Mr. Datta further talked about the importance of collaborations – both internal and external. In today’s times of collaborations and partnerships, he took a leaf from Coca-Cola’s history and their long lasting relationship with McDonalds to give an example of how trust is the key to a successful partnership. He spoke about the importance of empowering people within your team and building great teams that can work together towards a common goal. He further spoke about leadership and how it has changed from what it was before. Giving the example of penguin leadership, he tried to explain how important it is for a leader to ensure they always have their team’s back.
As the lecture was halfway through, Mr. Datta took the batch through Coca-Cola’s 2006-07 rebuilding campaign after the crisis from the pesticide accusation. Speaking from his own first-hand experience, he gave the students a lot of key insights into one of the biggest crisis’ in recent history and how well it was managed by Coca-Cola.
Mr. Datta ended the lecture with a quick briefing of all the key takeaways he would want the students to imbibe. As the floor was open to questions, Mr. Datta answered questions on how to be passionate in the very toughest of times and what were his biggest learnings as a leader. He further answered certain domain based questions on the impact of GST on beverage industry, new product launches and the challenges faced by a company like Coca-Cola in the case of recent factory closures.
Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur would like to thank Mr. Datta for taking time out of his busy schedule to interact with the students and for delivering such an interactive lecture that ensured that the autumn season of Vaarta’16 had a stupendous start.
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