A major shake-up seems to be underway at Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB), the bottling arm of beverage major Coca-Cola. There have been large-scale retrenchments as well as movements and exits at the senior level. Sources said at least 80 employees have already been laid off as part of this process but more pink slips are likely on the cards. This exercise is being done to make HCCB a leaner organisation and optimise costs.

Sources said at least 80 employees have already been retrenched. However, it is understood that the company is in the process of evaluating its operations and this count could go up vastly, they added.

There has also been some movement and exits at the senior level. Alok Sharma, Executive Director of Supply Chain is learnt to be moving out to take a role at Coca-Cola Beverages Africa. Gaurav Sharma, Chief People Officer is also leant to be on his way out. This week, the company officially announced the appointment of Harsh Bhutani as the new CFO who replaced Melvin Tan. Sources said more senior-level exits are expected in the coming months.

These developments come in the wake of the beverage major deciding to re-franchise company-owned bottling operations earlier this year in certain territories to its existing bottling partners.

Sources said that HCCB is in the process of laying off several employees in various verticals and functions such as supply chain, sales, strategy, transformation and analytics among others. The company’s Global Capability Center, which is called Business Shared Services, has also seen redundancies. 

When contacted, a spokesperson at HCCB said, “India is one of the most reliable markets and remains the focus of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Limited. HCCB continues to invest in building capability and capacity in the region, reinventing operations to keep pace with the changing consumer demands and industry standards.” The company did not comment on the number of retrenchments

Speculations have been rife that Coca-Cola Company is exploring options to list HCCB on the bourses.

Last month, Coca-Cola Company decided to dissolve Bottling Investments Group (BIG), under which the beverage major operated its company-owned bottling operations. This came after the beverage major re-franchised its company-owned bottling significantly in various markets. The company had internally announced that the timing was right to “sunset BIG” and to oversee the remaining bottling investments, which includes HCCB, in a more streamlined way.

In January, HCCB said that it is divesting company-bottling operations in Rajasthan to its bottling partner Kandhari Group. Similarly, bottling operations in the Bihar market were divested to SLMG Beverages. Also, the North-East market and select areas of West Bengal were re-franchised to Moon Beverages.

HCCB operates 13 factories and over 5000 employes, as per its website.

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