Introduction to Coca-Cola

The Coca-Cola is an international beverage manufacturer, marketer, and retailer based in Atlanta, Georgia. The Firm is best recognized for its original brand Coca-Cola, established in 1886 by Pemberton John (Hymson, 2011, p. 2). Since its inception, the company has operated a franchised distribution system which has seen it rise the ladders to become the world’s leading beverage manufacturer and seller. In its business model, the Company only produces the concentrate which is then sold to different bottlers worldwide. With the stiff competition and the global nature of the beverage market, Coca-Cola system has installed the highest processes and standards to ensure a sustained quality in its entire value chain, ranging from its syrup production to its bottling and distribution.

Ideally, a Quality Management System (QMS) entails a formalized system that dictates the procedures, processes, and responsibilities for attaining quality objectives and policies. To achieve a sustained quality and safety, Coca-Cola has stringent manufacturing sales and distribution procedures and policies, specifications and requirements which are maintained by an integrated quality management system termed as “Coca-Cola Operating Requirements (KORE).” KORE creates an integrated quality management plan for the company which holds on its system-wide operations (Journey Staff, 2012). With support from leadership throughout the Company, KORE: integrates preventive actions when introducing new products, integrates business quality goals and aligns them with the relevant metrics to closely monitor performance, incorporates critical control points and hazard analysis (HACCP), risk management in the organization’s bottling activities and entire supply chain system, outlines problem-solving approaches to enhance sustained quality advancements (Journey Staff, 2012). Besides, the company conducts unannounced audits in its manufacturing facilities and regular inspections to ensure that its ingredients, are safe, of high quality and sourced from trusted sources.

As defined by Weinmann (2015, p. 5), operations management entails management activities and processes that enable a firm to transfer various resources like energy, raw materials, information, finance and consumer needs into final outputs that transfer the firm’s primary services and products to the final consumer. Furthermore, Brown & Bessant (2013, p. 12), insist that different factors like supply and logistics, inventory management, design decisions on capacity planning, management of processes, quality assurance and human capital act as fundamental components of an effective operations management system. Active OM is critical in ensuring that the organization achieves its desired objectives. Also, the nature of how the strategic goals management is designed is largely dependent on the type of organization such as a wholesale or manufacturing business, an agency or a retail enterprise and a government authority. As explained by Brown & Bessant (2013, p. 13), the importance of effective management of operations in achieving organizational strategic goals may be severed into three primary classes- tactical, strategic and operational decisions.

Quality Management System at Coca-Cola

Strategic decisions: Effective operations management assists the top-level managers in making different strategic decisions. Strategic decisions may relate to the major problems being faced by the firm or major strategic and competitive programs being installed by the firm. These may include acquisitions and merger decisions.

Tactical Decisions: Operations management assists the management to schedule the available resources effectively and manage its staff members under the legal constraints and regulations established by the enterprise’s strategic plan. For instance, some tactical decisions made by a firm may entail scheduling raw material delivery and operational shift planning.

Operational Decisions: Following the explanations, given by Mahadevan (2015, p. 20), OM enables the management to plan properly, control and monitor operational decisions with regards to the constraints and problems defined by the tactical decisions. Such decisions are closely related to primary departmental goals and targets and are short-term. Examples of such decisions entail individual daily operational decisions established by the team managers in an organization such as planning and defining daily activities and goals.

Apart from effective operations management, quality is an important aspect in firms like Coca-Cola. Being in the processing and manufacturing sector adds to the firm’s responsibility to manufacture and distribute safe and high-quality products so that it wins the trust and loyalty of the customers. Furthermore, a Quality Management System plays a pivotal role in ensuring that the firm’s production system is effective. Besides, quality is not related to the manufacturing of goods alone, but rather it also relates to the quality of different services offered by the firm to the consumers.

According to Joseph Juran (quality guru), quality management entails three parts- assurance, planning, and control. To attain excellence, sustained quality management and improvement should for part of these three roles (Goetsch & Davis, 2014, p. 14). Unreasonable society and industry behaviors may be corrected by an accurate application of TQM (Total Quality Management).

Quality management helps an organization to achieve its objectives in two ways- meeting the requirements of the customers and fulfilling organization’s requirements.  When an organization can satisfy the needs of its clients, then the customers will develop confidence in the firm which in return may lead to more sales, a large customer base and more repeat business (Sabella, Kashou & Omran, 2014, p. 1488). Also, effective quality management enables an organization to meet its requirements such as compliance with regulations and provision of services and products in the most resource and cost-effective way, creating an opportunity for growth, expansion, and profitability.

Operations Management in Coca-Cola

Quality and safety: To maintain its competitive advantage in the global beverages industry, Coca-cola has tried to observe quality (KORE), safety, speed, low costs and dependability in its operational processes (Loison, Foch & Boyer, 2014, p. 6). Ideally, through global sourcing efforts, in partnership with numerous bottling companies, the company has contracted to source millions of raw materials for its manufacturing processes at lower prices (Albert, Werhane & Rolph, 2014, p. 4). For instance, in 2016, the company collaborated with different bottling partners to source one million tons of more sustainable sugar. This achievement was aimed at positioning the firm at an estimated 15-20% towards its goal to sustainably source 100 percent of its sugar by 2020, hence reducing operational costs.

Cost: Cost-cutting has enabled the company to operate sustainably and make more profits. Costs entail prices tied to products and services. It may also refer to operational, manufacturing and overhead expenses incurred by a firm in manufacturing specific products. Coca Cola’s primary target is to achieve 3 billion US dollars in annual savings in expenses by 2019 and at the same time boost sales by increasing prices and promoting smaller pack sizes (Journey Staff, 2012). To attain this, the company has adopted a price-pack architecture approach in the US, whereby it promotes the 8-ounce glass bottle and the mini cans.

Speed: Coca-Cola Company only manufactures the concentrate (Baah & Bohaker, 2015, p. 17). This concentrate is then distributed to different bottling partners located globally. Therefore, enabling its customers to gain access and purchase its products from different locations without delays. Speed is a major consideration for a supply chain system to be considered as effective (Stadtler, 2015, p. 4). There should be no delays in supplies. Furthermore, the customers should readily access the products whenever they need them. This is what Coca-Cola strives to do. The bottlers have stores at strategic places worldwide, where the consumers, retail stores, restaurants and entertainment organizations can purchase the products without delays.

Flexibility and dependability: Flexibility can be defined as the ability of a firm to respond and adapt to the changes in the operational environment (Mir & Pinnington, 2014, p. 202). Dependability, on the other hand, is the ability of a business to maintain a proper customer focus that can translate into profitability (Mir & Pinnington, 2014, p. 203). Coca-Cola Company collaborates with different global partners to achieve global sourcing of its raw materials such as sugar. The Firm also manufactures a variety of products to respond to different customer requirements.

Strategic Decisions in Operations Management

Change encompasses the transition that takes place when something’s normal status is altered. Change is the basis for development (Hornstein, 2015, p. 293). Change can be administered with regards to different aspects of an organization. These may include global competition, technology, customer needs, global competition, demographics, market fluctuations, stakeholder pressure and privatization (Jacobs, Van-Witteloostuijn & Christe-Zeyse, 2013, p. 774). Specifically, there are two factors that necessitate a change in Coca-Cola Company- Global competition and technology.

Different companies have adopted sophisticated software, to manage their business processes and operations in the beverages industry. Such soft wares enable the companies to integrate their supply chain systems and operational strategies so that they become more competitive (Davis et al., 2018, p. 10). In relations to Coca-Cola Company, it runs different ERP and supply chain management implications which include SAP’s R/3 production and material planning applications. These systems enable the company to automate its supply chain processes and achieve efficiency. However, a major weakness of these systems is that they do not connect store deliveries with back-end systems. As explained by Culey (2012, p. 42), there is need to improve the Company’s supply chain visibility to allow for improved planning and reduce the cases of unwanted supplies and deliveries.

Another factor that creates the need for change is global competition. Coca-Cola is an international company, hence exposed to the global competition (Bremmer, 2014, p. 103). It must, therefore, devise certain strategies to remain competitive. The company has tried to achieve global competition by automating most of its processes and activities. However, the company has experienced challenges in data integration, especially about vendor management. Therefore, there is a need for the company to adopt electronic tracking technologies like radio frequency identification tagging.

The beverages market is a competitive market with many players. Therefore, there is a need for firms to constantly adjust to different environmental factors. Some factors that may drive change in this industry include economic, political, budgetary constraints, loss of market, new markets, new technology, cut in funds and restructuring among other factors (Nair & Selover, 2012, p. 336). With the rapidly changing international political situation between states, the global economy is equally relaying some challenges before organizations in the beverage industry in the form of changes in rules and regulations.

Besides, Eskandari et al. (2015, p. 185), explains that economic forces may influence an organization’s change management approach by either presenting challenges or opportunities in the form of growing competitive pressures or economic uncertainties. In the beverage industry, such factors include inflation, interest rates, tax structures and increase in consumer confidence towards the country’s economic conditions.

Tactical Decisions in Operations Management

About Coca-Cola Company, technological advancements in the global marketing environment, pose to the company a major challenge to conform (Zawislak et al., 2012, p. 15). Therefore, there is need to make its supply chain system more efficient. The company has adequate resources regarding IT experts, partners like SAP, finances and able management which it can utilize to administer change, by using electronic tracking technologies to improve its vending machine management.

Competitive pressures relate to the increase in global competition. In the beverages industry, there are several competitors like Pepsi (Tanwar, 2013, p. 11). Therefore, there is a need for companies to diversify their product portfolios to become more competitive. Coca-Cola also deals with a variety of soft drink brands. To better control its inventory, the company should attach RFID tags to these products so that they can be tracked.

Reduced supply chain visibility: Supply chain visibility is the ability of an organization to track the parts, components or products in transit from the stores to their final destinations. Therefore, if RFID will not be installed, then Coca-Cola company will not be able to improve and strengthen its supply chain system.

Incorrect deliveries: Ignoring the change may lead to an increase in instances of incorrect deliveries. This is because the company will not be able to track its deliveries from the stores to the points of destination. This may in return lead to inefficiencies and time wastage.

Decreased profitability: The main goal of most companies is to gain competitive advantages against their market competitor. Profitability is one of the aspects of competitiveness (Williams et al., 2013, p. 543). When Coca-Cola Company ignores installation of RFIDs, then there may be inefficiencies in the supply chain system which may lead to time wastages. This may translate to reduced profitability in the long-run.

Nature of the Change

Coca-Cola should implement an evolutionary change. This is a type of change that is administered gradually into the organization without interfering with the status quo and tradition of the firm (Tanwar, 2013, p. 12). Coca-Cola Company already has an integrated supply chain system. It used an integrated SAP to manage and control its inventory. However, the main weakness of this system is that it is unable to achieve supply chain visibility (Computer Weekly, 2012). Therefore, the company while installing the change should discuss with the relevant employees and IT partners on the best install the RFIDs and tag its products so that their movement can be monitored. However, it is expected that every employee in the IT department will have the desired approach to adopt. The managers should, therefore, be able to consolidate these opinions and come up with the best approach to adapt to ensure that the change is successfully implemented.

Operational Decisions in Operations Management

Change Perspective

Coca-Cola Company should adopt a contingency perspective to administering the change. Ideally, technological improvements are unpredictable, and the only best way to address the challenges that they pose is by adopting the changes as they appear. A contingency approach to change implementation explains how an organization breaks down an elaborate task into simple activities and then integrate them to achieve the organizational purpose (Battilana & Casciaro, 2012, p. 382). The main aim of the change implementation is to give Coca-Cola Company more information at the account and store level to enhance its retail customer relationships.

There are many models of change management that may be adopted by companies. In this case, the Coca-Cola Company will adopt the Prosci ADKAR Model. This is a goal-oriented model that can be used to guide organizational and individual change (Parker et al., 2013, p. 407). It was established by Jeff Hiatt and consists of an acronym that represents the five results a person must attain for a change to be successful: Awareness, Knowledge, Desire, Ability, and Reinforcement.

Awareness: An organization must make the relevant stakeholders aware of the need for change (Lewis, 2012, p. 6). In the case of Coca-Cola Company, it should communicate with the stores’ management department concerning the limitations of the current system and the need to customize it and introduce the RFIDs so that they can track their inventory. At the awareness stage, the main objective of change implementation must be communicated. For instance, Coca-Cola Company, by implementing this change, will improve its supply chain visibility. When proper awareness is created, then resistance to change will be weakened.

Desire: The Company should show the commitment to engage and participate in the change. Desire relates to the results of sponsorship and management of resistance to change (Nasiri, Ansari & Fathi, 2013, p. 3). The management of Coca-Cola should ensure that the employees develop the desire to participate in the change. This is because if the employees have no desire, they may not be interested and develop resistance. In ensuring the employees develop the desire for change, the management should explain to them the benefits of increasing supply chain visibility. Supply chain visibility will help the firm to know what particular place the products are during transit and reduce cases of wrong deliveries.

Knowledge: The Company should knowconcerning how to implement the change (Knechtges & Decker, 2014, p. 1126). Knowledge may be viewed as the goal of coaching and training. After achieving the milestones of awareness and desire, the management of Coca-Cola should resort to knowledge-building. At this point, the employees should be given proper training on how to use the RFIDs. Furthermore, every employee should be given training that is relevant to his/her role in the change to ensure that the training investment is optimized.

Quality Management and Customer Satisfaction

Ability: This outlines the ability of a firm to implement the change to achieve the required performance level (Boca, 2013, p. 246). It is the outcome of practice, time and additional coaching. After training the employees on the change, Coca-Cola Company should identify the gaps between the employee knowledge and their abilities to apply them. This is because it is the employees who will be responsible for using the RFIDs to track the products. Therefore, to escape a scenario whereby the employees are unable to understand how the RFIDs work, the management must make attempts to bridge the gap between the employees’ knowledge and abilities.

Reinforcement: The Company should have the ability to ensure that the change sticks. This is the outcome of adoption, evaluation, recognition and corrective action (Kazmi & Naarananoja, 2013, p. 44). At this stage, Coca-Cola Company should introduce the RFIDs in its supply chain management system and then analyze the response of the employees. If the employees are unable to use the system, then they should be retrained.

Implementation process

The change implementation process entails all the steps and procedures followed to bring the proposed change into action (Rafferty, Jimmieson & Armenakis, 2013, p. 110). The process starts with the introduction of the proposed change through installation and ends with change evaluation and administration of corrective actions. Change can be implemented with regards to the following phases:

Phase One: Prepare for change

Before, implementing a specific strategy, a company should take steps to understand and prepare for change. Below are some activities that can be undertaken by Coca-Cola Company to prepare for the change:

Readiness Assessments: Before administering the change, the management should conduct a self-evaluation to validate their intuition concerning how ready the organization is for change (Rafferty, Jimmieson & Armenakis, 2013, p. 115). After this, it should hand out the assessment to employees to analyze their readiness to change through team discussions and workshops. This assessment enables the organization to solicit the opinions of the staff members concerning the proposed change. The following table can be used to evaluate readiness for change among the employees and management:

The responses are interpreted as follows: 1- strongly disagree, 2- disagree, 3- neutral, 4- somewhat agree, 5- agree, 6- strongly agree.

Risk Analysis: A risk analysis should be performed following pre-defined risk operating procedures. Normal practice is that risk potential is estimated, then its severity is estimated. The two estimates of risk probability and severity can be put together to determine the total risk rating (Schaffer, Sandau & Diedrick, 2013, p. 1197). In the case of Coca-Cola Company, it is also important to determine the risk detectability. From the risk severity, detectability, and probability, the priority number for the risk can be evaluated as follows: P*S= RPN or S*D*P = RPN. The change risk assessment for Coca-Cola can be analyzed as in the table below:

Cost, Speed, Flexibility, and Dependability

Special Tactics: Tactics refer to procedures which can be used to ensure that the change is implemented successfully. In the case of Coca-Cola Company some tactics that can ensure that the implementation process is successful include:

Build management support: Management support is key to ensuring successful change implementation (Meyers, Durlak & Wandersman, 2012, p. 462). Therefore, it is critical to lobbying management support in every step of the implementation process. This can be done by explaining to them the need for change and demonstrating how the implementation can be done so that they develop the desire for change.

Creating inclusivity: All the relevant stakeholders should be involved in the change process (Meyers, Durlak & Wandersman, 2012, p. 462). For example, the opinions of the employees should be taken into consideration when administering the change. This will help in reducing the cases of resistance.

Budget and timing: For the change implementation process to be successful, enough resources should be allocated to support the change. These may include qualified personnel and finances. Furthermore, proper timing should be done to ensure that enough time is allocated for administering the change.

Survey: A survey should be conducted among the expected users of the system to understand whether they will be able to adopt it (Li et al., 2013, p. 613). For example, in this case, the IT department should be asked for their opinions concerning the system before an implementation process is executed.

Competent change implementation team: A competent team should be listed to conduct the change implementation process. This should consist of experts who are conversant with the system.

Anticipated resistance: The store managers and employees in the stores’ department are the expected users of the RFIDs. However, it is expected that they may resist the idea of introducing this system due to some reasons. Some reasons why the employees may resist the change include- lack of trust, fear of the unknown, loss of jobs and poor engagement.

Poor engagement- when the employees are not engaged in the change implementation process, they may feel sidelined and develop resistance (Burnes et al., 2015, p. 92). Therefore, the change should adequately be communicated within the organization and the views of all the employees incorporated.

Fear of the unknown- some employees may fear the uncertainties that may be brought by the change (Burnes et al., 2015, p. 92). Some may feel that they may lose their jobs while some may feel that the new system may be complex for them to use. However, this can be handled by communicating the benefits of the new system to the employees.

Change Management in Coca-Cola

Poor timing and loss of jobs: When the change is poorly timed, then the employees involved may oppose it (Burnes et al., 2015, p. 93). Therefore, the change process should coincide with the organizational calendar and implemented at the right time. Also, some employees may feel that the change may make them lose their jobs. This is especially when they feel that they may not be able to grasp the system. However, assurance of proper training of employees concerning the system will be able to handle such a resistance.

Document strategy: A change implementation plan should be well-documented. All the steps should be communicated so that all the employees understand the process (Bhasin, 2012, p. 440). This will help in reducing any instances of resistance and enable the organization and the change sponsors to gain support from the employees. It will also help in alleviating confusions and time wastages that may result from improperly planned change processes.

Change Management Team: Preparation of the change management team is a major step in the change implementation process because it is the change management team which is responsible for handling every step to execute the change (Bhasin, 2012, p. 442). A desirable team for Coca-Cola Company must be ready to be involved in implementing the change, have the required expertise, experience, skills and leadership to make the change process a success. The team should be trained on the dynamics of change. Ideally, the change Management team for Coca-Cola should be consistent with IT experts, who are well-conversant with RFIDs.

Change sponsorship: A sponsorship model shows people responsible for offering the desired support for the change to be implemented (McAlister et al., 2012, p. 5). In Coca-Cola Company, the system change mainly involves the logistics and distribution department. The Chief executive officer will be the ultimate sponsor of the project and all other managers affected by the change project will report to him/her. Other sponsors of the change project entail the employees and managers in the logistics, sales, and distribution, finance and manufacturing departments. The finance department will be responsible for availing the right amount of funds to execute the change, the manufacturing, distribution and logistics departments will be responsible for communicating the change and ensuring that desirable outcomes are achieved.

For proper change management to be achieved, the activities of the organization should be customized to coincide with the strategic analysis of the proposed change. This will enable the employees to follow all the outlined processes to ensure that the change process is successful (Gobble, 2013, p. 62). Furthermore, the change management team should prepare the communication plans, coaching plans, sponsorship roadmaps, training plans and plans for managing resistance.

ERP and Supply Chain Management in Coca-Cola

Change Communication plan:  This is a plan designed by the change management team to address the needs of front-line workers, executives and supervisors (Gobble, 2013, p. 62). Each of these groups have different information needs based on their roles in the implementation process. In developing the communication plan, the change management team should clarify how the change will impact on different interested groups, select credible individuals to deliver the message, develop preference to face to face communication and develop an accurate feedback system. Coca Cola’s communication plan with the executives may be designed as follows:

Sponsor roadmap: For the strategy to be successfully implemented, business executives and leaders must offer support and finance the change process. This is because they act as critical sponsors of the change management (Gobble, 2013, p. 64). Therefore, the change management team must establish a plan for sponsor roles. The groups directly impacted by the change in Coca-Cola Company entail Logistics, Manufacturing, and finance. This sponsorship model can be developed as follows:

From above diagram, the Chief executive officer is the overall sponsor of the change project. The sponsors are tasked with the role of participating actively in the project, building a coalition and managing any resistance and communicating the change directly with the employees.

Coaching Plan: This plan defines how the change management and implementation team will support the supervisors and managers during the change and how they will relate with the front-line employees (Gobble, 2013, p. 64). This enables the managers and supervisors to support their employees in the change process, sponsor change and support their workers in the new changed environment. The ADKAR model can be used to develop the coaching plan for Coca-Cola Company’s change implementation. This tool will help the company to evaluate at what stage the employees are in the change process and guide the employees through the process. The following is the coaching plan for Coca-Cola Company:

Training Plan: After coaching the employees, the change implementation team will be able to determine their training needs (Clardy, 2013, p. 33). A training program should, therefore, be formulated to enable the employees to understand different concepts regarding the project that they may doubt. Training also equips the employees with the relevant skills to adopt the change and execute their roles in the change process. The training plan for Coca-Cola Company can be presented as follows:

Resistance management plan: Employees can develop resistance to the change at any stage of the implementation process (Clardy, 2013 p. 35). Therefore, the change implementation team should come with a plan to handle any forms of resistance. Coca-Cola Company’s resistance management plan can adopt the following format:

Change Integration into the overall project management plan: Prosci outlines five tactical dimensions which can be used to integrate change into the overall project management of the organization- people, tools, process, results and outcomes and methodologies (Clardy, 2013 p. 38). People management dimension outlines who is doing the change and project management work and the way the relationship is being created. Ideally, change management process may sit support the project team externally or sit on the project team. Therefore people roles should be integrated into the project management and change management team by evaluating the nature of change, defining clear roles and responsibilities, get all the employees involved and ensuring sponsorship (Clardy, 2013 p. 35). A primary assumption is that both project management and change management aims to improve organizational performance.  Therefore, the two processes should bring the same results to the organization.

Process dimension mainly addresses the way different activities of change management and project management are brought together in the project lifecycle (Clardy, 2013 p. 37).  Coca-Cola Company should begin the change management process early in the project lifecycle especially at the project planning stage to alleviate overlapping of activities. It should also use the project-driven model with accurate deliverables for change management. The change management should be structured, actively identify key points for integrating roles like risk identification, system testing, and solution design and establish string deliverables (Clardy, 2013 p. 37). The company should also come up with a standard approach and methodology to project delivery that combines the reject management and change management approaches. Different tools which make sense for integration should be identified and incorporated in the process. In ensuring that the change management is congruent to project management, the change management team should work with what the project management team has already done and ensured clear ownership.

Execution of the change management plan: Once all the change requirements have been met, and the employees trained on how to adopt the change, Coca-Cola Company should execute the change. At this stage, it should consider employing the adoption management strategies to ensure that the change is successfully adopted by the firm. These strategies may encompass metrics to measure the performance gaps, incentive programs, reinforcement tools and a schedule for retraining.

At this stage, change implementation teams should collect and evaluate feedback from the employees, diagnose and manage any resistance and gaps and implement appropriate corrective actions. In the Case of Coca-Cola Company, it should collect feedback from the employees using employee surveys, team meetings, suggestion boxes and regular performance reviews. This will enable it to determine whether the employees have adopted the change (Too & Weaver, 2014, p. 1382). The change implementation team should also listen to the employees’ suggestions and complaints as bases of improvements.

Compliance audits should regularly be conducted to examine whether the change is being complied with (Too & Weaver, 2014, p. 1382). Besides, the management should identify any gaps and areas of resistance among the employees to allow for accurate adjustments and corrective actions.

When change is implemented accurately in an organization, then it may translate to improved organizational performance (Too & Weaver, 2014, p. 1384). Likewise, Coca-Cola Company will celebrate success when the RFIDs are successfully installed as it will help in improving the supply chain visibility and reducing cases of lost stocks and incorrect deliveries. After all the adjustments have been made, the use of RFIDs to track inventory should form part of Coca-Cola Company’s supply chain management system.

However, if there are some areas of difficulties, especially when the employees are unable to use the system effectively, then corrective actions should be implemented. These may include, customizing the system to be simpler to use, retraining the employees and administering incentives to encourage the employees to use the system.

Resources:

For the proposed plan to be implemented, Coca-Cola Company must avail the required financial, human and technological resources (Weinmann, 2015, p. 12). For example, Risk assessment requires the services of a risk expert, which is a human resource. Therefore, the proposed plan may not be successful if a risk expert is not consulted. Also, some actions like training and coaching require the services of a competent change implementation team (human resources). The change relates to automation and technology. Therefore, the firm must sort the services of a software dealer like SAP to obtain a customized system. This is a technological resource.

Buy-in-index:  This is a short survey that attempts to track the change initiative attitude. The results from this tool are always used to compare with the results attained during the baseline analysis of change readiness (Too & Weaver, 2014, p. 1300). The index is important to the plan as it asks participants to answer a range of questions and then grade them on a scale of 1-5 (5 is the highest possible score). If most scores are less than 5, then it means that the employees do not understand the role of the new system, do not know how to operate it or are not ready for the change.

Risk Assessment: This is a tool utilized in comparing the potential benefits and the risks of a proposed change (Too & Weaver, 2014, p. 1300, p. 1300). In Coca-Cola Company, this tool will help it to clarify what constitutes the acceptable risk levels with regards to the business goals and impact on stakeholders. It will enable the change management team to prioritize, classify and handle risk. It will also assist them in identifying proactive risk mitigation procedures, monitoring and reporting any progress in risk reduction and defining the responsibilities of management in reducing risk.

“What’s in it for me?”  This is a tool that enables the management to consider various needs and attitudes of individual employees and teams who act as key stakeholders in the change initiative (Too & Weaver, 2014, p. 1301). It will help the change management team to identify how the employees perceive change and their roles in the change process. Furthermore, the company will be able to understand the reactions of the employees, what they can do to prevent or support the change and their actions that may prevent or encourage non-compliance.

Stakeholder analysis: This is the process of categorizing the stakeholders into groups based on different considerations which may encompass geographic boundaries, institutions, income groups or perceived views (Too & Weaver, 2014, p. 1301). Stakeholders are the main executors of change. Therefore, stakeholder analysis enables the company to understand who the stakeholders are, what they can do and their significance in the change process. Primarily, stakeholder analysis will enable Coca-Cola Company to practice inclusivity by ensuring that every interest group is included in the change implementation process.

Brainstorming: Brainstorming can be used to identify the views of different stakeholders about the change (Too & Weaver, 2014, p. 1302). The six thinking hats developed by Edward De Bono can be used in the brainstorming process to identify creative ideas within a group of employees. The method will impose a great influence on Coca Cola’s strategy because it is revolutionary and releases the employees from the argumentative notion. 

Rather than arguing with each other, the six thinking hats should enable the employees to argue by creative ideas which may be used to modify or further improve the system (Weinmann, 2015, 28). The six thinking hats consists of the white hat which focused on the background data, the red hat which discusses individual thoughts and feelings, the yellow hat which looks at the benefits and feasibility of the change, the black hat which looks at the weaknesses, problems and risks associated with the change, the green hat which generates alternative approaches that may be adopted in the change process and the blue hat which coordinates and consolidates the opinions of the employees.

Focus groups: This is a tool that enables the change implementation team to conduct open forums with the relevant stakeholders to solicit their ideas concerning the change (Weinmann, 2015, p. 29). It will enable the Company to achieve real-time collaboration, information sharing, and relationship creation to help in successfully implementing the change.

The process, showcase and technical walk-throughs: When introducing the new system, the change implementation team should hold forums for demonstrating to the employees how the system works. A process walk-through is an approach used to train employees whereby a qualified instructor demonstrates to the employees the practical aspects of the system (Weinmann, 2015, p. 32). This system will enable the change management team to identify training gaps among the employees and support them through the training process.

A quality culture can be defined as the ability of an organization to offer and maintain high-quality products and services continuously. Quality can be evaluated by efficiency, safety, time, dependability, and effectiveness. Coca-Cola Company has maintained a culture of quality throughout its operations over the years; it sources products from trusted suppliers to ensure that they are of high quality and safe (Journey Staff, 2012). Furthermore, the company has installed into its culture the practice of conducting unannounced audits to monitor compliance level among its employees. To ensure that its syrup is of high quality, the company uses KORE standards which offer guidelines to its employees in conducting all the organizational roles (Journey Staff, 2012).  The company has installed high-end technology in its manufacturing, marketing, and distribution process which ensures faster manufacturing and distribution of orders. However, the company uses SAP system which does is unable to track its products. Therefore, to ensure the quality of its services, the company should install RFIDs to improve its supply chain visibility.

According to Srinivasan & Kurey (2012), a quality culture begins with leadership that has an understanding and belief in the impacts of the systems view and recognizes the need to serve customers to succeed. Some successful approaches that can be used by Coca-Cola Company to establish and monitor quality adequately may include promoting an open and honest communication, ensuring accessibility of information, focusing on processes, promoting a togetherness mentality and promoting learning in the organization. Srinivasan & Kurey (2012) explains that when a mentality of togetherness is promoted in a firm, then a win-win goal can be achieved by the company, its suppliers, and the customers. This will enable Coca-Cola Company to better understand and monitor its quality culture.

An open and honest communication channel in the organization is vital in ensuring quality. Besides the best way of encouraging truth-telling in the firm is by establishing a culture where individuals listen to and understand each other (Safty, 2012). This is a culture which should be adopted by Coca-Cola Company to enhance information flow in the organization which will in return make it easy for the firm to communicate and monitor its quality progress.

The third ingredient is the accessibility of information. All the employees in an organization should have access to information. In the same way, Coca-Cola Company should ensure that its quality information is always accessible by the relevant stakeholders. According to Safty (2012), business managers should encourage open information sharing to guide the employees on what to do next and how to ensure quality.

Quality can also be achieved through adopting a culture of prevention. Smith (2015), insist that quality has to be forced upstream to make it more robust and to limit the procedures of continuous appraisal. If Coca-Cola Company adopts this culture, then it will be able to detect any potential deviations from quality standards and prevent them from happening.

Furthermore, Smith, (2015) suggests that quality should be measured by the cost of nonconformance. It is apparent that if Coca-Cola Company decides not to monitor its quality conformance levels, then it may lead to an increase in the cases of non-conformance. Non-conformance may cost the organization in many ways like loss of customers, inefficient production, loss of profitability and high employee turnover. These effects can only be prevented if the company adopts proper quality management and monitoring process and embeds the cost of non-conformance in its monitoring process.

When an organization adopts a culture of zero defects, then it may be able to produce high-quality products and services. Mehta (2018) examines the culture of zero defects by using Scout’s Law of zero non-conformance. Allowing the members of an organization to be untrustworthy may compromise on the credibility and integrity of the organization. Therefore, Coca-Cola Company should embed this strategy on its quality management procedures to ensure high quality remains its priority.

Coca-Cola Company should also adopt a culture of continuous process improvement. This helps in identifying the problems in systems and fixing them (Mehta, 2018). For example, the current supply chain system of the organization does not allow for back-end tracking of products.  If the company adopts a process improvement strategy, then it will be able to fix such problems in time. During the process improvement, the company should exhibit teamwork and collaboration. Collaboration enables the firm to achieve quality teams with clearly defined objectives. The teams should regularly brainstorm implement quality monitoring and control processes and solve problems.

Last, the above proposals cannot be successfully adopted by Coca-Cola if it does not practice quality commitment. Senior managers of companies must commit their efforts to ensuring that the quality management processes are implemented and monitored (Mehta, 2018). This is because it is the senior management which allocates budgets to quality management practices. Furthermore, the employees may not care to observe quality standards I cases whereby the management is passive. Therefore, the management of the Company must commit to quality to be successful in implementing and monitoring quality.

This assignment has discussed quality management and operational management in Coca-Cola Company. Coca-Cola uses trusted suppliers for its materials and uses KORE as a framework to ensure safety and quality of its products. In its supply chain management, the Company has partnered with SAP which provides it with a supply chain management software. However, this has some inadequacies related to tracking of materials. The company is unable to track its products using its systems, leading to cases of incorrect deliveries and reduced supply chain visibility. This assignment has therefore proposed a quality change, whereby the company should install RFIDs to enable it to track the improvements of its products. The RFIDs will use tags with codes embedded on its product containers and then use a high-end technology installed in a hand-held device which scans the code and connects it to the main systems using a computer. This proposed change will result in the ability of the company to track its products in transit, making it increase its supply chain visibility and reduce cases of incorrect deliveries.

Change outcomes refer to the goals that a company may achieve by instituting change in its processes (Hornstein, 2015, p. 295). Outcome evaluation, on the other hand, entails an evaluation that is geared towards assessing the reasons why the expected outcomes have been achieved or not achieved. There are many models that can be used to analyze the results of a strategic quality change.  The outcomes of installing the RFIDs can be analyzed regarding employee feedback, impact on efficiency, impact on profits and sales and action learning.

Ideally, action learning is a tool that can be used to examine the results of a strategic change. Using this tool, the staff members of a particular organization should come together and review their actions in the change implementation process (Hornstein, 2015, p. 296). This should enable the staff members to improve their efficiency in future. For instance, one of the actions for quality change by Coca-Cola Company was to increase its supply chain visibility by September 2018. Therefore, to attain this result, the employees are to work tirelessly by participating in training forums and actively share their ideas with their colleagues. The ability to trace the movement of products during transit by the company can be used to demonstrate that the company has achieved a positive outcome from its change strategy.

The impacts on profits and sales is another tool. The decrease or increase in sales revenue as a result of the imposition of change can form a basis for evaluating strategic success (Hornstein, 2015, p. 296). This is a quantitative analysis approach which examines the numerical increases in sales returns and profitability. The successful implementation of RFIDs minimizes the cases of supply chain invisibility. It also minimizes the cases of incorrect deliveries, and inefficiencies in product delivery as the location of every product will be tracked. Therefore, it is likely to improve the sales due to accurate deliveries, which may in return improve profitability.

The company can also use feedback from customers and employees. Feedback from the employees can be used to evaluate the success of a quality change (Hornstein, 2015, p. 297). Employees can provide positive or negative feedback depending on their experiences with the system. For example, in Coca-Cola Company, the system implementation can be viewed as successful when the employees in the stores and logistics departments can use the system to track the products in the stores and transit. If they are unable to do so, then corrective measures should be taken such as training them on how to use it.  Also, Coca-Cola should derive feedback from its customers. Customers refer to the recipients and users of the company’s products. The system will be evaluated as successfully implemented when it leads to a decrease in customer complaints especially relating to incorrect deliveries.

Introducing RFIDs will enable the company to improve its supply chain visibility. However, this is a new system which requires the employees to be trained and coached on how to use it. Some gaps in the system include:

Need for frequent updates:  Systems are prone to updates (Stadtler, 2015, p. 8). Updates may be installed to fix bugs, improve inefficiency and make the system more robust. Bugs refer to malware that may make the system unable to function correctly. Robustness of a system can be evaluated regarding its ability to handle a large volume of tasks without showing any forms of failure. Besides, efficiency can be assessed regarding speed and accuracy of the system in executing its tasks. It is also expected that the system will not be static for a long time. ‘SAP’ which is the provider of the system may install updates whenever they feel it is necessary. Therefore, the company may incur additional costs in installing regular updates.

Complex system: Some employees may find the system complex to use (Stadtler, 2015, p. 10). This may lead to inefficiencies making the organization to be unable to derive optimal benefits by using the system. Furthermore, some employees may be slow learners making the firm to spend heavily on training. This may dilute the profits of the company.

Incompatibility issues: The system may not be compatible with some computers and systems being used by Coca-Cola Company. Incompatibility is a major problem facing successful system and software adoption by companies. Therefore, the company may be forced to replace some of its machines to acquire more compatible machines. This may be expensive. Also, purchase of new machines may interfere with the company’s operations as it may take time for the company to acquire high-quality machines.

Although a change strategy can successfully be implemented in an organization, this is usually not enough to ensure quality. Therefore, it is recommended that the Coca-Cola Company should install regular updates to the system, train its staff regularly concerning any system updates, establish continuous follow-up strategies and install an accurate feedback system. These recommendations for improvement may be discussed as follows:

Systems are prone to updates. These updates should regularly be installed by the firm to ensure that bugs, inefficiencies and system error are fixed. The company should, therefore, install regular updates to the system to ensure that it functions as expected. Furthermore, when the company installs any updates to the system, then it should train its employees to ensure that they are well conversant with the system. As explained by Mir & Pinnington (2014, p. 214), training enables employees to acquire the relevant skills and knowledge to handle different tasks in the organization. Therefore, offering training to the employees will make them more equipped and competent.

The company should also establish accurate follow-up strategies. A feedback system enables a firm to follow up on the performance of different organizational systems and processes (Mir & Pinnington, 2014, p. 215). Therefore, when the company establishes a follow-up system, it will be able to identify any weaknesses in the system and correct them. A follow-up system and a feedback system work hand-in-hand to enable a firm to monitor the progress of an implemented system. Therefore, Coca-Cola Company will be able to evaluate feedback from the users and customers to monitor the system functionality.

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