The Coca-colonization of our planet: for a man who is so young, Javier Benito has certainly managed to accomplish quite a bit. As one of the key leaders of the Coca Cola Enterprise, Benito has built his success story at Coca Cola on very strong foundations: inclusion, teamwork and respect

Latino Leaders: The National Magazine of the Successful American Latino, August-Sept, 2004 by Gabriela Velasquez

On the President of U.S. Retail and Chief Marketing Officer for North America of a company of such dimensions as Coca-Cola, one would probably expect a somber executive over fifty. Instead, we are surprised by youthful Javier Benito, who is barely forty and already has a career admirable enough to confirm that any Latino can get anywhere by making use of education and personal talent. As many great executive leaders, he is a man who thinks he still has a lot to learn even when he has reached a top position at a relatively young age, and this is probably the key to steady progress in any career. "Youth brings energy", he says; "but sometimes you need to understand you may be lacking in some areas, and you have to make sure you make up for that". Javier Benito thinks that the variety of markets he has had to meet along his career in Coca-Cola is an experience which has enabled his professional growth; having been in so many places has helped him get this position "beyond any dream he could've dreamed of', a lot more than if he had stayed in a single position for a long time. Another important thing in his professional development was his vision to go beyond Hispanic marketing--that was his first job--because many Latinos never move onwards; "at some point you have to push yourself up to go and he successful mainstream", says Benito.

His ride to success started back in 1996. He had been working for some yeas in international marketing and merchandising for Procter & Gamble when he got a call from Coca-Cola, "a very difficult thing to reset for someone who loves business and marketing and is pursuing an international career", he told us. He then became a Global Director for Fanta, a brand not marketed actively in the U.S. at the time, but a very important one in Mexico and Latin America. After some time working in the global positioning of the above mentioned brand, he was presented with a great opportunity, "a dream job", he calls it. He was appointed Division Marketing Director for Coca-Cola's Central and Eastern European Division, and moved to Vienna. Javier Benito describes how exciting it was to gain the leadership in those markets after fighting neck to neck with tough competitors, particularly Pepsi. Under him, the "marketing" division started from scratch and the team was able to deliver double digit growth. "In countries like Romania", he says, "We had holes in the organization", so it yeas an enormous challenge to recruit the right people to face the competition with strong local brands.

At this point the obvious question is how he managed to build a solid market almost out of the blue. Benito's strategy is sustained in a few key points. The first one is to avoid the "know it all" attitude and rely on a team who has the expertise you need, as he told us, "you have to be humble and realize them are many things you don't understand about local markers, and that leads you to the first success factor: building a great team".

The next thing is what he calls "connecting". It is part of Coca-Cola's philosophy that the people who work for them maintain the highest standards of quality not only in the products themselves, but also in terms of relationships. Thus, it is essential to build and nurture relationships with the people around based on respect. Benito is very careful with connecting, particularly with bottlers: "No matter how great our marketing plan is, if our bottling partners don't support it we won't succeed; you see, our bottling partners are the difference between success and failure".

The third fact Benito considers relevant is to stay focused, "to have a clear vision of what you want to do, understanding your local market and instill the same passion on your team and your customers". In a situation where he had to cover twenty-one different markets from Vienna to Asia, the strategy was to focus on small groups being targeted in order not to dilute efforts.

As we all know, a great part of Coca-Cola's success has been the ability to meet new challenges pined by the constant changes worldwide, and to adapt itself to the business conditions of each particular time and place, the "think global, act local" strategy. And it is this constant fixing of challenges each time higher and reaching the required goals what Benito shares as his final comment on strategy; "raising the bar" he calls it. At that time, among the most difficult challenges he faced, was conquering Turkey's market, where sales were low due to cultural differences and eating habits. They could overcome this situation by having the local team put together a program where. They linked Coca-Cola to cultural traditions, and the outcome was of sales boost.

This accomplishment reflects how Coca-Cola has greatly benefited from the elementary understanding that consumer choice is related to cultural and social identity. The overwhelming success of Coca-Cola has a lot to do with the fact that it is deeply rooted in everyday habits. Only things that are actually an important part of our lives can be a source of famous urban legends. Idle minds "around the world have always spread lies such as "if you leave a tooth overnight in a glass of Coke, it will dissolve" or "the original color of Coke was green", and so on. These popular rumors are nothing else but a proof that Coca-Cola is part of our culture. Otherwise, there would be no interest in making up so many stories.