What skills do we need from business students in the future?

For us, the business student of the future needs to have a growth mindset. Coca-Cola HBC is one of the biggest employers in the FMCG industry in Austria and our vision is to serve all customers and consumers with our total beverage product portfolio – 7 days a week, 24 hours. Being embedded in the Coca Cola system is linked with a huge competitive advantage. The name “Coca-Cola” is the world’s second most recognized word after “hello”. Nevertheless, Coca-Cola is not the only product we are focusing on. Rather, our focus is on trying to enter new markets and categories by creating not only new products, but also new occasions for the consumption of our products. Our vision for the company relies on traditional products as well as on innovations. Thus, we will need employees who are daring to go beyond the paths that are currently existing in order to drive our business towards the direction of a 24/7 total beverage supplier.

Hands-on-mentality will support these innovators in making the launches of our new categories successful – and hands on mentality should not only be performed when covering the tasks of someone’s own job. It may also mean leaving the own comfort zone every now and then to get a more holistic picture. Some examples of we are looking for, are engaged colleagues who are: -daring to take on cross-functional assignments, to be able to act even more customer centered due to the good understanding of different departments -daring to go on international assignments to exchange best practices between different business units and companies within the Coca-Cola system -daring to enter new areas of expertise such as the digital area in which the operating system of the beverage industry is not yet that well embedded.

What have we done so far to attract and develop the employees of the future?

Collaborations such as the one that we have established with the WU are of fundamental importance for us in order to attract the right talents who will lead our company in the future. One of our key bets in this respect is our 24 months Management Trainee program, enabling young graduates to rotate through different departments in order to gain a solid understanding of our business as well as cross-functional and international exposure. The program is an optimal foundation for a future successful career within our company.

For employees that have already started their career within CCHBC, we offer a wide range of development opportunities. This starts with our annual talent review process in which every line manager and every employee are asked to reflect on future career plans. Our wide range of training offers as well as internal talent programs (Sales Talent League, Fast Forward program) then support our employees in reaching their targeted positions and assignments. All of this exposes employees who are willing to go the extra mile to collect experiences outside of the own comfort zone.

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