. Web.
“The Coca-Cola Company.” Coca-Cola Company Marketline Company Profile (2015): 1-41. Business Source Complete. Web.
Hammonds, Keith.” Michael Porter’s Big Ideas.” Fast Company, March. 2001. Web.
Mirvis, Philip, Bradley Googins, and Sylvia Kinnicutt. “Vision, Mission, Values: Guideposts to Sustainability.” Organizational Dynamics 39.4 (2010): 316-324. Print.
Perez, Bea. “The Power of Sustainability to Create Shared Value: Coca-Cola Demonstrates that Doing Good is Good For Business.” Journal of Brand Strategy 3.4 (2014): 310-315. Print.