Coca-Cola's Inventory, People, and Technology

Paper Type:  Essay
Pages:  7
Wordcount:  1890 Words
Date:  2021-03-06
Categories: 

Coca cola organizes and makes use of its inventory, people management, and technology with an aim of operating effectively in the global market place. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how aforementioned elements of a company may be used to mitigate certain risks. The risks in question include those associated with fraud as well or obsolescence. With this information at hand, it is possible to determine which elements of Coca Cola are at risk of both obsolescence and fraud. It will also be possible to develop solutions to the anticipated issues. The solutions should also incorporate a critical analysis literary material regarding these issues. An analysis of the opinion of the authors of this material will determine the feasibility of their opinions. The paper provides details of how to leverage people, inventory, and technology with the aim of mitigating these risks at coca cola. Using this information, it will be possible to develop recommendations that would provide lasting solutions for Coca Cola.

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Coca colas inventory is such that it provides the management with a regular update of the records regarding the stocks inventory. However, this inventory system is implemented on the basis of the different bottling companies that package the final product. This allows the management of the regional bottling companies to obtain reasonable feedback regarding the shifting numbers in the stock of the company in question. This type of inventory is referred to as a perpetual inventory (O'Hara 2015). This type of inventory is supposed to provide the management of the company with real time accurate details on the goods moving out of the company as well as the need for more raw materials. The inventory system would update on a regular basis details regarding the goods sold. It will also incorporate the number of good received into the inventory. This will mainly involves a comparison of the stores ledger accounts to that of the Bin cards.

The management of people as wells a leveraging of human resource for exemplary performance is crucial for any company. Coca Cola recognizes this fact, and implements the best measures that would ensure that the company retains the best employees. The strategies used by the company in human resource management have also been found to mitigate risks that include fraud and obsolescence (Bush 2014). However, these strategies do not lack their weaknesses. Some of these strategies include the training employees with the aim of retentions. The training process encompasses strategies that ensure that the new employee will be able to implement their duties in an agreeable and cooperative manner. This is one of the reasons behind the companys continued performance in the global market. The company also encourages its subsidiary companies to continually train their employees. The trainings are aimed at ensuring that the employees are versed with new technologies employed by the company.

With regards to technology, Coca Cola is one of the few companies in the carbonated drinks industry that regularly introduces new technologies. The technologies are mainly aimed at the management of the people and inventories. For instance, technologies have been implemented to enhance the capacity of the vending machines used by the company. The new technologies have allowed the companys clients to purchase coca colas products without the need of help from other employees (Formby & Crandall 2015). It has also been found that the company regularly upgrades its inventory system to make it easier to record changes in the inventory. For instance, as it has been pointed out earlier, coca cola now implements a perpetual inventory that shows the companys ability to implement different improvements based on technology.

Literature Review

One of the recurrent issues that plague supply chains and the management of such operations is the occurrence of phantom inventories. Supply chains have been found to use technology in the form of RFID tags to track how the physical components of an inventory are maintained. This allows the management to identify which of the actual components are available physically in storage. It has also been found that some companies will perform regular checks of the inventory. This is to compare the physical inventory with the electronic inventory or written inventory. This serves to determine whether the inventory in question continues to be truthful. According to Krapp, Nebel, & Sahamie (2013), such routine check may limit the occurrence of phantom inventories. However, they do not necessarily prevent future occurrence. Therefore, the company in question should have a secondary plan to cushion themselves in case such an occurrence takes place. This is factual as some of the best plans may often fail. Failure may result from the lack of anticipating new factors into the development of phantom inventories, such as the involvement of trusted employees. The operational benefit of introducing these concepts to coca cola would include an increase in effectiveness in the provision of the final product to the client. This is because all the goods would be accounted for in the inventory.

Misstatement of inventory records encompasses all forms of altering the inventory with the aim of making a financial gain at the expense of the company in question (Koros 2014). To tackle the occurrence of inventory misstatement, it has been found that supply chains will often use technology and people to tackle the problem. For instance, some companies have been found to introduce security personnel to the exit location of the storage rooms. This would make it hard for the individuals performing the misstatement operation to get away with the theft. The introduction of technology in the form of surveillance cameras has also reduced the instances of misstatement. It has also been suggested that certain companies will survey the personal finances of certain employees who are involved in the process of filling inventory records. This limits the capability of the individuals in question from altering the inventories in their favour. Formby & Crandall (2015) suggest that the strategies aforementioned would not work. According to the two authors, the company in question should factor in such fraud in their finances. With this in mind, the company can determine the best ways in which to work with the deficits. While this makes sense, it would open up the company to more losses. Implementing the suggested strategy would only be effective for coca cola if they expected such an occurrence. Therefore, the company would undergo fewer losses.

Another issue that companies have tried handling with the use of people, inventory, and technology is the inflated inventory quantity. One of the reasons that someone may do this would be to cover up for any other misstatement they might have done before. The individuals doing this may also do it out of pure maliciousness. The problem with this issues is that it gives the company false confidence in the number of goods that may be in stock. This may cause the company in question to fail in meeting the demands of the clients. Technology has been used in the inventory records to ensure any changes in the inventory can be reported to the senior management on a real time basis. Technological equipment is used to calculate the number of goods in storage, and thus can compare to the actual value in the inventory system. Rochat, Binder, Diaz, & Jolliet (2013) have pointed out the need to ensure the security of such equipment. This is because failure of such equipment would result in a field day for those involved in the fraud of the inventory. This is factual, and would put the company in question in a bad position if it were to occur. Implementing this strategy at Coca Cola increase operational effectiveness as such risks would be mitigated.

The inflation of inventory value can also be mitigated using a combination of people, inventory, and technology. For instance, according to Harris (2014), it would be necessary to incorporate programs that check for the approximate value of a given product that would be in the storage and compare it with the value shared in the inventory. Such a technological advancement would limit the capability of the inventory being inflated without the knowledge of the management. It has also been found that the implementation of this idea may be wrongful. This is because technology is highly malleable. This is because the implementation of such technology would be dependent on collected information. The result of this would be wrongful as some of the information regarding pricing of products via the internet may be deceitful. Therefore, Harris (2014) can be pointed out to be both right and wrong. This is to say that the strategy may be effective for some products but ineffective for other. Applying this strategy at Coca Cola may provide benefits for the company as the company has specific products for each production line. Therefore, tracking the pricing using such a technological advancement would be both feasible and effective.

Capitalization adjustment can be beneficial to a business when implemented in the right way. However, inventory capitalization may provide an image of a business that is doing well even though the opposite might be true (Hampp 2012). Wrongful inventory capitalization may also result in the over taxation of the business, and thus decrease returns as well as reduce the cash flow of the business. In general, wrongful inventory capitalization would result in the death of such a business. Companies have been found to combine technology and inventories to minimize on wrongful capitalization. This would greatly limit the motivation for individuals who would benefit from the results of a wrongful inventory capitalization. O'Hara (2015) points out that this form of fraud would require close cooperation with external auditors. This is because this type of fraud would involve some of the high tier management, and would be difficult to detect until all has fallen apart. This strategy would be effective at coca cola, and thus ensure that the company remained effective. However, the business could also increase operations costs.

There are many other types of fraud that may negatively affect a business operating in a similar way to that of coca cola. For instance, there could be fraud involving human resource or the technological implementation within the premises of the company. Therefore, it is important to identify the best solutions that would ensure that the business stays afloat, thrives, and achieves its objectives (Bush 2014). For instance, there are processes that vet technological applications with the aim of determining their effectiveness. This would provide the company in question with a sure fire answer to the question whether their systems are working appropriately. According to Foster (2014), the auditing of software would also ensure that provision of effective services to a company by specific software can be ascertained. It can also help to limit and thus mitigate any form of technological fraud that may have been implemented via the software in question. Therefore, it is appropriate to point out that the views by Foster (2014) are truthful and reliable. If coca cola were to implement these strategies, the company would see an increase in the effectiveness of their vending machines across the globe.

Obsolescence is also a problem that affects modern companies that perform in the capacity of coca cola. This is because an inventory system that may be introduced today with the aim of mitigating fraud may become obsolete in the face of a new system that is introduced. The new version of the software may be i...

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Coca-Cola's Inventory, People, and Technology. (2021, Mar 06). Retrieved from https://proessays.net/essays/coca-colas-inventory-people-and-technology

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