UNIFYING COMPANY CULTURE

Unifying Company Culture: The Acquisition of Coca-Cola and Sunrise Beverages Corp.

Overview

From the onset, it would be prudent to note that Coca-Cola happens to be a global beverages enterprise headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. At present, the company is deemed one of the worlds largest beverage enterprises. Some of its key competitors are inclusive of, but they are not limited to, PepsiCo and Anheuser-Busch InBev. On the other hand, Sunrise Beverages Corp. (fictional) is an American drink and brewing corporation headquartered in New York. At present, Sunrise Beverages Corp. distributes its products across 18 states. Some of its most popular products are inclusive of; Mountain Bear Beer, Alpha Extra Beer, and the Ambassador Beer.

The merger was in this case informed by the need, on the part of Coca-Cola, for diversification (i.e. by entering the alcoholic beverages market); and on the part of Sunrise Beverages Corp. to create value (specifically with regard to revenue and cost synergies). Sunrise Beverages Corp. has demonstrated exceptional performance in the US market and has over the last decade registered phenomenal growth. Traditionally, Coca-Cola has focused on non-alcoholic beverages. Towards this end, a merger with Sunrise Beverages Corp. would come in handy in efforts by the company to diversify its business operations. Sunrise Beverages Corp. would also have its revenues cushioned from the adverse effects of downturns in economic activity.

Unifying the Company Culture

The relevance of unifying company culture following a merger cannot be overstated. Indeed, according to Deloitte (2022), various studies have in the past demonstrated that failure to integrate culture happens to be one of the main reasons as to why a significant percentage of mergers fail. More specifically, as Deloitte (2022) indicates, culture has emerged as one of the dominant barriers to effective integrations... in one study, culture was found to be the cause of 30 percent of failed integrations (11). With this in mind, there is need to engage in deliberate measures to ensure that in the merger referenced in this text, company culture is unified.

1. Meeting with HR departments from both companies

A meeting of this nature would be instrumental in efforts to diagnose each companys culture. This would be crucial in efforts to ensure that awareness is created about the culture of each of the two companies. This is more so the case with regard to the points of convergence and divergence. It is important to note that there are specific aspects of each companys culture that must be preserved owing to...

10. Track Progress

It would impossible to establish whether progress is being made without having in place mechanisms to track the said progress. For this reason, there would be need to periodically establish the extent to which employees and members from both companies are embracing shared beliefs going forward.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, it should be noted that the move to unify company culture is in this case a process and not merely an event. This is to say that this cannot be considered a single-day affair. Instead, it will take time and involve the efforts and input of all the relevant players. It is hoped that the checklist above will come in handy in efforts to ensure a unified culture. The checklist will remove any confusion that may exist among members about how to go about the process of unifying culture. This is more so the case given that each company has gems which would come in handy in efforts to further enhance the success of the new entity. An exercise of this nature is especially instrumental to the success of the new entity owing to the fact that as has been highlighted elsewhere in this text, a significant percentage of mergers fail as a consequence of…