CDI Holdings · Case Study Library
Mission-Directed Work Teams® · Kampala, Uganda — Coca-Cola SABCO
Century Bottling Company — Coca-Cola SABCO Uganda
Becoming Bottler of the Year — World-Class Performance in Challenging Conditions
Coca-Cola SABCO Subsidiary · Uganda · MDW & TCCQS Integration · Best Product Quality in Africa · 228% Output Per Person
228%
Increase in cases
per person
per person
51%
Volume growth
achieved
achieved
32%
Cost of goods reduction
per case
per case
★ Africa
Best product quality
in SABCO Africa
in SABCO Africa
Context
World-Class Ambition in One of Africa’s Most Challenging Environments
Century Bottling Company (CBC), a Coca-Cola SABCO subsidiary operating in Uganda, set itself the most ambitious target in its group: to become the best bottler in the Coca-Cola SABCO network. Uganda's economic conditions — low GNP per capita, significant inflation, and high interest rates — created structural cost pressures that most operations in stronger economies never face. MDW® was identified as the vehicle to drive systemic change: building performance discipline, empowering frontline teams, and aligning every function to the same KPIs.
The Challenge
High Costs, Low Engagement, and a Business Running at a Loss
CBC arrived at the MDW programme with negative profitability, high absenteeism, fragmented communication, limited leadership depth, and underdeveloped quality systems. The average tenure in most key roles was under two years — meaning that institutional knowledge and leadership continuity were structural challenges alongside the operational ones. The operation needed a framework that could build capability, alignment, and performance culture simultaneously, and sustain them despite the volatility of the environment.
The Approach
Empowerment, Alignment, and the Daily Discipline of Performance
1
Structured Meeting Cadence and TransparencyDaily Level 1 team meetings with performance updates, coaching, and problem-solving. Weekly supervisory and departmental reviews. Quarterly SMM meetings. Full-staff communication sessions reinforcing transparency and organisational alignment. The cadence created the consistent rhythms that made accountability visible — and visible accountability, consistently maintained, is what shifted the culture from reactive to proactive.
2
MDW Empowerment ModulesSignposting, 5S, visual management boards, and goal alignment introduced as practical tools rather than training content. Teams engaged in identifying opportunities, proposing improvements, and tracking their own impact. Coaching emphasised leadership skills and succession planning — addressing the shallow leadership pipeline directly by developing the next layer from within.
3
KPI Alignment to Business FundamentalsMDW principles directly aligned to CBC's operational KPIs: volume growth, cost per unit, profitability, and customer service. Every team's daily performance measures were connected to the business targets that the Coca-Cola SABCO group used to rank its bottlers — ensuring improvement activity at team level translated directly into the metrics that determined group standing.
4
Recognition and MomentumSuccesses celebrated regularly — not as a morale programme separate from performance, but as an integral part of the improvement culture. In an environment where economic pressures created constant headwinds, visible recognition of team achievement was the signal that performance was possible and valued. Recognition built momentum; momentum sustained discipline; discipline delivered results.
5
Integrating MDW with TCCQS — One System, Not TwoMDW was integrated with the Coca-Cola Quality System (TCCQS) rather than run in parallel. MDW provided the team structure, the performance culture, and the ownership framework; TCCQS provided the quality standards, the audit cadence, and the external validation. Together they created a single operating system in which quality and performance were expressions of the same team culture — the direct cause of CBC being recognised as having the best product quality in Africa.
Starting Challenges
High production costs and operational inefficiencies with profitability running negative.
Fragmented communication across departments; limited performance measurement culture.
Leadership depth shallow — average tenure under two years in most key roles.
Low employee engagement, high absenteeism, and underdeveloped quality systems.
Results
From Negative Profits to Bottler of the Year
228%
Output Per Person
Cases per person increased by 228% — the most dramatic productivity transformation in the CDI library, achieved alongside a 60% reduction in total workforce size.
+51%
Volume Growth
Total production volume increased by 51%, demonstrating that efficiency and growth are not in tension when the people driving the operation are genuinely empowered.
32% Reduction
Cost Per Case
Cost of goods reduced by 32% per case — with profitability shifting from negative to on target — in an environment of inflation, high interest rates, and economic pressure.
★ Africa
Best Quality in SABCO
Recognised as having the best product quality in Africa within the Coca-Cola SABCO network — quality delivered by a team that owned it, not compliance enforced by a system.
48% Reduction
Fleet Reduction
Truck fleet reduced by 48% through logistics efficiency improvements driven by teams who owned their distribution performance end to end.
Owned
Culture & Pipeline
Stronger leadership pipeline, reduced absenteeism, collaborative decision-making — cultural gains that made the operational results repeatable rather than exceptional.
“
Even in volatile environments, structured team systems can deliver exceptional business outcomes.
Key Lesson · Century Bottling Company · Coca-Cola SABCO Uganda MDW Programme
Key Insight
CBC answers every “our situation is too difficult” objection. Negative profits, economic instability, shallow leadership depth, high absenteeism — and from that base: best product quality in Africa, 228% more output per person, Bottler of the Year. The conditions did not change. The people did — given a structure that made their effort matter and a culture that made their contribution visible.
