The Coca-Cola Company was recently honored with the Supply Chain Capability Breakthrough of the Year Award by SCM World, celebrating their work with the Georgia Institute of Technology – Scheller College of Business Executive Education Custom Programs.
SCM World is a cross-industry learning community powered by the world’s most influential leaders in supply chain management and built to celebrate the important and innovative initiatives in the industry. Coca-Cola was honored for the highest score in the “supply chain capability” category, largely due to a partnership with Scheller College beginning in 2010. In that year, the Coca-Cola company was embarking on its “2020 Vision” strategic plan, which aimed to double business over the next 10 years.
Understanding that people capacity was a large component of achieving their goals, Coca-Cola approached Scheller College to create a certificate program which might deepen the company’s bench strength within the supply chain. As a result, the “Supply Chain Leadership Excellence” (SCLX) and “Supply Chain Manager Excellence” (SCMX) Programs were created. Although each program was tailored to the strengths and needs of each group, both sought to build on the academics behind supply chain strategy and other financial needs as specifically connected to the Coca-Cola supply chain.
The value creation of this program, when considering cost savings, innovations and new revenue streams, is over $100 million. By combining the Coca-Cola company’s real-world supply chain and leading academics from Scheller College, nearly 1,000 people have now gone through the program. Additionally, Scheller’s Executive Education Center has assisted several additional companies seeking excellence in their supply chain management.
Both the SCLX and SCMX programs are two weeks in length, one which takes place entirely on campus and the other – half online and half on-campus at a business school around the world who has partnered with both Coca-Cola and Scheller. The SCMX program has had more than 700 participants to date, and has been offered 18 times in five different languages. Partnering schools across the world include universities in Mexico, Spain, South Africa, China and Japan.