Design to Grow: How Coca-Cola Learned to Combine Scale and Agility by Linda Tischler, David Butler

Design to Grow: How Coca-Cola Learned to Combine Scale and Agility, written by Linda Tischler, explores how a global giant like Coca-Cola has managed to maintain success despite a changing landscape of consumers and a quickly shifting market. As a prominent example of an established company reinventing itself, Tischler's book sheds light on Coca-Cola’s quest to stay relevant in the digital age, while navigating the unique challenges that come with being an industry leader.

Tischler’s book begins by introducing the impact of digital transformation over the past decade and its increasingly visible effects on large corporations such as Coca-Cola. Not only has this changed consumer preferences, but it has also put pressure on major brands to respond quickly to market changes and maintain consumer loyalty. Drawing from her experience reporting for Fast Company, Tischler details the strategies that Coca-Cola implemented to remain successful in this age of disruption.

The crux of the book focuses on design-thinking methodology, which explores and prioritizes human experience first. By adopting a human-centered approach, Tischler explains how Coca-Cola was able to remain agile while introducing new products and services. According to the author, design-thinking forced Coca-Cola to think through the entire user journey, from first contact to product launch and beyond, and use this approach in order to better engage with their customers. This decision making style enabled them to be both flexible and strategic, creating products that better suit customer needs and expectations.

By studying how Coca-Cola incorporated user feedback into the product design and launch process, Tischler illustrates how design-thinking can act as a differentiator for a company seeking to stay relevant in today’s digital landscape. Everything from customer feedback loops to the use of artificial intelligence were utilized to help create efficiencies and support the decision making process, resulting in healthier customer relationships, engaging campaigns and sustainable growth.

Throughout her book, Tischler provides readers with an inside look into Coca-Cola’s restructuring process, as well as its challenges and successes. She highlights key players such as creative director David Butler and senior vice president of innovation Lesley Christon as examples of how the company was able to find solutions to global problems and bring them to the global market. As a result, Tischler argues that adapting the design-thinking methodology enabled Coca-Cola to tap into their creative side, while still maintaining the scale needed to be a market leader.

Design to Grow provides readers with a valuable insight into how a organization as large as Coca-Cola was able to stay afloat amidst the digital age by intelligently combining scale and agility. Through brief case studies and expert commentary from key players, Tischler’s book provides readers with an inside look into the strategies and processes used by Coca-Cola to effectively turn the tide and remain innovative in today’s digital world.