In a changing and constantly evolving environment, in which the pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of online commerce, Coca-Cola in Spain –Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Iberia and Coca-Cola Iberia- and ESIC Business & Marketing School, have come together to develop a Digital Immersion Program in the Grocery Channel. A pioneering initiative in Spain in which managers, executives and managers from both companies participate.

The growth of eCommerce in Spain, 36% in the last year, places our country as one of the three countries in which this trend has increased the most, only behind Argentina and Singapore. This fact has influenced the acceleration of digital transformation in the sector in which Coca-Cola operates, since e-Commerce platforms have redoubled their importance, integrating into omnichannel strategies in which the online and offline worlds are perfectly integrated. The adoption of food purchasing habits through online platforms by new users and the increase in users who complement their purchases in both channels have positioned this discipline as one of the main e-Commerce trends that emerged after the health crisis.

For this reason, this initiative consolidates Coca-Cola as a benchmark in innovation and promoter of new methodologies that facilitate the growth and development of its professionals in a hyperconnected world in which the shopping experience and positioning in these new channels has become a determining factor.

In this sense, Ferran Gall, Commercial VP Spain of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Iberia, points out that “the new shopping habits have meant the definitive takeoff in Spain of online shopping and, specifically, of online grocery. The modern food channel has been clearly strengthened, since in just 10 months the weight of the category in which we operate (NARTD, non alcoholic ready to drink) has grown from 1.7% to levels close to 3% in online grocery , generating new opportunities. Online selling is much more than technology. It supposes a liberation from many of the limits imposed by the physical world, but it also requires a deep understanding of its dynamics. For this reason, together with ESIC, we have launched this pioneering program that has helped our teams to understand even better the context, operation and the necessary levers to take advantage of the opportunities offered by online grocery.”

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With this approach as a starting point, ESIC Business & Marketing School has been the academic partner chosen to create the Digital Immersion Program in the Grocery Channel, focused on the Coca-Cola teams in Spain becoming the main engine of digital transformation thanks to a change of mentality oriented towards a culture of learning in which has been trained, through more than 180 training hours, to Coca-Cola professionals throughout Spain thanks to ESIC's TransformativeLearning methodology.

For Enrique Benayas, director of ESIC Corporate Education and general director of ICEMD-Instituto de Innovación de ESIC "The objective of this program is to understand the new customer, their new processes and purchasing experience for Grocery products through the media and channels digital. During this program, professionals have acquired the necessary skills and abilities to facilitate, make accessible and promote the purchase of Coca Cola products through the digital purchasing channels of retailers that make their products accessible to consumers. In the end the magic word is "convenience". We have to make it convenient to buy our products. And for this, we must be able to take full advantage of the opportunities and respond to the challenges of the new customer, their purchasing processes and channels and their experience in a digital environment”.

¹ https://ecommercerentable.es/ecommerce-espana-2021/