Intercultural Design
Introduction
Coca Cola is an example of a product that exemplify an intercultural design. The
product is produced by one of the world largest Coca-Cola beverage company. The product is
consumed by millions of consumers across the world. in addition it is one of the beverages that
are recognized and valued by many in the world. The product features in as one of the Coca-
Cola Company brand which is taken as the most profitable portfolio. With the wolrd growing
to be a global village Coca Cola is one of the product that has been able to keep a unique
identity with it customers across the globe, offering over 21 billion-dollar brands. Out of the 21
billion-dollar brands, 19 of them are available in a reduced sugar form, and calories options.
The study is aimed at establishing, “Coca Cola” product that is a good example of a product
that exemplify the international design.
The producers of “Coca Cola” are able to understand the needs of different consumers in
the world. Besides, the product is able to meet the needs of different customers in the world
with requirements such as reduced sugar quanties in their drinks. Across the globe Coca Cola
is consumed by more than 1.9 billion consumers every day (Ljungblom & Lennerfors, 2018).
The cross-culture research that has been conducted by the Coca-Cola company has made it
easier for them to incorporate the consumers of the product in over 200 countries. The high
consumption of the product is facilitated by the availability of brands such as, Diet Coke,
Fanta, Coca-Cola Zero, Vitaminwater, Dasani, Powerade, Del Vallee among others.
Intercultural business is a concept that involves establishment of good raport between the
product and people from different cultures. For example, vititors who visit the Coca Cola
company in Atlanta are offered an opportunity to taste over 100 beverages for free. The simple
act of welcoming consumers from across the world to sample the product reduces the chances
of viewing the product as a product to be consumed by the American only.
Culture in Business
Culture is defined as as shared tradition, folklore, beliefs and customs by a group of
individuals. A product should be able to adopt to different ethnicity, nationality or even religion
to meet the needs of different cultures (Filieri, 2015). Organizations have culture which
involves process and programmes that are used to ensure their success. Intercultural designs
have to be developed to accommodate the different culture when undertaking any business
venture. The ability to accommodate the different cultures transforms to introduction of
policies, practices and standards within whin a product sales grows.
Concepts in Intercultural Design
In the process of ensuring that intercultural design grows in the global business, a
producer should be ensure four levels of the concepts which includes: Cultural knowledge,
which involve the understanding of the cultural characteristics, values, beliefs, behaviours and
history of a group of people. The knowledge is crucial for a business person to be able to
determine the type of product to offer to the market. The second concept is cultural awareness
which involves the ability of a producer to determine the openness of a group of people to
change their cultural attitudes. The third concept is cultural sensitivity, which involves the
ability to acknowledge that there exists major differences among people and one has to chose
the product that will fit all the cultures. Lastly, is the concept of cultural competence, which
involves combining the above three concepts to ensure operation effectiveness. A cultural
competent product is able to bring the different attitudes, beliefs, policies and behaviours of
individuals together and offer them a special brand.
Reasons why Coca Cola is fitted in the Intercultural Design
The product is one that has adopted the intercultural concept as it is distrubuted across
the world. In over 200 countries in the globe, Coca Cola brand has established distribution’s
point. The distribution points adopts the use of local language and also the culture of that region. For example, Coca Colal has been one of the beverage that is highly accepted in Africa
despite having its origin in America. The other reason as to why the product fits in the
intercultural design is that it is able to establish the business roles that fits every culture. The
differences in culture usually poses a direct effect on the manner in which a product is adopted
by different communities.
Coca Cola is a product that provides brands for both males and females. A product that is
perceived by some cultures as to be only consumered by one gender fails to meet the
intercultural design. Coca Cola on the other hand can be consumed by all genders without
undermining the rights of any gender. Thirdly, Coca Cola incorporate the business laws of the
foreign culture where the product is to be consumed. Business law is a major cross-cultural
factor that a product should consider when penetrating into a another country operating under
different culture. The importance of understanding the business laws in the different country is
to ensure that there is effective communication between the product and the consumers. Coca
Cola product is one of the product that does not assume the business laws of the country in
which it operates. The company before establishing the product in any market, it consciously
does a research on the business laws and customs of the people to ensure success in their
venture.
Coca Cola is also a product that adopt the intercultural design as it works to eliminate the
language barrier among different cultures. Language barrier reduces any business activities is it
reduces business communication that occurs between product seller and consumers. The
company employees in all over the 200 countries that consumes Coca Cola have an
understanding of the language used by locals (Verma, 2018). Coca Cola also fits in the
intercultural design as it is able to adopt the key element which is immersion. Immersion is the
process of swallowing a certain culture among people. For a long the process of immersion has
been hard to accomplish due to lack of advanced communication system to accommodate many people. However, Coca Cola product has been able to overcome the challenge due to the
availability of internet and modern communication. The producers of the product uses social
network platforms such as Xing, Facebook, Intergram among others to meet is consumers.
Reasons why Intercultural Design matter in the Context of Industrial Design Field
The design applied by Coca Cola to market its product highly contributes to the industry
field for many reasons. The first reason is that it ensures a product establishes its own business
model across the globe. The business model ensures that the operation of a company are aimed
at the available capital. Coca Cola’s model assist the product to establish the sources of the
revenue to fund the production of the different brands and still give the company a good profit
margin. The business model also assist the product to produce brands that successfully
captures the a big consumer base.
The design also ensure that the product remain competitive in the market among
different cultures. The product has defined an area in which it out-competes the other
competing products. The attainment of competitive advantage by Coca Cola is through
ensuring consisitency of the quality of the brands. The use of intercultural design by a product
ensures that a product attains the social status among different cultures. A product may be
defined in social terms in such a way that it attracts the preference of a given sub-culture. Coca
Cola in its part has been able to command in terms of the sub-culture acceptance as it
establishes brands from different consumers such as Fanta that is consumed by Children. In
addition, intercultural design ensure that a product is able to meet a customer need. The
product comes with different sizes to fit the different consumer in all the classes (Verma,
2018). Coca Cola introduces products that can be used by both poor and rich due to their
pricing mechanism. Intercultural design also ensure product in the ever competitive world is
able to plan strategically and develop techniques aimed at increasing customers’ base.
Reasons that impact people to use Intercultural design
Different producers have adopted the intercultural design as it ensures establishment of
high standard in different cultures to ensure increased in profit margins. For example, Coca
Cola is able to produce its concentrate in their factory in Atlanta and distribute the product to
different contries for bottling and delivery of the brands to different consumers. Well
established intercultural design ensures that the consumers across the different parts of the
world gets safe products. Coca Cola through communication is able to get feedbacks from their
customers that enable them to offer quality brands to all their consumers in over 200 countries
in the Coca-Cola system. Intercultural design in any industry also ensures that there is strong
governance practices in place. The strong governance practices ensure there is compliance of
the laws and regulations put in place.
The brands of Coca Cola meets the safety and quality stanadards through the use of set
law and regulation which are diligently enforced. Intercultural design ensures routine updating
of regulations, industry plactices and market conditions across the globe. Coca Cola product is
one of the product that ensure it s updated with the dynamic changes in the cultural practices
for different communities. The product engages in setting standards and industry regulations
based on different rigions that they operates. For example the company in the year 2009
intruduced a bottle that is 30% renewable made of plant-based materials which was later
awarded with Green Package Award (Baack, 2017). The introduction was a response to the
global calls for reducing environmental pollution caused by non-biodegradable packaging
materials.
Users of Coca Cola Experience
Coca Cola is a product that offers the consumers the best experience ranging
from the quality products to safe product. The products ensures that quality and safety is
essential to ensure they maintain their customers. The product’s committeemen starts with making sure that all the ingredients are inspected carefully. The consumers in most of the
nations where the product is comsumed states that they strictly abide to regulation.
The product abides with the laws pertaining to product labeling and health safety.
The consumers are provided with the nutritional information pertaining all the brands they
supply across different cultures (Baack, 2017). The nutrition information according to most of
the consumers assists them to make choice of the beverage that fits their lifestyles. In addition,
most of the consumers stated that they were able to easily acquire the product at the nearest
point across all the nations where ther Coca Cola is consumed. The Coca Cola company is able
to ensure that the customers access the products through periodic evaluation of the performance
and facilities of the different suppliers. In case of health risks that may be accompanied by
consumption of the product, the company swiftly takes corrective action.
Importance of Intercultural Design
Intercultural design information sharing network across different cultures and social
groups. The sharing of information occurs among individuals with different goals and ideas.
Intercultural design provides information among product producers and consumers.
Intercultural design seeks to understand the differences in the ways businesses intergrates their
products with the different people having different cultural background (Verma, 2018). The
design also access the varous ways through which business communicates and perceives the
business world around them. Moreover, intercultural design aims at establishing the cultural
factors that impacts business. Failure to understand the culture of different communities
introduces serious implication to a business success. For example, Coca Cola product is a good
example of a product that incorporate the different cultures in the world. The product ensures
that the locals of a country are included in advertising, marketing, promotion and distribution of
the different brands.
In addition intercultural design introduces the trait of open-mindedness. The
producer of the product is able to reason beyond the boundaries. The producer challenges
himself or herself on the means to improve his product to include other users from different
cultures. The trait ensures that there is introduction of specifications that fits consumers who
possesses different cultural practices. For example the Coca Cola company produces products
that can accommodate different users across the globe (Ljungblom & Lennerfors, 2018).
Consumers who prefer beverages with high sugar content are offered with products that meet
their needs while consumers who prefer low sugar beverages also have a product to celebrate.
Intercultural design also emphasizes on the increasing capacities for different skilled
individuals. The producer should be able to ensure that the product that he or she is producing
are able to accommodate the different cultures. The producer should ensure that he or she is
able to acquire linguistic skills, cultural tuning and social flexibility in different cultural
settings. The ability to adopt to different cultures ensures that product can be flexible in case of
any drastic change in the cultural environment.
References
Baack. D. (2017). Organization Behavior. Second edition. 978-1-62178-362-6 Lightning
Source. Pittsburg State University
Filieri, R. (2015). From market-driving to market-driven. Marketing Intelligence &
Planning, 33(3), 238-257. doi: 10.1108/mip-02-2014-0037
Ljungblom, M., & Lennerfors, T. (2018). Virtues and Vices in Project Management
Ethics. Project Management Journal, 49(3), 5-16. doi: 10.1177/8756972818770586
Verma, S. (2018). Examining the New Dimensions of Career Advancement of Women
Employees. Global Business Review, 097215091878075. doi:
10.1177/0972150918780757
