Coca-Cola Enterprises created what they call the “Design Machine”. This Design Machine is a web-based design tool that lets the beverage giant customize marketing for hundreds of brands globally. With this new innovation, Coca-Cola is now able to produce new signs in less than ten minutes versus its previous strategy that would take weeks or months with a team of people. The Design Machine is part digital library of brand assets, part design and production tool. Many of Coke’s employees use the site to create hundreds of millions of pieces of customized retail marketing, ranging from grocery aisle signs to packaging to bottle labels.
The introduction of the Design Machine at Coca-Cola Enterprises has improved the company immensely. The most important and obvious reason for the production of the Design Machine is money. The company has reduced fees to agencies for localizing point-of-scale pieces by thirty percent and the company no longer has to hire outside printing shops and pay rush fees. The efficiency of this new product has helped significantly with the overall production of the marketing department.
Not only did the Design Machine help the Coca-Cola fiscally but also the new machine allows the company to produce high quality materials. The problem before this machine was that the design team consisted of a mere sixty employees in turn making it extremely difficult for nondesigners to create good designs. With the new machine everyone is becoming educated on what a good design is. The tool also suggests that the company is making great strides in the effort of balancing globalization and the local prospects of the product.
This Design Machine that the Coca-Cola Company has produced is the epitome of competitive advantage. They now have the capability of producing millions of marketing campaigns in no time at all as well as different campaigns for different ventures such as the Olympics. All of this is now done at the most cost efficient means possible. This is another facet that makes this new innovation so significant. Coca-Cola Enterprises is not one of the worlds biggest beverage companies just because, rather they are who they are because of the constant technological and innovative breakthroughs they make everyday.
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I found this blog to be extremely interesting. Everyone is aware of the good old rivalry between Pepsi and Coca-Cola. The question remains, which one is better? People argue back and forth about it, talking about the differences in taste, etc. The truth, however, is that there is no correct answer to this question. I've heard a lot of people prefer Coca-Cola to Pepsi, and this is not a fact, but I believe that Coca-Cola is more present in restaurants and different places than Pepsi is. Now I know that it is not necessarily because of taste, but that is it largely in part due to the behind the works aspects of the companies. This blog about the new "design machine" that Coca-Cola launched made me realize that the difference between the two companies and their success lies in the business intelligence, management and technology of each. Coca-Cola has obviously found a very efficient and useful means of achieving a competitive edge of Pepsi and other soda companies, allowing them to continue to maintain their popularity and still build upon their growing success. I would love to know how Pepsi and their information team will react to this new design machine. I think that without an innovative, technological comeback by another company, Coca-Cola very well may secure their spot as the most popular, top selling soda company in the world. What does this mean for the future? Bye bye Pepsi? I hope not!
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