The Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola Company) was founded in 1892, currently headquartered in Atlanta, Joya State, the United States, is the world's largest beverage company, with a global market share of 48% as well as the world's top three beverages of the two (Coca-Cola ranked first, Pepsi-Cola, the second low-calorie Coca-Cola), its revenue in 2001 reached $ 20,092 million. Coca-Cola has 48% of the world's market share and two of the world's top three beverages (Coca-Cola No. 1, PepsiCo No. 2, and Low-Calorie Coca-Cola No. 3), with 2001 revenues of $20,092 million and common stockholders' equity of $11,351 million. Coca-Cola has 160 brands of beverages in 200 countries, including soft drinks, sports drinks, dairy beverages, juices, teas and coffees, and is the world's largest distributor of juice drinks (including the Minute Maid brand), the No. 1 Coca-Cola in the U.S. for which it has achieved more than 40% of the market, while Sprite (Sprite) is the fastest-growing beverage, and other brands, including Burke (Barclay). Other brands include Barq's root beer, Fruitopia and Surge.
Forever Coca-Cola
Customers at the time were so impressed that they asked for this "new formula" of Coca-Cola, and from then on, Coca-Cola was a drink that was a mixture of Coca-Cola syrup and carbonated water that became popular all over the world. And since 1894, it has been sold in bottles.
But what really made Coca-Cola great was two American lawyers. They went to the then owner of Coca-Cola, Es? They went to the office of the then Coca-Cola boss, Essex, and proposed an innovative business partnership in which Coca-Cola would sell them syrup, and they would invest in their own production company and point of sale, where they would blend the syrup with water, bottle it, and sell it. According to the Coca-Cola Company's requirements for production and quality assurance, the Coca-Cola Company allows them to utilize the Coca-Cola trademark and advertise this special bottling system, which has resulted in the blossoming of Coca-Cola factories.
In 1888, Asa Griggs Candler saw the market potential of Coca-Cola and purchased its shares, taking control of all the production and sales. Candler began to sell the raw liquid used in the manufacture of the drink to other drugstores, as well as to advertise on notice boards in train stations and town squares, with an advertising budget of $100,000 in 1901. Candler sold the first assembly franchise for the drink in 1899 for $1 because he believed the drink would be sold mainly in machines, and in 1892 the Coca-Cola Company was founded, and Candler became known as the "Father of Coca-Cola".
In 1919, Erntst-Woodruff bought Coca-Cola from the heirs of Asa candler for $2.5 million, and in 1923, his son Robert W. Woodruff, one of the most important figures in the history of Coca-Cola, became its CEO. As CEO of Coca-Cola, Woodruff began working with the company's bottling concessionaires to make sure that consumers could get Coca-Cola wherever and whenever they wanted it, pushing bottlers to make the beverage "readily available when they needed it," and emphasizing that if Coke wasn't immediately available to consumers when they were thirsty, then the market would be lost forever.
In 1929, Coca-Cola and its bottlers offered top-opening coolers to stores and gas stations to sell bottles of Coca-Cola at extremely low prices, and in 1937, the company introduced its first coin-operated vending machine, and Woodruff launched a lifestyle-themed campaign for Coca-Cola. Woodruff launched lifestyle-themed advertisements for Coca-Cola that emphasized the importance of the product in consumers' lives rather than the product's attributes; the product's best-known jingle in the 1920s and 1930s was "The Pause That Refreshes", and the company continued to own the original bottling line near Atlanta and began to buy back some of the malfunctioning bottling and franchising rights. franchises.
Woodruff also began to develop Coca-Cola's international business, primarily through exports, and is perhaps best known for his decision to respond to General Eisenhower's call in the early days of World War II to ensure that every serviceman could get a bottle of Coca-Cola anywhere for five cents, regardless of its cost. Coca-Cola's bottling plant, along with the U.S. military to the world, this initiative to Coca-Cola in Europe and Asian countries to obtain a dominant market share, and a this dominant position until 1991.
In the years immediately following World War II, Coca-Cola left its closest rival, Pepsi-cola, far behind, with nearly 70 percent of the cola market, while hundreds of smaller regional soft drink companies continued to produce a wide range of flavors, dividing the remaining 30 percent of the market.
In 1954, Coca-Cola's sales and profits declined for the first time since World War II.In 1955, the company replaced the bottle that had been in use since 1916, expanding its capacity to 12 ounces.In the late 1950s, Coca-Cola introduced larger-capacity bottles of Coke that could be sold in grocery stores.In 1961, Coca-Cola began to sell its canned beverages like bottled Coke.
In 1976, Coca-Cola's CEO, Paul Austin, wrote an article stating that U.S. soft-drink consumption was ripe (saturated) and that Coca-Cola's greatest sales growth would come from international markets. By 1982, international sales accounted for 62% of Coca-Cola's total soft drink production.
Industry observers were surprised when Robert Goizueta, a Cuban-born chemical engineer, was chosen as CEO of Coca-Cola in 1981, and one of Goizueta's first acts on the job was to issue a 1,200-word strategic statement proposing significant changes at Coca-Cola, focusing on U.S. soft-drink market growth.
Goizueta declared that the company would treat the Coca-Cola trade name as a competitive asset and would no longer treat it as sacrosanct; price-discounting tactics would be utilized only when necessary to maintain Coca-Cola's dominant position.In 1981, industry price discounting reached a new level of intensity, and by the end of the year close to 50 percent of all Coca-Cola and Pepsi in food stores were making discounted sales. A Nielsen audit that year showed that a 192-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola cost slightly less than Pepsi.
Goizueta also stated that it would raise the price of Coca-Cola syrup juice to fund growing advertising and promotional costs. In an effort to eliminate the fixed price for syrup, Coca-Cola modified a franchise agreement that had been in place for 60 years and agreed to sell concentrates (without saccharin) to some of its largest bottlers in exchange for the modified agreement.
In 1982, Coca-Cola changed its advertising theme.Goizueta said, "With our new slogan, 'Coke is it ', we proudly show that we're number one; our old slogan, 'Have a Coke and Smile,' was very Our previous slogan 'Have a Coke and Smile' was great, but we're in the midst of fierce competition and it's like a ballad. The competitive momentum has shifted from Purchase,New York (Pepsi's headquarters) to us in Atlanta."
The Goizueta strategic plan also extends Coca-Cola's corporate strategy. The company's privately held coffee and tea businesses were sold off, as were its plastics manufacturing and liquor companies, and in 1982, sensing the growth potential of the film and television industry and its synergy with marketing, Coca-Cola purchased Columbia Pictures in 1982.Goizueta said Coca-Cola would become "a strong player in both the beverage and entertainment industries. "
Coca-Cola also made changes to its bottling network. The company encouraged mismanaged bottlers to sell their operations and sold off most of its own bottling locations through pole-and-square mergers.Between 1980 and 1984, ownership changes in franchises amounted to 50 percent of Coca-Cola's production. Coca-Cola executives noted that the company played a role in the purchases and, in quite a few cases, financed the potential buyers. The company sometimes took a share in newly licensed bottlers, but kept in mind to maintain an independent bottling network. By 1985, bottlers owned by Coca-Cola were producing only 11 percent of Coke's output.
For Coca-Cola's bottling network, this change, which began with Robert Goizketa in the early 1980s, has continued. In the mid-1980s, 150_200 of Coca-Cola's 350 franchisees offered to transfer their franchises. In 1986, Coca-Cola bought back two of its largest franchises, owned by Beatrice and J.T. Lupton, a privately owned Coca-Cola bottler that accounted for 15 percent of U.S. Coca-Cola production and 40 percent of Dr. Pepper production. The acquisition of these two companies increased Coca-Cola's own ownership of bottling production from 11 percent to 38 percent.
These mergers culminated in the creation of Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) and the sale of 51 percent of its shares to the public in November 1986. CCE was created and renegotiated with its suppliers and distribution channels to consolidate its major markets, cut its labor force by 20 percent, and reduce costs by consolidating distribution and raw material purchases. In 1986 and 1987, CCE's net selling price per case of Coke was reduced by 2.5 percent. In 1989, CCE bought 20 percent more sotol than it did in 1986, and CCE's profits were erratic for the entire late 1980s.
In late 1980, Coca-Cola suggested that its franchise agreement should be replaced by a "Master Bottle Contract," which would reduce the fixed price of syrups and royalties on the Coca-Cola trademark. By the end of '89, the new contract covered about 70 percent of Coca-Cola production in the U.S. Between '78 and '89, bottlers under the new contract experienced an increase of about 60 percent in the price of Coca-Cola syrup.
Editing Coca-Cola's multinational marketing
Coca-Cola is particularly dominant in Europe, where it has a 50 percent market share, and in Japan, where it controls 80 percent of sales. Of the company's total profits in 1990, 21 percent came from Japan, Europe held 33 percent, and other international markets totaled 26 percent.
Coca-Cola utilized several strategies to develop its international markets. In Taiwan, for example, Coca-Cola bought a 49% stake in a family-owned bottling plant that lacked capital and expanded its management and facilities. Coca-Cola improved its take-up marketing, increased advertising, and promoted new volume packaging. Promotions included baseball and basketball classes coached by American coaches, sponsorships of pop artist concerts, and an invitation to the chef of the Taipei Hilton to cook ten Chinese dishes with Coke. Coca-Cola's market share in Taiwan increased from 6% in 1985 to 40% in 1990, while limiting the combined share of Seven-Up and Pepsi to 4%. In France, Coca-Cola withdrew a poorly run franchise agreement in 1989. By 1990, sales in France had increased by 23 percent.In 1990, just days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Coca-Cola shipped soda from a new plant in Dunkirk to Leberlin. In 1989, Coca-Cola sold its 49 percent stake in Coca-Cola Pictures to Sony Corp. and reinvested the money in its overseas soft-drink operations. Coca-Cola's chief executive said the company's "business in the 1990s will help the world grow". Coca-Cola has set a target of 8 percent to 10 percent growth in international sales and intends to accelerate the growth of its small profits from overseas bottling joint ventures.
Editing Coca-Cola's localized marketing strategy in China
As early as the beginning of this century, "Coca-Cola" was introduced in Asia, first produced in the Philippines and shipped to China for sale in Shanghai and other cities. 1927 "Coca-Cola" was established in Shanghai and Tianjin. "In 1927, Coca-Cola opened factories in Shanghai and Tianjin, and later in Qingdao and Guangzhou.
In 1933, the Shanghai plant was the largest Coca-Cola plant outside the U.S., and in 1948, it was the first plant outside the U.S. to produce more than one million cases a year.
Coca-Cola returned to China in 1979 and has invested US$1.1 billion in China since then. After more than a decade of development, Coca-Cola has established 23 canned beverage plants in China, forming a nationwide production base and sales network, with annual sales of nearly 10 billion yuan. In the recently released "1999 National Urban Consumer Survey", Coca-Cola once again topped the list of similar products, winning the three crowns of market share, best brand and popularity.
Despite such brilliant results, Coca-Cola is in a very different mood today than it was 20 years ago when it first entered the Chinese mainland market. In those years, foreign beverages that entered the Chinese market basically did not feel the pressure of Chinese beverage companies. In the past decade, more than a dozen "Coke"-type beverage companies have appeared across China, but they all disappeared almost silently in the end. Nowadays, when Coca-Cola and Pepsi have been quite influential in the Chinese market, they have felt the strong competitive pressure from Chinese beverage companies in recent years. The main reason is that China's beverage industry enterprises produce brands with national characteristics that have grown up through self-improvement efforts. In June last year, the China Beverage Industry Association solemnly launched China's beverage industry "top ten". These brand-name beverages are China's leading beverages, covering China's major beverage categories, with a high degree of visibility and market share. For example, China's top ten beverages in the Jianlibao, Wahaha, Coconut Tree, Lobelia, Lulu, etc. are to obtain the title of China's well-known trademarks of China's national beverage industry representatives.
Under the pressure of China's national beverage industry, Coca-Cola began to change its marketing strategy and started the process of localization in the Chinese market.
Coca-Cola has always attached great importance to advertising, and its entry into the Chinese market was no exception, with tens of millions of dollars invested in publicity every year. However, Coca-Cola's advertising and brand positioning are strictly limited, and used to be controlled and planned by its headquarters in Atlanta. Chinese consumers always see Coca-Cola's bright red color and energetic shape, and Coca-Cola impresses Chinese consumers with the most typical American style and American personality. For more than a decade, advertising campaigns were based on American TV commercials with Chinese narration, a strategy that was used until 1998.
Coca-Cola's marketing strategy changed dramatically in 1999 as China's national beverage brands boomed. For the first time, its TV commercials launched in China last year chose to be filmed in China, for the first time it hired a Chinese ad agency to design them, and for the first time it invited Chinese actors to shoot the commercials. Clearly abandoning the American identity that has been consistent for years. In order to gain more market share, Coca-Cola is making great strides to implement localization in China. As we all know, Coca-Cola has always adopted the strategy of covering the undifferentiated market, and the target customers appear to be broader. Starting from last year, Coca-Cola focuses the audience of its advertisements on young friends, and the advertisement picture is dominated by the image of energetic and healthy young people. "Vitality is always Coca-Cola" has become its latest advertising slogan.
What lessons can business learn from Coca-Cola's success? In general, the lessons are both very simple and obvious. Here are 30 time-tested management lessons from its history.
1. Sell a quality product. The product doesn't have to talk or fly, but it does have to have some useful function that is widely accepted. Getting used to the taste of Coca-Cola makes it so good that it makes people develop an addiction. Coca-Cola gives a tickling sensation in the nostrils, quenches thirst, and has a bit of a caffeine effect. Some people believe it cures headaches, nausea and stomach aches, among other things.
2. Believe in your product. It is important to make the product project a high image and make the profession associated with it a sacred one. The staff should be made to believe that the product is world class and that they are working for the best company. Salesmen should have the skills of missionaries, not just salaried salesmen. In the 1920s, Robert Woodruff called all the salesmen together. Woodruff called all the salesmen together and unexpectedly announced that they were all fired. The next day he rehired them in a new service department, with the caveat that they were no longer salesmen because there was no need to promote the virtues of Coke. They were staff members whose job it was to make sure that the soda was made into an extremely well-mixed Coke on the rocks.
3. Create mystery. Creating an atmosphere of mystery is unethical, but it helps sales. A company executive recently admitted that the secret formula didn't mean much to them, and that the real secret to success was the impact of the product's trademark for more than a century, but the secret of the formula, the famous seven flavors, used to be a big draw for customers.
4. The cost of the product should be low. The cost per bottle of Coke is extremely low, less than - cents. Coca-Cola is not a capital-intensive product and is not difficult or labor-intensive to produce, although its production process is highly secretive.
5. Let those in distribution make a lot of money before the product reaches the consumer. The reasoning is simple: if the cost is low, the price can be increased significantly at retail. Coca-Cola has the ability to make people rich, and over the years, anyone who has dealt with Coca-Cola has become very rich, including bottle makers, shareholders, wholesalers, and people who supply truck trays and vending machines. The effect has been to make people very grateful to the company and happy to give to the Coca-Cola cause.
6. To make it affordable for everyone. From 1886 to the 1950s, the price of each bottle of Coke was only 5 cents and today it is not very expensive in the world. Therefore, people in third world countries can also afford it. Even in hard times, Coca-Cola has sold well. During the Great Depression of the thirties and the more recent recession, the makers of Coca-Cola were still making money.
7. Products should be everywhere. Make the product reachable, make it ubiquitous, make it readily available in dance halls, barbershops, offices, trains, and so on. Early Coke salesman Harrison? Jones said in 1923, "Make it impossible for people to avoid Coca-Cola."
8. Be smart about selling your product. This one sounds simple enough, but how, when, and where you market and publicize your product is the key to success or failure. By 1911, Arthur? Kadira spent more than a million dollars to stimulate the desire to make Coca-Cola the best advertised product in the world. He also hired painters to advertise its white-on-red product logo on white walls across the United States, covering more than five million square feet. By 1913, the company distributed more than 100 million small gifts with the Coca-Cola logo, which made an extreme impression on people by making it readily visible on frequently used items such as thermometers, calendars, race books, notepads, baseball cards, Japanese fans, and pictures. According to the salesman, one customer had frequent nightmares that a large white demon was chasing him holding a fireplace and shouting Coca-Cola. Today, when the company spends more than $4 billion a year to market Coca-Cola around the world and within the country, this phenomenon is nothing to sneeze at.
9. Promote the image of the product, not the product. A Coca-Cola advertiser once warned his imaginative and creative employees that we were selling something that didn't exist, and that they were drinking an image, not a product. In the beginning, Coca-Cola advertisements trumpeted its medicinal effects, claiming that it invigorated mental workers, relieved the headaches and pain of excessive drinkers, and gave pleasure. But the man who named and inscribed the drink, Frank? Robinson soon realized that promoting Coca-Cola as a pick-me-up rather than a patented drug would attract more customers and avoid unnecessary legal disputes and trouble.
10. Welcome competition. Although Coca-Cola's employees don't want to admit it, PepsiCo has in fact brought them a lot of benefits. People love to watch the "Battle of the Coke" between Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. The savvy salespeople at both companies also realized that, no matter which company won a particular round, the name recognition created by the fierce competition helped sell the product.
11. Reasonable use of celebrity effect. Coca-Cola began by hiring celebrities to advertise in the hope that consumers would follow the example of baseball superstar Ty? Cobb or actress Hilda Clark. Clark. By the thirties, from Clark? By the thirties, everyone from Clark Cobb and Kay Tuan Grant to Jane E. Bennett was being promoted. Grant to Jane Harlow and Joan B. Bowen. Harlow and Joan Crawford. Coca-Cola advertisements. In the late 1960s, movie stars from Neil Diamond to Leslie Crawford did commercials for Coca-Cola. Neil DeMond, Leslie Gower, Rachel B. Kennedy, and Jennifer Kennedy. Leslie Gower, Rachel Charisse, and Elisha B. Gore. Charles to Aretha Franklin. Franklin and others believed that drinking Coca-Cola would make everything better. However, there is a danger in relying too much on celebrity. On the one hand, viewers remember the star more than the product. Coca-Cola has remained a true star in its commercials, and PepsiCo has had headaches with stars who ask for too much money. Thus showing another danger in over-reliance on celebrities. Although Madonna and Jackson have done a lot to increase Pepsi's popularity, it has not been as good as the company had hoped. Coca-Cola, on the other hand, has been able to increase the popularity of Pepsi by reintroducing the late stars Louis Armstrong and Groucho. Armstrong, Groucho? Max and Hamphrey Birchinger. Burkhardt, among others, for skit ads.
12. Appeal to the desires of ordinary people. Since the 1950s, Coca-Cola has produced a model advertisement that works in a variety of cultures with little or no modification. How can this be done? The Coca-Cola jingle has the universal appeal that by drinking Coca-Cola you will become more confident, happier, more popular, sexier and younger. To enhance the publicity, Coca-Cola sponsors a variety of sporting events around the world, from sumo wrestling to soccer, and also sponsors concerts and more.
13．Attracting young people. Advertising in sports and concerts mainly attracts young people. If credibility is established among young people, then a long-term consumer market is gained.In 1894, Coca-Cola's postcard featured three five-year-old boys in navy uniforms screaming, "We want Coca-Cola." In 1911 the Coca-Cola Company was sued by the government, in part due to the presence of caffeine in Coca-Cola, which is addictive to children. Since then, the company has withdrawn all advertisements made to children under the age of 12. But that has neither stopped distributors from sending out school supplies such as note pads and rulers with the Coca-Cola logo, nor has it stopped the company from using Santa Claus to market its products for three decades.
14. Do as the Romans do. If you want to market a product globally, don't dress up as an "ugly American." In the 1920s, when Robert? Woodruff was in charge of global growth strategy, he worked to make Coca-Cola the favorite drink of Germans in Germany and of Frenchmen in France. Coca-Cola contracted with major local firms for distribution and encouraged them to engage in complementary production of the beverage by having local firms manufacture trucks, bottles, pallets, and provide logos. The only thing exported by the company and the only thing imported by local companies is Coca-Cola concentrate. The Coca-Cola Company can thus proudly and accurately point out how much it contributes to local economic development. Over the decades, Coca-Cola has trained a large number of managers around the globe who have the brains and understanding of local culture and customs, and rumor has it that the company has hired many local lawyers around the world.
16. to obey the law. Although Coca-Cola's senior managers or distributors have been suspected of bribery and kickbacks in the past, in general, the company's image is clean. Instead of profiting the company, general violations of the law tarnish the reputation of this huge multinational corporation, and the loss outweighs the gain.
17. Utilize influential people. Just because you don't break the law doesn't mean you can sit comfortably in your chair like an angel. Robert Woodruff is a nationally influential figure. Robert Woodruff is a nationally influential figure, and in fact he controls Georgia Senator Walter Joffa and Atlanta Mayor John Kennedy. Joffa and Atlanta Mayor William B. Hassfeld, among others. He was closely associated with the President. Together with his associates, he created Wyatt? Dwight D. Eisenhower. President Eisenhower and even helped him decide whether to run the government as a **** and party or as a Democrat. Pa? Worthing similarly put Jimmy? Carter into the White House. Nonetheless, politicians should not be asked to abuse their influence, as long as they can show that it is in the national interest to promote their products, and no special care is required. For example, the influence of Coca-Cola's close relationship with Carter was enough to knock on doors to market the product.
18. Be patient but decisive. The decision makers at Coca-Cola know that one day they will have to sell their products all over the world. With 195 countries currently sold, it was only a matter of time before their long-cherished dream was realized. War, famine and political events will bring temporary difficulties, but the future is bright and they will always persevere in their efforts, always ready to take advantage of every possible opportunity.
19. Keep the commandments. Robert? Woodruff's guiding philosophy is not at all complicated. According to his colleagues, he did not finish a book in his life, almost illiterate. His brilliance lay in strategizing and in adhering to some of the most basic truths.
20. Flexibility and change. When it comes to choosing between tradition and change, Coca-Cola's exposed weakness is its unwillingness to change the status quo. Arthur Cadillac was the first to make the move. Kadira did not remove cocaine from the drink until 1903. Woodruff was vehemently opposed to large bottles of Coca-Cola in the fifties, unwilling to introduce new flavors, advertising with rock and roll, and all the imperative reforms such as raising retail prices. In the eighties, Robert? Gozut was determined to stimulate the conservative company. When he decided to produce diet cola, his claims proved correct, and when he had trouble developing a new formula in 1985, he was flexible enough to adopt the original, thus averting a disaster. Woodruff always liked to say, "The world belongs to the man who forges ahead." Instead, Gouzout said, "We're straining to stay alive."
21. Don't use protective and negative advertising. For Pepsi, comparative advertising had some effect, but it may have inadvertently publicized a competitor. Coca-Cola has looked foolish whenever it has taken this approach; this includes positive explanations for the presence of caffeine in Coca-Cola.
22. Expand operations when necessary. Robert K. Gouzout was a member of the company's Board of Directors in 1981. As soon as he became president of the company in 1981, Goldschulte expanded his operations by buying what seemed at the time to be an influential Columbia Pictures. However, less than a decade later, he sold the movie company to Sony, and gained considerable profits, and then focus on the beverage business. Coca-Cola's stock appreciated 735 percent in the 1980s and split twice in the early 1990s.
23. Watch out for minimum profits. This idea seems simple enough, but no one paid much attention to it until Goldschulte came on board. In the competition with Pepsi, people only pay attention to market share, not market profits. Cozut discovered that the widely praised beverage company was in fact losing money because they were spending it on five-gallon metal drums.
24. To intimidate employees. It sounds a little over the top, but successive Coca-Cola presidents have favored an atmosphere of mutual respect and awe. Says Worthing, "An atmosphere of anxiety and tension maximizes people's potential." Woodruff's word "boss" implies awe and reverence. Today's Gauzout is a man who seeks perfection, and therefore, anyone in his presence will be on edge.
25. Promote managers from within the company. The best executives in Coca-Cola, without exception, have been promoted step by step, including members of the company's committees. They have all been indoctrinated with the well-known Coca-Cola beliefs. In order to develop the managerial talents of its staff, the company established a special training shop, where participants were tired and back-breaking every day on the assembly line.
26. Every advertisement has to serve a certain purpose. Since Coca-Cola is a very famous trademark, the 1985 ingredient change wasted four million dollars, but it really helped the company. When the company reintroduced Classic Coke under pressure from the general public, the relaunched Coke led to significantly higher sales than Pepsi. Prior to the introduction of the new Coca-Cola, this cola had been losing markets for over 20 consecutive years. Many now believe that Gozut, along with others in the company, orchestrated the whole thing behind the scenes. Don? Cove admits they weren't that smart, but they did know that even negative advertising can ultimately help increase sales of reputable products.
27. use cash wisely. in 1923 when Robert Woodruff took over the company. When Robert Woodruff took over the company in 1923, he was shocked by the amount of debt the company had, but later he was proud to have saved up a large amount of cash. As a result, the conservative management of the company never again had a debt crisis, even during the Reagan administration. During Gozut's time in power, the company took on a reasonable amount of debt. Gozut and the financial wizard, Dude? Eversheds argued that it made sense to borrow properly if reinvesting would be more profitable. One simple way to do this was to "repurchase your own stock issues and promote further increases in the stock price."
28. Organize joint ventures. Another way to use money wisely is to break the old rule of not owning a filling plant. Since Arthur? Cardilla gave up his bottling rights in 1899, the company has confirmed that its primary mission is to produce syrup. The less lucrative bottling industry has grown instead. The company owned some factories, but they were used primarily as training grounds for rotating managers rather than as cash cows. The conventional wisdom was that independent bottlers were better able to function, and in 1981 Cozut was forced to break this mold in the Philippines when the Soliano family, which owned the franchise, gave up 70 percent of the cola market to PepsiCo. By purchasing 30% of the distribution rights, Coca-Cola negotiated for a bottling plant. The president from Ireland, Nevile? Estelle used traditional stimulus and marketing strategies, which included military-like confrontations, to defeat Pepsi and flip the market share. From there, Kozut began fruitful joint venture matters around the world, taking the initiative and joining forces with underperforming bottlers to pump money into the vertically-associated beverage system.
29. Think globally, start with your feet. Though Coca-Cola's presidents are vying to claim this phrase for themselves, it may have come from Gouzout. Wherever it came from, Coca-Cola has shown its wisdom and used it to guide its operations. In China and Indonesia, for example, the first task was to build the infrastructure, to set up concentration, bottling, and filling plants, to buy trucks, to make sales signs, and so on, as if, in American parlance, it were 1905 all over again.
30. The quest for magic. In the early seventies, Coca-Cola's president Vorsteen tried to create what he called a "magic effect" for Coca-Cola. He believed that the company should take the lead in protecting the environment, improving ethnic relations, establishing model immigration programs, and producing nutritious beverages. Although the causes he advocated have had little success, the company is still pursuing the "magic effect" and doing something meaningful. In South Africa, the company has established a $10 million "Equal Opportunity Fund" to improve the living conditions of black people, while in the United States, the Coca-Cola Foundation is funding innovative programs in education and environmental protection.