News

Coca-Cola to streamline and restructure

Coca-Cola is planning a major restructure to streamline its business, cutting its six geographically organised operating units down to two.

The revised units will consist of an Americas unit covering North and South America and an international unit covering everywhere else.

Current Coca-Cola Refreshments chief executive Steve Cahillane will become president of Coca-Cola Americas and Coca-Cola president of the Eurasia and Africa Ahmet Bozer will take control of the international division.

The company also announced that the Bottling Investment Group (BIG), which oversees the company’s bottling operations outside of North America, will continue to be run by Irial Finan following the restructure.

The appointments will become effective from January 1 2013 with any related organisational changes being announced at a later date.

Following the restructure, Cahillane, Bozer and Finan will report to Coca-Cola chief executive Muhtar Kent. Kent has held the top spot of Coca-Cola since 2009 and is driving a plan to double Coca-Cola’s sales and volume by 2020.

“This is the right structure for the next phase of our journey toward achieving our 2020 vision,” says Kent. “We have a solid foundation and momentum in our business. Now is the time to take the next step in our evolution. By consolidating leadership of our global operations under two large, but similar sized geographic regions and BIG, we will streamline reporting lines, intensify our focus on key markets and create a structure that leverages synergies and gives us flexibility to strategically adjust our business within those geographies in the future.”

In its Q2 financial reports, Coca-Cola saw falling sales in Europe, but a strong performance in every other market. The company generated $13.09bn over the quarter, a year-on-year increase of 2.7%

David Hing, London