Online exclusive: The global trends that changed Coca-Cola

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Coca-Cola chairman and chief executive Muhtar Kent and his have team built a corporate vision that prepares the company to double its revenue by 2020. In building that strategy they organised their operations around six global trends that they saw were re-shaping the world. Kent explains:

A growing middle class

“Between 800m and a billion people will enter the middle class between 2010 and 2020 – the greatest economic shift in history. More than 60% of this new wealth will come from emerging nations.”

Mass urbanisation

“The world is moving off the farms and into the cities. Think of it this way – for the next several years, an urban population the size of New York will be created every 90 to 100 days.”

Economic rebalancing

“We see the world defined not by one or two economic superpowers but by a massive rebalancing of economic might, partly a result of the growing middle class. Yes Brazil, China, India, Russia are gaining traction but so are others such as Indonesia, Turkey, Morocco, Vietnam, Chile and Mexico.”

The new generation

“This will show the rise of the most sophisticated and engaged youth generation, empowered by incredible new communications, alongside growth in the over-40 generation.”

Rising prices

“With more people and more wealth, we see a constant scarcity of resources, leading to the volatility that we are all experiencing in commodity and energy prices. Not an aberration but a readjustment.”

New consumer

“There has been a fundamental consumer reset in terms of their priorities, their values and their expectations. This has led to a new focus on the meaning of the word value.”