Design to Grow

David Butler and Linda Tischler

David Butler works as VP innovation for Coke and Linda is the editor at fast company

For over a century, coca cola has used design to scale to over 200 countries and build 17 billion dollar brands, partner with more than 20 million customers and sell close to 2 billion products a day.

Over the last decade it has struggled like any other large company to use design to create agility.

Disruption is both a threat and an opportunity today. It is not enough to be big, every company needs both scale and agility to win.

Design can create both scale and agility

Systems thinking is a capability that looks at the whole and not a static snapshot

The non alcoholic ready to drink industry has consistently grown fast and coke needed a way to use design to stay relevant in this space. My task was to do this.

This company has 250 bottling companies, 80,000 suppliers and 20 million retail customers, How do you design this company? It has to let go of an approach which had worked for it for long.

Coca cola sold coke for seventy years in one pack at one price. In the eighties they decided to be a total beverage company and that started the complexity journey.

Designing on purpose refers to design that is strategic, with a clear connection to growth strategy, design that creates scale and agility and inspires people.

We started with branding and communication and then moved to packaging and equipment. What made the difference was opening up design to the company, to everyone.

Around the globe, coke owns 100 water brands. Creating competitive advantage is an on going challenge

Its easy to know the difference between good and bad design

Design is about intentionally connecting things to solve problemsTo understand the value of design, we need to connect and visible and invisible parts of design

A system is a set of elements and behaviors that connect to do one thing.

Coke Japan launched ILOHAS a water brand, tapping into the recycling passion in Japan. Launched as a choose, drink, twist and recycle message, the message went viral and grew the brand double digit.

The ability of a great company is to keep its core value proposition while scaling up the business.

Scale is the ability to increase quantity without sacrificing quality or profit.

To achieve scale , everything must be simplified and standardized with the least amount of friction.

You must understand what makes you brand unique. You then need to create a passion around those details.

Most of the time, great design means getting the details right. All details interconnect to deliver the key to quality.

Standardization helps a company plan, resource, predict and ultimately grow. This creates massive efficiency. It creates a common language and clear direction

Two entrepreneurs from Tennessee Benjamin franklin and Joseph Whitehead wanted to start a company for people to drink Coke. Asa Candler the coke owner sold them the rights for 1 dollar. This worked and the franchise business model was born.

In 1886, John pemberton the creator of Coke sent his nephew Lewis Newman to Jacob’s pharmacy in Atlanta to test the formulation. It took a year to arrive at a formulation that consumers liked.

Coke account Robinson was used to writing a spencerian script. He felt that this script would differentiate coca cola from other drinks and this script was standardized in 1923.

The bottlers were eager to distinguish the coke bottle from competition. So, Thomas, the lawyer from Chattanooga who had bought the bottling rights for one dollar said ‘ we need a bottle a blind person can also feel and recognize in the dark as a coke bottle” the famous design was born.

Coke was designed to be served at 36 degrees Fahrenheit or 2.2 degrees Celsius. Internally this is called the perfect serve.

For seventy years coke was sold at a nickel. Coke started taking up prices after 1959.Between 1887 and 1920, 10 % of all product was sampled.

No one can coast in todays world. Evert industry is ripe for disruption, even destruction.

When something is complicated ,it’s difficult to understand. When something is complex, it has many different connected parts.Being complicated is a bad thing, being complex.

A shift in strategy in 2001 created complexity. For coke, standardized coca cola formulation was very good, however, in juices and other categories , people want a recipe , not formula. Not something coke understood easily

In juices people prefer different tastes, orange juice can be anything from bitter to sweet.

The way coca cola was designed hurt growth and created confusion.

Coca cola used the process of mind maps to manage this transition.Mindmap gets everyone in a room, puts all issues on the table, groups the related issues and then connects everything.

In today’s world, the mandate to pay attention to the crowd, not the experts, and to focus on learning, not education, has never been more essential.

You have to create value for your suppliers, for your customers, your consumers, your community.You have to create value for the eco system.

A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.

By designing for agility, companies can learn faster and become smarter, which reduces the risk of being disrupted.

Failing fast really means learning fast. Companies that are slow to learn can never fail fast.

Dieter Rams, the designer at Braun for three decades summed up design philosophy as “ less, but better”

One of the things you need to learn is to get started , not to perfect everything from the start.

Pivoting is when a company abruptly changes its strategy. Altering a fundamental part of its business model, without changing its vision.

In 2005, coke identity was in a mess and then “ the coke side of life “ was launched. The designer looked back in time , saw a can that was bold and simple and that became the key.Core brands need a timeless quality.

If you can move learning wisdom and knowledge to the front line in your company faster than competition, you will win.

Coke focused on empowering women in africa via the modular distribution centers. Today a woman makes 20,000 $ s or more with this

There is one common them for winning companies , big or small, - FOCUS. Without focus people and companies waste resources, time and talent.

Starting a business is easy, scaling a business is tough.

Design

• Design can visualize strategy• Design can be the differentiator• Design can connect• We need to design on purpose• IBM uses design to focus its strategy• Apple uses design to differentiate• Nike uses design to build reputation• VW uses design to build culture