Coca-Cola's Case

In the discussion case Coca-Cola’s Water Neutrality Initiative, Coca-Cola was facing a major issue about its corporate impact on water quality, availability, and access around the world.. In the beverage making business water is a key component. They was using water to clean bottles and equipment, employee’s sanitation, and also as a main ingredient in some of their beverages. This totaled to approximately 80 billion gallons of water used worldwide yearly. This was impacting the local communities in some of the areas where the company’s plants were operating. In 2003 The Coca-Cola Company was charged with having dangerous levels of pesticides in their products in India. They were also charged with using too much water depriving the local residents of clean water supplies for drinking and growing crops. The Coca-Cola plant was shut down in 2004 because their water usage was so high it was depleting the groundwater.

In this case there are several stakeholders present, stakeholders are defined as a group or people who affect, or are affected by an organization’s decisions, policies, and operations (Lawrence & Weber, 2011). The stakeholders include the villagers of India, the Center for Science and the Environment, the India Resource Center, the Coca-Cola employees, World Wildlife Fund, the Nature Conservancy, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, UNESCO, and Care. They would be considered non-market stake holders because they are not involved in direct economic exchange with the company, but they affect and are affected by the actions of the company. The villagers and the Coca-Cola employees were affected because the villagers were not able to grow crops nor did they have clean drinking water, and the Coca-Cola workers lost their jobs due to the bottling plant closing down. The Center for Science and the Environment, and the India Resource Center affected the company’s revenue. The Center for Science and the Environment affected the company’s revenue by closing the bottling plant, and the India Resource Center affected the company’s revenue by setting up campaigns across the U.S. to get people to boycott Coca-Cola products. World Wildlife Fund, the Nature Conservancy, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, UNESCO, and Care are also stake holders because they helped the company with different ideas to help them deal with their water consumption issue. The expectations of the company differed from the stake holders because the stake holders expected the company to be more thoughtful when it came to the amount of water they used and they also wanted the company to make the citizens aware of the pesticides that were in their products. Coca-Cola failed to do this that is why action was taken to have the plant closed down.

If Coca-Cola would have used the strategic radar screens the closing of the plant could have been avoided. The strategic