On May 7th 2019, 30 SCM students participated in an interactive VUCA-workshop with Coca-Cola HBC at the WU.
First, in a quick introduction round each participant briefly described the own career vision after graduation and, of course, his/her favorite soft drink. In a communicative atmosphere Nina Hauser and Thomas Winkler, two SCM professionals, presented us how the business at Coca-Cola in Austria works.
Did you know that Coca-Cola HBC is an autonomous stock-listed company? Did you know that CCHBC is serving Nigeria and Russia as well? Learning about the history behind “The Coke” and the worldwide system of bottling companies only purchasing the base ingredient from the US company directly and the production / logistics effort behind every bottle was quite interesting.
Do you know what VUCA stands for? After the company and business presentation we started the 1st half of the case discussing methods and instruments a beverage company has to meet a VUCA-environment. Having discussed this issue in 4 small groups, we then quickly presented the results to the others to exchange thoughts. In case you can’t remember from SCO: VUCA stands for: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.
In the 2nd half we had to solve a real example case, where 4 different different departments (teams) are trying to meet drink demand in a VUCA-world. With inevitable conflicts, it was a good opportunity to practice S&OP coordination. Last but not least Sandra Herndlbauer from HR presented the internship-program as well as entry positions to the audience.
In a nutshell, it was a great learning about today’s volatile consumer market using a real case.
