USA – The Coca-Cola Company has announced that it will undertake strategic steps to reorganize and better enable the Coca-Cola system streamline its operations and drive more growth.
The company will create nine new operating units focused on regional and local execution.
Coca-Cola’s current model includes 17 business units that sit under four geographical segments, plus Global Ventures and Bottling Investments.
Moving forward, the operational side of the business will consist of the new nine operating units that will sit under four geographical segments, along with Global Ventures and Bottling Investments.
According to the multinational beverage company, the operating units will be highly interconnected, with more consistency in structure and a focus on eliminating duplication of resources and scaling new products more quickly.
The company’s operating leaders will report to President and Chief Operating Officer Brian Smith.
This structure will be supported by the company’s newly created Platform Services organization, which will provide global services and enhanced expertise across a range of critical capabilities.
The Platform Services will provide the operating units with data management, consumer analytics, digital commerce and social/digital hubs across global markets to create efficiencies and deliver capabilities at scale.
Platform Services is designed to improve and scale functional expertise and provide consistent service, including for governance and transactional work.
The Services will be led by Senior Vice President and Chief Information and Integrated Services Officer Barry Simpson.
Coca-Cola has further indicated that the units will work with five new marketing ‘category leads’ in an attempt to drive growth across global, regional and local brands.
These five ‘category leads’ will be: the Coca-Cola brand; Sparkling Flavors; Hydration, Sports, Coffee and Tea; Nutrition, Juice, Milk and Plant; Emerging Categories.
The leaders of these categories will work across the networked organization to build the company’s brand portfolio and win in the marketplace. Global category leads will report to Chief Marketing Officer Manolo Arroyo.
“We have been on a multi-year journey to transform our organization,” said Chairman and CEO James Quincey.
“The changes in our operating model will shift our marketing to drive more growth and put execution closer to customers and consumers while prioritizing a portfolio of strong brands and a disciplined innovation framework.
“As we implement these changes, we’re continuing to evolve our organization, which will include significant changes in the structure of our workforce,” he added.
The company’s structural changes will result in the reallocation of some people and resources, which will include voluntary and involuntary reductions in employees.
In order to minimize the impact from these structural changes, the company has announced a voluntary separation program that will give employees the option of taking a separation package, if eligible.
The program will provide enhanced benefits and will first be offered to approximately 4,000 employees in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico who have a most-recent hire date on or before Sept. 1, 2017.
A similar program will be offered in many countries internationally. The voluntary program is expected to reduce the number of involuntary separations.
The company’s overall global severance programs are expected to incur expenses ranging from approximately US$350 million to US$550 million.
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