Coca Cola to redesign it's new bottling supply chain

08 Oct 2010

Source:   AJC
After taking over the U.S. and Canadian factories and employees of bottler Coca Cola Enterprises in a $12.3 billion deal that closed this weekend, Coca Cola intends to redesign the ways it gets drinks into American hands. It's a big job, and Coke executives don't have time to celebrate after completing the company's biggest buyout ever. "Now we can get to work and do what we're so excited about doing," chief executive Muhtar Kent said in a Sunday interview. "This is not a victory lap. We're far away from any victory lap."

In taking responsibility for a blue-collar business it generally was content to avoid for decades, Coca Cola will have to manage morale in a time of uncertainty, shuffle and trim a North American workforce of about 70,000, and straighten out a tangled distribution system. "Coke is about to assume the heavy lifting," said Tom Pirko, president of California consulting firm Bevmark. "The consumer has forced and compelled Coke to move away from the model that has guided it for decades."

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