Management 499 SLP 3: Coca-Cola Inc, Strategic Planning & Strategy Formulation
Module 3 - SLP
Strategic Planning & Strategy Formulation
Current Event Blog 3
For this SLP submission you will be asked to submit your third blog entry about another important aspect of the strategic management process and to provide examples based on current events pulled from recent articles from reputable sources (such as a major national news source like the NY Times, Business Week, etc.).
Recall that the main article(s) for each of your blog entries must be no older than 4 months old. If you use an older article as your primary focal article, you will be asked to redo the assignment. You may, of course, use older sources to support your discussion but the article serving as the main focus of your paper must be recent.
For your third SLP discuss the importance of the strategy formulation and planning phase. Identify one recent article that identifies a recent major strategic effort on the part of an organization. What would you have recommended if you were sitting at the strategy planning table? Examples of such an effort might include mergers, buy-outs, sell-offs, introduction of innovative products, strategic marketing campaigns …and the like.
Discuss to what extent you believe this effort will succeed given the organization’s external environment. What is the take-away for your reading audience? That is, what strategic planning lessons can be learned from the situation you highlighted in your blog entry?
SLP Assignment Expectations
Your SLP assignment should be a minimum of 2 pages in length.
You are required to use APA formatting and you are required to cite and reference your sources. There should be a minimum of three reputable sources cited and referenced in your paper.
Please make sure you review the assignment rubric prior to writing your assignment.
Coca-Cola Inc
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Any organization typically creates strategic planning to maintain its competitiveness within its work environment in which it determines where the company is, where the company wants to go and how it intends to reach there (Suarez, Calvo-Mora, and Roldah, 2016). Strategic planning involves determining what strategies will enable an organization to prosper in the future. An organization creates strategic planning to determine the weaknesses and strengths of its business and sets its mission, vision, objectives, and values in order. Strategic planning assists in achieving the organizational goals and lays out specific results which are aimed to be achieved and create a course of action for attaining them. During strategic planning, situation analysis (SWOT analysis) is performed to evaluate the external environment, to determine new opportunities, to evaluate weaknesses, threats, and strengths, and to create new ways to achieve company’s objectives (Suarez, Calvo-Mora, and Roldah, 2016). Once a company has captured the company’s image and its environment, strategies are made during the strategic planning phase to achieve the organization’s mission, vision, and objectives. Different organizations apply different strategies depending on their situations. When implementing the strategy, the outcomes of the strategy are evaluated and calculated, with recommended changes made to keep the momentum to achieve the desired objectives.
For the first time, Coca-cola has announced that all Coke trademark brands will be marketed under one global creative campaign identified as "Taste the Feeling" (Hobbs, 2016). The "One Brand" global strategic approach will unite its four product variants (Coca-Cola Life, Dike Coke, Coca-Cola, and Coca-Cola Zero) under a single grand brand rather than marketed as separate products (Hobbs, 2016). To reinforce the changes, Coca-Cola will collaborate with four different advertising agencies (Sra. Rushmore; Mercado-McCann; Oglivy and Mather; and Santo) and will launch ten television advertisements across 2016. The advertisement will underscore the organization’s commitment to choice, providing consumers whichever Coca-Cola products suit their diet, lifestyle, and tastes with or without caffeine or calories.
The ‘One Brand" strategy will offer consumers more options as the brand will focus on promoting responsible health choices to respond to the global advocacy for cracking down sugar consumption. Currently, the food industry is encountering problems associated with over-consumption of sugar. Coca-Cola has responded to this problem by manufacturing products with zero sugar (Hobbs, 2016). This is the reason the company is currently shifting its strategy to accelerate its responsible health choices. The company hopes that the "One Brand" global strategic...