Introduction
Integrated business planning (IBP) has become common among leading manufacturing companies across the globe. It is natural as IBP is beneficial for maximizing the company’s profits through a thorough analysis of strategic plans correlated with sales, resources, and capabilities (Bowersox, 2019). The planning also requires constant adjustments to the changes in the market or fickle customer tastes to achieve the set goals relating to finances or marketing (Bowersox, 2019). Coca-Cola is already basing its business structure on IBP and uses the same approach for enhancing its operational performance and achieving better results in selling its products.
Main body
To begin with, the company united the departments that are actively engaged in the supply chain and the manufacturing process. Evidently, it has assisted Coca-Cola in forming a united and, therefore, more effective strategy for financial integration in different locations around the world (Poser, 2021). Furthermore, such an approach aligns strategic goals with financial ones, allowing the brand to achieve its monetary objectives along with researching the departments’ activities’ correlation to the company’s common goal.
In addition, Coca-Cola has increased its strategic initiatives’ inclusion by uniting departments and their primary activities. Therefore, such a transparent collaboration allows the brand to design appropriate strategic plans that respond to the company’s goals (Bowersox, 2019). The IBP process is impossible without trust between employees and employers; however, as Coca-Cola has achieved a transparent collaboration, it can deeply engage and empower its staff (Poser, 2021). As a result, the workers are committed to the company’s strategic goals and, therefore, the brand’s success. A strong working team leads to coordination between departments, effective communication between colleagues, and accountability for the company’s KPIs, which contributes to Coca-Cola’s success (Poser, 2021). The united outputs are highly beneficial, considering that the organization is able to analyze the shared data and research its capability to conduct scenario planning successfully (Bowersox, 2019). It seems significant to mention that such an alteration is helpful when it comes to modeling alternatives since Coca-Cola explores its opportunities and possible outcomes. In other words, the company can predict the influence of a decrease and increase in production, sales, or marketing campaigns.
Undoubtedly, the company’s planning has become less challenging, considering that the departments’ unity shows the whole picture to the staff allowing it to adjust the strategy to the brand’s needs. That is why the translation between aggregate and detailed planning has become more accessible, and united operational activities contribute to effective production and delivery (Bowersox, 2019). Moreover, few companies have already shifted their strategies to IBP, allowing Coca-Cola to occupy the market and reduce the competitiveness level of its brand, leaving similar manufacturing companies at an apparent disadvantage.
Summary
To sum up, the employment of IBP has allowed Coca-Cola to achieve transparency in its supply chain, delivery processes, and planning between the departments. Therefore, the formation of strategic plans has become less challenging as the company can access the shared data and analyze different branches’ resources, capabilities, and financial circumstances across the globe. That is why the achieved integration of finance directly into the product, supply functions, and delivery while closely correlating to the right KPIs across the departments. In addition, a closer collaboration between departments is beneficial for achieving a more effective decision-making process that focuses on achieving the company’s objectives.
References
Bowersox, D. (2019). Supply Chain Logistics Management (5th Edition). McGraw-Hill Higher Education (US).
Poser, C. (2021). Coca-Cola European partners accelerates its strategic transformation. IBM. Web.