The Coca-Cola Company appoints Sanket Ray as president, India and Southwest Asia

The appointments follow the company’s broader reorganization, as first announced 28 August where the company announced the restructuring of its business units as it seeks to create scale for its new products and remove duplicates from its system.

It’s 17 business units were then replaced with nine larger operating units.

The company’s nine operating units will replace current groups and business units, effective Jan. 1, 2021, subject to consultation where required under local laws. These changes will help eliminate duplication of resources and enhance the company’s ability to scale new products more quickly, the company said in its release on Thursday.

Last week it also announced voluntary job cuts for close to 4,000 workers in the United States., Canada and Puerto Rico.

On T. Krishnakumar’s appointment, the company said: “He will be responsible for building and strengthening critical local partnerships in India, supporting the new operating unit leadership team," the company said in release Thursday.

Ray was previously CEO at Coca-Cola Beverages Vietnam Ltd; he also worked with the company's owned botting unit in India, i.e. Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB).

In India, the company works with several large bottlers apart from its company owned bottling operations HCCB.

Last year, the company announced that it would sell its bottling operations in four territories in north India to its existing bottlers—as part of efforts to streamline business and create regional scale in north India.

In all, Coca-Cola works with 14 bottlers in India and has more than 5o manufacturing units in the country from where it bottles popular beverages such as Coke, Thums-Up, Sprite, Fanta, and Minute Maid.