Coca-Cola Reorganizing, Streamlining Operating Units

ATLANTA — The Coca-Cola Co. is taking strategic steps to reorganize and better enable itself to pursue its "Beverages for Life" strategy.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola is building a networked global organization that is positioned to capture growth in a fast-changing market by combining the power of scale with the necessary knowledge to win locally, the company announced.

The reorganization includes the creation of nine new operating units focused on regional and local execution that will work closely with five marketing category leadership teams that span the globe to rapidly scale ideas. Coca-Cola will support this structure with its newly created Platform Services, an organization that will work in service of operating units, categories and functions to create efficiencies and deliver capabilities at scale across the world. This includes data management, consumer analytics, digital commerce and social/digital hubs.

Platform Services is designed to improve and scale functional expertise and provide consistent service, including for governance and transactional work, eliminating duplication of efforts elsewhere in the company and built to work in partnerships with bottlers. The organization will be led by Senior Vice President and Chief Information and Integrated Services Officer Barry Simpson.

"We have been on a multi-year journey to transform our organization," said Coca-Cola Co. Chairman and CEO James Quincey. "The changes in our operating model will shift our marketing to drive more growth and put execution closer to customers and consumers while prioritizing a portfolio of strong brands and a disciplined innovation framework. As we implement these changes, we're continuing to evolve our organization, which will include significant changes in the structure of our workforce."

The company's nine new operating units will replace current business units and groups in order to streamline the organization. The highly interconnected operating units will add more consistency in structure and focus on eliminating duplication of resources and scaling new products more quickly, according to Coca-Cola.

The current model includes 17 business units seated under four geographical segments, plus Global Ventures and Bottling Investments. In the future, the business's operational side will consist of nine units seated under four geographical segments, along with Global Ventures and Bottling Investments. The company's operating leaders will report to President and Chief Operating Officer Brian Smith.

Coca-Cola also noted that as innovation, marketing efficiency and effectiveness are top priorities, it is conducting a portfolio rationalization process that will lead to a tailored collection of global, regional and local brands with the potential for greater growth.

To drive these initiatives and support the operating units, Coca-Cola is reinforcing and deepening its leadership in five global categories with the strongest consumer opportunities:

• Coca-Cola
• Sparkling flavors
• Hydration, sports, coffee and tea
• Nutrition, juice, milk and plant
• Emerging categories

Global category leads will report to Chief Marketing Officer Manolo Arroyo.

The Coca-Cola Co. offers more than 500 brands across more than 200 countries and territories.