New Delhi: Beverages major Coca-Cola India today announced a new organisational structure, appointing Shehnaz Gill as franchise head ahead of implementation of GST that will convert the country into a 'single' national market.
Gill, a 12-year veteran of the Coca-Cola system, will take over the newly created role of Senior Vice-President Operations for India, the company said in a statement.
"He will serve as the Franchise Head for all the 14 bottlers operating in India and will report to Venkatesh Kini, President, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia," it added.
Coca-Cola India operates with 14 bottlers of parent The Coca-Cola Company in India, one of which is a company owned bottling entity — Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt Ltd.
Announcing the new structure, Kini said: "Under the new operating structure effective January 2017, the franchise management function of Coca-Cola India has been organised for geographical synergies instead of bottling territories."
He further said: "Now that we have built a solid foundation for our business over the last two decades, we are ready to embrace India as one national market with common commercial metrics, marketing calendars and market execution standards."
This will drive productivity, reduce duplication, leverage technology, enable digitisation and capitalise on the company's distribution scale, he added.
The new structure also enables the company's business to be a growth engine for Coca-Cola Company by capitalising on emerging opportunities like e-commerce, modern trade, new beverages and digitisation, while continuing to build on its wide reach in traditional trade, the statement said.
Gill re-joins Coca-Cola India system after serving as Vice President and General Manager, Upstate New York and Pennsylvania for Coca-Cola Refreshments. The company also named six region directors who will assist Gill in the operations.
These include Ravinder Singh for North; Ashish Jain, Delhi-NCR; Alka Shukla, Uttar Pradesh; Arpita Maitra, East; Alok Kohli, Central and West; Vikas Sunkad, South.
The new structure is only applicable to Coca-Cola India and the operating structure Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt Ltd (HCCB) remains intact. HCCB will continue to operate through its five Zonal Vice Presidents and Executive Director, Operations.
