Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Real Thing : Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company by CONSTANCE L. HAYS ISBN: 0-375-50562-8 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 03 February, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.33 (3 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: A jumble of stories
Comment: 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.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Rigorous Analysis of Real Crises
Comment: 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 unwillingness and/or unwillingness among senior managers to affirm 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 that 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 so closely identified with the best and the brightest achievements in the history of American free enterprise.
Rating: 2
Summary: Outdated on arrival
Comment: 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.
 |
Title: The Sparkling Story of Coca-Cola by Gyvel Young-Witzel, Michael Karl Witzel ISBN: 0896584542 Publisher: Voyageur Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
 |
Title: For God, Country, and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It by Mark Pendergrast ISBN: 0465054684 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: April, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
 |
Title: Secret Formula by Frederick L. Allen ISBN: 0887307515 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 05 July, 1995 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: Coca-Cola: A History in Photographs 1930 Through 1969: Photo Archive by Howard L. Applegate ISBN: 1882256468 Publisher: Iconografix Pub. Date: March, 1996 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind ISBN: 1591840082 Publisher: Portfolio Pub. Date: 13 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
