Comparing and Contrasting Service Design and Delivery in PepsiCo. and Coca-Cola

1. Introduction

In the widespread food and beverage industry, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are the giant and prominent businesses occupying the world’s largest consumer share of beverages and food products. Moreover, both of the companies offer multifaceted drink products in terms of sodas, sports drinks, fruit juices, mocktails, and sparkling water. However, the most popular brands of both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are Malta, Coke, Sprite, Pepsi, and Fanta (Gómez, 2023). Furthermore, both brands are renowned but regardless of Coca-Cola owning the title of the world’s largest beverage company, the revenue of PepsiCo recorded in 2022 was significantly higher than Coca-Cola (Ridder, 2024). PepsiCo mainly operating in the US attained a $86 billion revenue in 2022, while Coca-Cola gained a revenue of $43 billion in the same year (Ridder, 2024). This article aims to compare the organizational culture, service design, and delivery in PepsiCo and Coca-Cola.

2. Comparison between PepsiCo and Coca-Cola

2.1 Organizational Culture

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are the major companies in the beverage industry and have been considered exclusive competitors for decades, despite their nature of producing similar products the organizational cultures of both companies are different. The corporate culture of PepsiCo is more focused on identifying the purpose for which the company is continuously engaged in invention and performance. Considering invention, the company’s struggles with branding are surrounded by innovation, sustainability, creativity, and convenience. In comparison with Coca-Cola’s organizational culture, PepsiCo has always been engrossed in tach-savvy and modern options of production, branding, and selling. This modernization of PepsiCo is reflected through its marketing strategies, innovation of exciting flavors, and packaging of products (Jallow, 2021). Coca-Cola on the other hand has the traditional brand image focusing on its consumers, their choices, and convenience. The marketing style of Coca-Cola is more inclined towards displaying a shareable brand nature. Talking about traditional culture, the products of Coca-Cola pass on hometown feeling to its consumers with an essence of nostalgia vibes which is mostly visible through its ideas of marketing and advertisements (Bhatia, 2019).

2.2 Service Design of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

Similarly, both companies have slightly different service designs describing their different mindsets however, it is always centered on achieving customer satisfaction approaches. PepsiCo following its uniqueness has a distinctive design philosophy stated as “Creating joy through innovation+design”, this suggests that PepsiCo gives importance to thoughtful design. This design thinking is observed through the company’s innovation throughout the production of food to its packaging which enables consumers to avail healthy snacks while carrying them conveniently. Thus, this corresponds with PepsiCo’s statement of innovation in service design (PepsiCo, 2024). In contrast, Coca-Cola has the mindset of focusing on and emphasizing the distribution channels of the company through, social media, partnerships, and advertising. The goal of Coca-Cola is to deliver superior services to its customers that benefit them in enhancing customer engagement and achieving lead in the beverage industry (Coca-Cola, 2024).

Additionally, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo both fulfill the consumer as well as employee needs. Aligning with consumer behavior, PepsiCo offers a varied range of products along with offering healthy substitute products to retain consumers, meanwhile, Coca-Cola underscores brand consistency to achieve its objective of providing refreshing and energizing products. Besides, both companies prioritize employee well-being and promote a positive work culture by working on employee development and fostering multiple training programs (Igwele, 2023).

2.3 Nature of Service Operations and Delivery

The popularity and market share of PepsiCo are evident from the mix of net revenue in the figure below. This suggests that PepsiCo’s share outside and inside the USA is larger (PepsiCo, 2023). Similarly, the change in figures of operations of Coca-Cola in the fiscal year 2020-2021 is depicted below.

Hence, the service operations of PepsiCo and Coca-Cola following innovation, customer approaches, product availability, and brand consistency possessed dissimilar service delivery strategies. Coca-Cola substantially and significantly highlights brand loyalty and consistency while delivering services. The company uses technological channels and digital platforms to enhance customer satisfaction with various online convenient and accessible settings. Similarly, the physical outlets of Coca-Cola also supported the business in terms of expanding market share. Multifaceted e-commerce retail platforms registered Coca-Cola products to facilitate supply chains (Khan, and Raza, 2023). However, PepsiCo prioritizes consumer engagement and a customer-centric approach in its service delivery. The motivations and ideas of the company with a focus on enlarging customer satisfaction aid PepsiCo in delivering services. This service delivery is operated through both physical and digital channels (Dawit, 2019). Lastly, both companies intelligently utilize advanced technologies in areas of operations, product efficiency, customers, and the process of manufacturing.

2.4 Accomplishment of Organizational Objectives

In addition, both companies have various organizational objectives that are challenged by their respective responsibilities toward society, ethics, and the environment. The social purpose of Coca-Cola has always been indicated through the company’s commitment to community engagement for which Coca-Cola with the purpose of community development, water stewardship, and promoting education developed the Coca-Cola Foundation (Coca-Cola, 2024). Nonetheless, Coca-Cola has faced criticism for ethical and environmental behaviors in terms of plastic waste, and water usage, also Coca-Cola is criticized for violating labor rights in cross-country operations (Böhm et al., 2022). Likewise, PepsiCo with its agenda of Performance with Purpose intends to fulfill societal needs and reduce allegations of environmental violation by providing sustainability reports, mitigation of carbon footprint, and conserved water. Similarly, the accusations of irresponsive ethical behavior in the area of supply chains for labor rights are looked after with care. Thus, both companies stimulated accountability and transparency among customers and stakeholders so far (PepsiCo, 2024).

Thus, the above three discussed aspects of PepsiCo and Coca-Cola in terms of organizational culture, service delivery, and design indicate that the objectives of both companies are directly in line with the company features, and without a maintained corporate culture and services the aims of the companies could not be fulfilled.

3. Conclusion

The above blog delineates a comparison between PepsiCo and Coca-Cola’s business culture, service operations, design, and delivery. The blog identified that despite operating in a similar industry, both companies have different visions and goals with varied strategies for operations and achieving the objectives. PepsiCo is more focused on bringing innovation in its products, designing, packaging, and advertisements while, Coca-Cola believes that aesthetics, traditional and nostalgic essence in the products and branding is the company’s exceptionality. Thus, this is the reason both companies hold their respective uniqueness and favorability in the hearts of consumers.

References

Bhatia, T.K., 2019. Emotions and language in advertising. World Englishes, 38(3), pp.435-449.

Böhm, S., Carrington, M., Cornelius, N., de Bruin, B., Greenwood, M., Hassan, L., Jain, T., Karam, C., Kourula, A., Romani, L. and Riaz, S., 2022. Ethics at the center of global and local challenges: Thoughts on the future of business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 180(3), pp.835-861.

Coca-Cola, 2024. Sustainable Packaging Design, Packaging Design. Available at: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/sustainability/packaging-sustainability/design (Accessed: 07 March 2024).

Coca-Cola, 2024. The Coca-Cola Foundation, The Coca-Cola Company. Available at: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/social/coca-cola-foundation (Accessed: 07 March 2024).

DAWIT, D.F., 2019. ASSESSMENT OF FACTORS AFFECTING MARKETING PERFORMANCE OF PEPSI COLA: THE CASE OF HAWASSA MILLENNIUM PEPSI COLA PLANT (Doctoral dissertation, Hawasssa University).

Gómez, E.J., 2023. Junk Food Politics: How Beverage and Fast Food Industries are Reshaping Emerging Economies. JHU Press.

Igwele, O.D., 2023. The Essence of organizational management structure and its role in achieving the goals (Based on the Coca-Cola company case) (Doctoral dissertation, Private Higher Educational Establishment-Institute “Ukrainian-American Concordia University").

Jallow, A., 2021. A strategic case study on PepsiCo. Available at SSRN 3828353.

Khan, T.I. and Raza, S.A., 2023. Revitalizing the Retail: A Case of the Coca-Cola Company. Asian Journal of Management Cases, 20(2), pp.174-182.

PepsiCo, 2023. Winning with annual report 2022, PepsiCo. Available at: https://www.pepsico.com/docs/default-source/annual-reports/2022-pepsico-annual-report.pdf (Accessed: 07 March 2024).

PepsiCo, 2024. 2020 annual report - pepsico, PepsiCo Sustainability Report. Available at: https://www.pepsico.com/docs/album/annual-reports/pepsico-inc-2020-annual-report.pdf?sfvrsn=d25439e4_4 (Accessed: 07 March 2024).

PepsiCo, 2024. PepsiCo Design + Innovation, Design.pepsico.com. Available at: https://design.pepsico.com/ (Accessed: 07 March 2024).

Ridder, M., 2024. Topic: Coca-Cola Company, Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/topics/1392/coca-cola-company/ (Accessed: 07 March 2024).

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Important Notes:

This article aims to compare the organisational culture, service design, and delivery in PepsiCo and Coca-Cola.

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