In a bid to streamline its bottling operations in India,Coca-Cola is restructuring its organizational set-up.
Under the new structure, the firm’s bottling units in the country will be supervised by a senior vice-president, unlike its existing set-up in which two executives head the company-owned bottling operations and franchise-operated bottling operations, respectively.
This will help it capture avenues of growth such as e-commerce, modern trade, new beverages, and digitization in the country, Coca-Cola India said in a statement.
The new structure will become effective this month and is aimed at increasing productivity, reducing duplication and injecting better cost-efficiency in the firm, which has posted subdued growth in the past two years.
During the past three years, Coca-Colahas faced hurdles in its bottling operations here. Bottling units in Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Meghalaya had to be shut owing to low demand and the depletion of groundwater tables.
During the peak summer months of 2015 and 2016, its sales growth was poor. As health concerns over sugary carbonated drinks led to low demand, Coca-Cola diversified its portfolio by introducing non-carbonated beverages.
Coca-Colasources its beverages from 54 bottling units in the country. Of those 24 are owned by Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB), a subsidiary of its international bottling arm Bottling Investment Group (BIG). Currently, HCCB bottles 65 percent of its beverages. Some 13 franchise bottlers, which produce and distribute Coca-Cola’s products in India, account for the rest.
Therefore from the above news, we can conclude by saying that post the restructuring of Coca-Cola, the company would like to capture avenues of growth.
