Coca-Cola Philippines continues to move forward, unrelenting to the threat of the pandemic as it gathers support from loyal and hardworking people on the ground.
Cola-Cola president and general manager Winn Everhart says that despite the difficulties and challenges, he believes the company will emerge as a stronger and more agile organization, having planned and prepared recovery strategies going forward, as they face the new normal.
“Working for a company with a long, proud history as Coca-Cola, one of the things we do have on our side is our ability to look back through time and see how our business has performed coming out of a crisis,” Everhart says.
“One of the things we’ve consistently seen is that if we focus on the consumer, if we focus on their needs, we see that we do emerge stronger. In fact, even the ecosystem where we operate seems to operate at an even higher rate,” he says.
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Facing the uncertainty of the next normal, Everhart says the pandemic has fiercely altered the way people think, move and interact and inflicted impact on the livelihood of many enterprises.
For Coca-Cola, he points out the importance of understanding the needs of their people, ensuring their safety, and supporting the communities where Coca-Cola operates.
In the months during the lockdown and towards the easing of quarantine restrictions, the company’s workforce and associates have stayed safe and healthy to sustain their jobs with healthcare support.
Everhart says that the company’s 15,000 associates have worked non-stop, never missing a beat, working in the Coca-Cola system—in plants, distribution centers, and those working from home—to continue the provision of products that sustain the needs of consumers, in addition to keeping the economy alive.
The company has always believed that it is only as strong and sustainable as the communities it serves, he says.
Coca-Cola ensures that their partners across their value chain are also well protected and empowered, as they support them in every way they can, from strengthening their presence in digital space and helping restart small businesses to providing them with access to resources and necessary training that they can use to their advantage.
Coca-Cola has also ramped up its relief efforts in light of COVID-19, where a total of over 600,000 litres of beverages were distributed to different institutions and marginalized communities, close to 175,000 personal protective equipment were provided to more than 51,000 frontliners, while 39,000 food packs helped address among the most vulnerable.
With his three-year experience of leading the multinational beverage company in the Philippines, Everhart came to a number of realizations on the changing consumer demand in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Thinking about this online world that everyone is moving into rapidly, we are also looking at the at-home engagement which is typically a place of strength for us in the Philippines,” he says.
“We’re also seeing how categories are starting to blur and move, and were really beginning to leverage that full portfolio which we have in the Coca-Cola system,” he says.
More to the point, Everhart says they are seeing more at-home consumption because of the quarantine imposition, where people are made to stay at home.
Another compelling observation is the manner people in the A and B market segments managed to keep their spending habits, thanks to a loyal customer base.
While the number of trips they make to the supermarket are lower, the number of items they buy are higher as they seek better value.
The markets hardest hit by the pandemic, according to Everhart, were their largest customers, establishments and restaurants that were forced to close. Also affected are the C, D and E segments, the strata of the population where the purchasing capability was capped by the crisis.
Everhart says this had the company rethink its products’ affordability, “that we are going to have to be mindful of in the Philippines in order to make sure that consumer need is being met once we do get into the next normal, such as their desire for healthier and safer products, and as we continue to evolve into the future world as well.”
The company also has its insights on how the next normal will be and how the company expects to adapt to such changes by serving their customers across all channels.
Seeing a pent-up demand for their products locally, he remains confident that the Philippines is one of their most resilient markets.
“As we focus on the consumer, as we focus on their needs by staying as close to them as possible, we do emerge stronger. Now more than ever, it’s our turn to make a difference here in the Philippines. We see a great opportunity for us to emerge stronger, whether through our e-commerce platform or our digital platform, even thinking through our product innovation, and what those new consumer needs are. We believe that everything will be just as bright as it was before,” Everhart says.
