Reference no: EM132189065
From Robbins, Coulter, and DeCenzo (2017)
Case Study: Tasting Success" [Chapter 4, Case Application 3, pag. 116]
Read the assigned case analysis.
Discuss which decisions in the case were could be considered structured on unstructured problems. Discuss the role of intuition in decision-making. Student is able to elaborate in-depth discussions of the use of structured and unstructured decision-making tools to accomplish strategic goals and outcomes.
Discuss the application of any one of the quantitative decision-making aids in pp. 119-128 to this case.
Discuss the observable organizational capabilities to manage change and innovation, and make additional recommendations.
Research in the electronic library a minimum of two (2) additional references from journals on any of the topics discussed in the case study
Submit the paper following APA standards
Use the traditional introduction + body + conclusion outline
Case Application #3 Tasting Success The Coca-Cola Company (Coke) is in a league by itself.63 As the world’s largest and number one nonalcoholic beverage company, Coke makes or licenses more than 3,500 drinks in more than 200 countries. Coke has built 15 billion-dollar brands and also claims four of the top five soft-drink brands (Coke, Diet Coke, Fanta, and Sprite). Each year since 2001, global brand consulting firm Interbrand, in conjunction with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, has identified Coke as the number one best global brand. Coke’s executives and managers are focusing on ambitious, long-term growth for the company—doubling Coke’s business by 2020. A big part of achieving this goal is building up its Simply Orange juice business into a powerful global juice brand. Decision making is playing a crucial role as managers try to beat rival PepsiCo, which has a 40 percent market share in the not-from-concentrate juice category compared to Coke’s 28 percent share. And those managers aren’t leaving anything to chance in this hot—umm, cold—pursuit!
Orange Juice and the 1 Quintillion Decisions needed to deliver it
You’d think that making orange juice (OJ) would be relatively simple—pick, squeeze, pour. While that would probably be the case in your own kitchen, in Coke’s case, that glass of 100 percent OJ is possible only through the use of satellite images, complex mathematical algorithms, and a pipeline solely for the purpose of transporting juice. The purchasing director for Coke’s massive Florida juice packaging facility says that when you’re dealing with “Mother Nature,” standardization is a huge problem. Yet, standardization is what it takes for Coke to make this work profitably. And producing a juice beverage is far more complicated than bottling soda. Using what it calls its “Black Book model,” Coke wants to ensure that customers have consistently fresh, tasty OJ 12 months a year despite a peak growing season that’s only three months long. To help in this, Coke relies on a consultant experienced with revenue analytics, who has described OJ as “one of the most complex applications of business analytics.” How complex? To consistently deliver an optimal blend given the challenges of nature requires some 1 quintillion (that’s 1 followed by 18 zeroes) decisions! There’s no secret formula to Black Book, it’s simply an algorithm. It includes detailed data about the more than 600 different flavors that make up an orange and about customer preferences. This data is correlated to a profile of each batch of raw juice. The algorithm then determines how to blend batches to match a certain taste and consistency. At the juice bottling plant, “blend technicians” carefully follow the Black Book instructions before beginning the bottling process. The weekly OJ recipe they use is “tweaked” constantly. Black Book also includes data on external factors such as weather patterns, crop yields, and other cost pressures. This is useful for Coke’s decision makers as they ensure they’ll have enough supplies for at least 15 months. One Coke executive says the company’s mathematical modeling means that if a weather catastrophe (hurricane or hard freeze) hits, the business can quickly regroup and replan in a very short time frame: as little as 5 or 10 minutes.