Coca-Cola and Innovation

A visit to World Coca-Cola in Atlanta.

Impressive visit.

1.8billion bottles/cans consumed a day in a world, that is impressive.

Annual Revenue of 35.119billion USD in 2010, with net annual income (2010) of 11.809billion USD.

Compare that to...Walmart 421billion USD in 2010, with net annual income (2010) of 16.993billion USD. (of course, those are not the best measures, but just to put in scale)

They now have over 500 different brands of products, in the world.

It all started with a pharmacist (inventor) John Pemberton

Market Visionary (Innovator)...Asa Griggs Candler

Global Expander...Woodruff (helped by WWII to spread the coke brand to the world)

Why doesn't Japan have anything like this company?

Not too capitally intensive, huge mark-up by brand, internationally-recognized....

(I guess only SONY, TOYOTA, HONDA may be the ones that comes to our minds...but they require so much constant innovation)

Coca-cola has to innovate, of course, in the product side too, but probably not as much as in the field of electronics. Granted, the product cycle for coke is shorter, so one may think that they have to constantly innovate, however, they do claim that their original recipe hasn't changed over years (who knows, it's all trade secret). What Coca-cola has to continuously do is to maintain brand-level at the same level as when it was innovated initially. And they are doing that extremely well. They have to be on top of what people might be expecting from the company. They have to always excel the customer's expectations, by providing their blockbuster product...which in recent scientific development, it is inconceivably very easy to find out how to make Coca-cola (but you can't sell many because you lack the brand!) 

(And an unbelievable customer loyalty??...people protested for changing the recipe for 79days...that's just unheard of!)

(Also their global adaptability? Coke is not popular as much in Japan, but instead, they are selling canned-coffee three times as much in Japan compared to coke...a great way to adapt!...I guess the same goes with the guarana approach in Brazil)