Customer Reviews

The Real Thing: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

First of all, I have to recommend a far superior history of coke's first 100 years, Mark Pendergrast's "For God, Country and Coca-Cola..." Pendergrast's well researched (over researched?) book neatly and clearly tells the story of how the company started and ended up in the late 80s.

In some ways Hays book is a sequel. At its best it tells the story of what happened to the giant syrup manufacturer after 1990. But the main problem with the book is Hays insistence on a non-linear style that works poorly when presenting history. She often starts a story and then stop--moving on to pick up another thread. Sometimes she comes back to finish the first thread, often she just mentions it in passing in another thread. The result is a convoluted, hard to follow story of Coke in the 1990s. Perhaps it is a refreshing change from the straight forward "and then this happened" approach, but it makes for difficult reading.

Hays does a good job researching, she obviously spoke with many key people in Coke's world (or used other sources). Often though the book reads like a magazine article, long on colorful quotes and interesting asides, short on a central narrative drive.

If you have read Pendergrast and want to get updated (through the turn of the century at least) then Hays will do the job. But if you know only vague details about Coke then you should start with For God, Country and Coca-Cola.

New York Times reporter Constance Hays is an excellent business journalist, but her book is already so dated that it is no more than a mundane history book. Unfortunately, it pretends to be a contemporary analysis of The Coca Cola Company's management practices. And, in this regard it just fails.

The book spends a long time on the origin of this all American company. It also develops well the very successful 16 year tenure of Roberto Goizeta from 1981 until his surprising death in 1997. It does a good job of covering the miserable and short tenure of Douglas Ivester from 1997 to 1999. He made so many mistakes within such a short time, that he was forced out before he could do any more damage.

Unfortunately, Hays hardly covers the valiant efforts of Daft, CEO from 1999 until February 2004 to turnaround the company. Thus, her criticism of Coke's management leadership is already two CEOs and nearly four years behind as the book just hits the stores. For this explicit reason, I would pass it up.

Instead, I recommend a similar but far superior book written by another top notch NY Times journalist: The End of Detroit: How the Big Three lost their grip on the American Car Market written by Micheline Maynard. Maynard's analysis is far sharper, current, and relevant than is Hays' in The Real Thing.

Many of those who are already familiar with the long and colorful history of the Coca-Cola Company may share my own curiosity about the problems it has struggled with in recent years. What happened? A question of greater interest to me, what caused all the problems after a century of increasingly greater sales and profits? In this volume, Hays provides a brief but sufficient review of the company's history through 1980 before focussing the bulk of her attention on Robert C. Goizueta's 17 years as CEO until his unexpected death in 1997, and then on M. Douglas Ivester who succeeded Goizueta for only two years until being forced out. In certain respects, Hays resembles a cultural anthropologist as she rigorously analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the two CEOs as they struggled (with mixed success) to sustain the Coca-Cola Company's market dominance, both domestically and internationally. As she presents her material, I was convinced that many of the problems they faced and some of which they inherited are similar to those which Louis V. Gerstner encountered when he became CEO of IBM. Specifically, a highly political corporate culture, well-entrenched resistance to change, estrangement from customers, and contempt for early-warning signs of imminent deterioration of both prestige and profits.

To her credit, Hays demonstrates meticulous care and commendable circumspection when explaining that several of the problems which the Coca-Cola Company encountered during the past two decades were by no means unique as its globalization initiatives proceeded, given internal upheavals in emerging markets and currency devaluations over which it had little (if any) control. It was also among the corporate victims of anti-Americanism which, if anything, has become even more virulent during the last 12-18 months. Nonetheless, one of her central themes is that the Coca-Cola Company was as relentlessly committed to a defective "formula" for growth worldwide as it was protective of its super-secret formula for syrup. Meanwhile, the company weakened long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with many of its independent bottlers. Some of the most engrossing material in her book examines a number of executive-suite dramas (and melodramas) which suggest, to me at least, an inability and/or unwillingness among senior managers to affirm in their conduct certain values with which the company had once been so closely identified, notably in areas such as corporate good citizenship and strategic partnerships based on trust.

Recent developments suggest that current CEO Douglas N. Daft and his senior management team continue to struggle with many of the aforementioned problems and, through their determined efforts, the Coca-Cola Company is beginning to solve them. Hays observes that "They knew the formula. They had done it before. They would just have to do it again." Hopefully they will succeed, guided and informed by lessons learned during recent years...lessons which are specified or implied in this riveting account by Hays of "truth and power" in a company which, for more than a century, has been synonymous with so many of the "best and brightest" achievements in the history of American free enterprise.

Douglas Ivester may have been the top Number 2 in U.S. corporate history. Yet his disastrous tenure as CEO of Coke shows once again why the winners of the Best Supporting Actor don't necessarily all go on to be top stars. Some people who are invaluable in the second chair prove to lack what it takes to run the show.

Roberto Goizueta who led Coke to unprecedented riches was the first executive of an established Fortune 500 company to become a billionaire. The handpicked successor of Robert W. Woodruff drove the price of Coke stock to new highs. Goizueta died unexpectedly in 1997 and Ivester assumed the reins of the Coca-Cola Company.

The Real Thing is a book that is promoted as a history of an American institution. It is not. It is a tale told more from Ivester's perspective than any other. As such it gives too much credit to Ivester for the success of the Goizueta Era and too little blame for the rapid collapse during Ivester's tenure.

On the whole, it is a disappointing and mislabeled business school case study.

This book, although factual, was slow reading. If the author would have stayed on point, the book would have been half as long. Overall a decent piece of work, but dont expect to finish it in one sitting.

There appear to be three types of books that are commonly written about the Coca-Cola Company (NYSE symbol: KO): (1) official company histories that have been approved by management; (2) nostalgic books that focus on the company's early history and/or the numerous "antiques" and souvenirs that it has produced over time, and (3) objective histories that dig below the press releases for the real story of this remarkable company. This book falls squarely within the third category.

While it provides a quick view of Coke's early years, it focuses upon the reigns of Roberto Goizueta and Douglas Ivestor, who between them managed to get the company into the predicaments it faces today, Goizueta by focusing solely upon upping the stock price and Ivester by creating Coca-Cola Enterprises, the creature that would destroy the company's base of loyal bottlers while allowing manipulation of the financial statements of both companies. (It should be noted that Ivester was responsible for numerous other screw-ups, but CCE was the major one.) Both executives came away with enormous amounts of benefits upon their respective terminations (more than a billion dollars in the case of Goizueta, who died before he could enjoy it).

Another review of this book descrtibes it as a "mundane history." I disagree -- it clearly descibes the arrogance, rigidity and incompetence that plague the company to this day. Ms. Hays' description of the financial machinations that went into making both KO and CCE appear more successful than they actually were is especially fine. While she doesn't go into the accounting fine points, she does provide a clear trail for those wishing to do so.

Although carrying a copyright date of 2004, the book ends at the end of 2002 with the appointment of Steve Heyer, an outsider, as president. When the time came to replace Doug Daft as chairman and CEO, the board overlooked the highly competent Heyer, choosing instead Neville Isdell, a long-time employee not known for his breadth of vision. Heyer promptly resigned.

Some things never change.

I read this book over the past few days in my travels between Fort Wayne and Phoenix and found it to be well-written and exceptionally interesting. The problems faced by the Coca-Cola company are not at all confined to the beverage industry, and I would suggest this book to anyone in a business with distributors and independent agents. In my field of work, orthopedic implants, we face strikingly similar challenges and it's very interesting to see how Coca-Cola's approach has and has not worked. For $18, you won't go wrong...

Coca-Cola is the world's most famous brand, but reaching that pinnacle wasn't easy. Leading the globe in a commodity product requires exceptionally hard selling, negotiating and tough leadership. Coca-Cola hit those marks by turning its sales operation into a mission: make Coke the most popular soft drink in the world. Author Constance L. Hays tells Coca-Cola's story with exactitude. As a reporter, she is good at mixing gallons of detail with individual stories and anecdotes, even if they make the book seem long. This makes her chronology a bit slow and disjointed, because she does not hesitate to explore intriguing tangents - such as the history of the cold soda vending machine - whether or not they deflect her momentum. This calculated trade-off, which many readers will appreciate, happens particularly when she recounts the company's actions against its bottlers and describes its marketing. The book captures an important sales story about a global marketing powerhouse that fought for shelf space and control of its bottling plants at any cost, and about the men in charge. We recommend these hard insights into the business of soft drinks to strategists and sales executives...it makes for an interesting brew.

I thought the book did a great job at giving the reader an idea of the mindset of Coca Cola. I will never look at a Coke the same way ever again. :o)
The book wasn't afraid to talk about the good and the bad about Coca Cola as well as it's strong and weak sides. Great reading.

This book has come good information, but too many things are constantly repeated. There is no flow to the book and when you get interested in the idea of the book, Constance goes off on a tangent that takes you off the beaten path. I read a number of historical business books out there and have to say that although there is a lot of history about the company, the author did very little to keep your interest.

I would not recommend getting this book.