Weaknesses

In SWOT Analysis, the alphabet W represents the shortcut for the term of weaknesses. It
is define as internal factors or characteristics that place the business or project of an organization
at a disadvantage relative to others. There are several weaknesses that hide under the Coca-Cola
Company.

The first weakness is the Coca-Cola Company only emphasize on carbonated
drinks. The business is still focusing on selling Coke, Fanta, Sprite and other carbonated drinks.
This is not a good strategy because it works in short term only as consumption of carbonated
drinks will grow in emerging economies. For example, this strategy may be prove weak as the
world is fighting obesity and is moving towards consuming healthier food and drinks although
the company has come out with low or no calories carbonated drinks.

The second weakness is the Coca-Cola Company is in high debt level due to acquisition.
For example, as a result of the CCE transaction, the Coca-Cola Company was assumed has
approximately $7.9 billion of debt from CCE. As a result of the substantial increase in our
indebtedness, the company borrowing costs and interest expense in future periods will be higher
than in the past. The increased indebtedness and higher borrowing costs and interest expense
may reduce amounts available for dividends, stock repurchases, capital expenditures and
acquisitions, and may cause rating agencies to downgrade the company debt, all of which could
have adverse effects on the company future financial performance.

The Coca-Cola Company also facing the negative publicity, which is the third weakness.
For instance, since water is the main ingredient in substantially all of the company products, the
firm is often criticized for the high water consumption issue due to water is a limited resource in
many parts of the world. As demand for water continues to increase around the world, and as
water becomes scarcer and the quality of available water deteriorates, their system may incur
increasing production costs or face capacity constraints which could adversely affect the
company profitability or net operating revenues in the long run.

Water Scarcer

The last weakness is the brand failures or many brands with insignificant amount of
revenues by the Coca-Cola Company. For example, the Coca Cola Company currently sells
more than 500 brands but only 17 of the brands result in more than $1 billion sales such as Coca-
Cola, Sprite and others. Moreover, the firms success of introducing new drinks is weak. Many
of its introduction result in failures such as C2 drink.

C2 drinks