Episode 288
In this episode of the Unscripted podcast, host Sarah Nicastro welcomes Michael Galon, Director of North America Service Operations at The Coca-Cola Company, for a conversation about honoring Coca-Cola's rich legacy and embracing innovation in a fast-paced market, as well as staffing challenges, AI, and maintaining service excellence.
Michael is responsible for overall equipment services strategy at Coca-Cola, including installation, repair and project execution for the foodservice and on-premise organization of North America Operating Unit. He leads a high-performing team of 14 Service Operations Managers, Commercialization and Development Managers in the execution of the equipment service strategy through the performance management, alignment and oversight of $300MM spend with over 620 service providers across the United States and Canada.
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Episode Highlights:
Michael - 00:00:00: I like to call it collaborative problem solving. Yeah. Collaborative and creative problem solving. And I think that's really where the wins are. If you leverage your team or you leverage the network, you come up with much better ideas and much better solutions and a much better and easier opportunity to implement those solutions because you got more buy-in, more ownership, more accountability, and everybody feels that they're part of the solution. And I think there's a lot of value in that as well.
Sarah - 00:00:36: Welcome to the Unscripted Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we are going to be talking about how a company with a deep, rich legacy honors that legacy without leaning too much on it. We're going to do that today with Michael Gallen, who is the Director of North America Service at the Coca-Cola Company. It's a company the listeners might've heard of. Welcome to the podcast, Michael. Just a few, yeah. Yeah, when you talk about brand legacy, Coca-Cola has to be one of the most recognized brands in the world.
Michael - 00:01:25: Absolutely. Yeah. We have a proud tradition and legacy and one of the most recognized trademarks in the world. So it's a very recognizable company and we're great to honor that tradition.
Sarah - 00:01:39: Absolutely. And so the conversation, Michael, that you and I are going to have today, it comes up a lot in my conversations with leaders that are in companies that do have a long legacy, especially one that has been successful, one where they've built a lot of brand recognition. And there's this sort of balance of honoring that legacy and leveraging its strengths without allowing it to become a liability by not keeping pace with innovation, by not being willing to change in areas that it would be helpful to change, etc. So Michael and I were together at Field Service East over the summer, and we were sat down to chat, this topic came up and we decided to have a conversation here on the podcast about it. So thank you for being here. Before we get into the topic, just tell everyone a little bit about yourself, your role, your background, whatever you would like to share.
Michael - 00:02:35: First of all, thanks for having me, Sarah. I appreciate our conversations over the last several months. But my name is Michael Gallen. I lead the service operations team for North America. We support all of the food service customers for Coca-Cola in the United States. And we're responsible for service of those activities or those locations, installations, and project activities. I've been with Coca-Cola for over 25 years now and have been in a number of operations roles with Coca-Cola, both on the customer side, but also on the service operations side. And then prior to Coca-Cola, I had the honor of working with another very recognizable brand, the Golden Arches, with McDonald's, where I worked for a food service distribution company. So I've been very fortunate in my career to work for two very recognizable trademarks between McDonald's. And I've been working for a very recognizable trademarks between McDonald's and Coca-Cola. So excited to chat with you today.
Sarah - 00:03:39: Yeah, thank you for being here. So, all right. Now, there's going to be parts of this conversation that I think leaders, like I said, in any business that has this legacy, but then is looking ahead, is going to be able to resonate with. But there's also some things that make Coca-Cola's business, especially the service business and your service operations, unique. So just so our listeners have some context for that, can you give them a lay of the land before we get into some of the things we want to touch on?
Michael - 00:04:08: Sure. So I work for Coca-Cola North America and around the U.S. We have a number of bottling partners that own the local geographies and support all of the local market customers. And at Coca-Cola North America, we support most of your large chain accounts in the food service area. So what's unique about the way that we go to service to support our customers is we don't have any of our own technicians. We leverage our bottling partners that have technicians on the street servicing their customers to also service our customers. So that's the one thing that makes our profile and our network a little bit unique is that we leverage those bottling partners. But not only the bottling partners, but also we have a large group of smaller independent service providers that also fill in the gaps if you will, where sometimes our bottling partners can't get to all of our customers very timely, or if there's a specialized project where we need to leverage a specialized skill set, we have a very broad network that we can plug and play different providers into different activities to make sure that we're supporting our customers in the manner that they need supported, whether it be reactive service, specialized service, installation, project activities, those types of things. So it's become very strategic in how we go to business. After COVID, post-COVID, there's a lot of challenges that have faced the workforce, and we've had to be very flexible on how we support our customers. Where prior to COVID, most of the activities were funneled through our bottling network. And now we've had to flex in different markets where we've had some capacity challenge, some hiring challenges, some retention but we feel we're very well positioned in how we've flexed and added different service providers to our network to, again, make sure that we've got the right service capabilities and capacity to support our customers.
Sarah - 00:06:21: Mm-hmm. Okay. That makes sense. So if I'm understanding correctly, the bottlers are exclusively Coca-Cola partners. And the independent service providers may or may not be working with other companies, but you're leveraging them to fill in, whether it's capacity or skills, to augment the support you have from your bottling partners. Did I understand that correctly? Okay.
Michael - 00:06:47: Yes. And most of our bottlers have a geography, a number of states that they support. So they're regionally scattered throughout the U.S. And then we have some large national providers that we leverage to support us with some national projects.
Sarah - 00:07:02: Mm-hmm.
Michael - 00:07:03: There are company such as IC that has a specialize skill set in frozen beverage and we do the same with coffee as well, where we leverage some specialized service providers in those particular areas that are more specialized based on the equipment that the customer may have in that particular outlet.
Sarah - 00:07:23: Okay. All right. That makes sense. It actually makes me think of a podcast we did a while back. I don't remember the number off the top of my head, but we can put it into the show notes with Whirlpool. And they, a number of years back, made a decision strategically as a business to only go to market and service through their partner network. And we had a really interesting conversation about what that looks like, but also some of the strengths of that model, which it sounds similar to your thinking. Now, That being said, particularly when we're talking about what we're talking about today, this idea of like legacy versus potential liability, it can also complicate things, right? So it can be both, right? And it's just something that as we talk through things today, listeners should keep in mind that is how you go to market from a service perspective. So
Michael - 00:08:16: attending several of the events where we've bumped into each other, I get a lot of questions about our independent and third party service network from companies that have their own technicians. And they're trying to identify how do I augment our current service network with adding potential third parties into our network where maybe they do have their own technicians as company techs. But they're looking to fill in some of the gaps with a third party network. So a lot of folks now post-COVID are looking at more of maybe a hybrid model.
Sarah - 00:08:54: Yeah, absolutely. And it was interesting what stands out in my mind from the episode with Whirlpool is I asked a question around one of the most common concerns of working with any third party service providers, which is. How do you maintain control of the customer experience, the brand experience? And the woman that answered the question said, maybe the issue is trying to have control versus looking at it as a partnership. And it just made me think about what that relationship can be like. And if you focus on the mutual benefit, right, between your regional partners or even your national partners and yourselves, and figure out what works to maximize the mutual benefit, it doesn't have to be this contentious. Tug-of-war type relationship that I think a lot of people still have in their minds when they're probably asking you some of how does it work? How do you do this? How do you keep track of this? So yeah, very interesting, but not what we're here to talk about today. Okay. So as I mentioned in the introduction, when we were together at Field Service East, we sat down and we were just chatting about some of the, I don't want to say pros and cons, but strengths and considerations is the way I would put it, right? Because on one hand when you have a brand with a strong legacy and particularly one that has been successful, there's another side of this conversation for brands that have a legacy, but maybe have a tarnished reputation or haven't had ongoing success, et cetera. This is not the case here, right? So you have this pool of benefit and resource that you want to fully leverage. On the other hand, legacy lends itself to having a lot of practice figuring out what works and streamlining operations and getting things the way you want them, which sometimes can cause resistance to or hesitation to change significantly, which can be challenging, right? So this was the premise of what we chatted about. And as I said to you then and earlier, This is a very common tightrope to walk, right? This is something that I think I could probably name 10 companies off the top of my head that I've had this sort of same conversation with. So to get your perspective and your input on this, first, I want to talk about some of the ways that for Coca-Cola and for probably others, the legacy that you have can be a big advantage to the business and to service specifically. Okay. So I'm just going to mention some of the things that we talked through. The first is brand recognition. So from a service standpoint, how do you feel like that is helpful for you to leverage when you're thinking about the continued service success for the organization.
Michael - 00:12:03: I think the brand recognition gives us a point of entry when our sales folks are in there selling. We do have what we feel are the best brands, the best offering of a beverage portfolio for our customers. We also believe that we have some of the best marketing that's out there. But at the end of the day, if we don't have equipment that is up and operating and helping that operator, that food service operator, making profits and selling beverages, then the best brands in the world and the best marketing are going to fall flat. So we've got to make sure that we've got the right resources to support our operational capability, of which services is one of those pillars, to make sure that we're delivering every single day against what we try to add to our customers, that we can bring you more value as the Coca-Cola company with our bundle. Right. You mentioned brands and marketing and service and equipment and innovation and our distribution network and all those things that help lift up those brands and that marketing so that we are one of the most recognized brands in the world. But more importantly, I think it's that foundation, those foundational. Pillars that really help lift up the brand and the marketing so that we are out there selling each and every day. And it gives us that competitive advantage when it comes to adding more customers to our portfolio, especially in the food service business that we feel is our competitive advantage. But with that comes great privilege to work for Coca-Cola, but also great responsibility to make sure that we're delivering against our promise to our customers around service.
Sarah - 00:13:55: Yeah. Now you talked about service being. The aspect of the relationship or the aspect of the, yeah, the customer experience that really upholds that relationship. And so thinking about what you just said, the brand recognition is great as an entry point, as you mentioned, right? But if you go in with this great brand, these great pitches, sales decks, equipment, innovation, and then something breaks and no one comes to fix it in a timely manner or fix it well, etc. You're not going to be able to uphold that brand recognition. So that's where service comes in. How would you say, what does that look like in terms of that focus on relationship building? And how do you see that as a strength that your legacy has allowed you to sort of play up.
Michael - 00:14:47: So when it comes to the customer side of the business, we have a dedicated team focused against operational support for each one of our large North America customers. On the other side of the fence, which is where I play, we have service operations managers that are dedicated to our service providers. So we've got a relationship with our customer from an operations perspective our team is leveraging our relationship with our service providers. And then that customer ops manager, along with the service ops manager, is really connecting and collaborating on any of those type of opportunities that we might have with a particular customer, whether it's a service escalation, whether it's a new project or brand expansion, or maybe we've just landed a customer and we're working on a conversion program. But the relationship that we have with our customers, with our service network is really foundational, but it's also very collaborative. At the end of the day, we all want to win more customers, but we also want to serve those customers. And the better off our customers are serving our beverages, the more profitable they are, the more profitable we are. We believe that value bundle that we bring to them every day is really what sets us apart.
Sarah - 00:16:16: Yeah. So the way you described it, there's this well-working operating model in place where you maintain some level of interaction with customers directly. But your team specifically is focused on supporting the service partners that you have that are the ones executing on the service for those customers in a way that I know you described is kind of like a well-oiled machine, right? And has allowed you to, you said, consistently over-deliver on service. So can you explain what you mean by that?
Michael - 00:16:51: Yeah, so when it comes to over-delivering on service and service execution, we feel that we invest in class service performance when it comes to our metrics around completion time, fix right first visit, equipment uptime. You think about cost, quality, and speed, those core foundational metrics that we run our business by, we believe we're best in class. But the validation for that is really what we hear from our customers as well. A lot of times we're compared to other providers that are coming in to a restaurant, whether it be plumbing or food service or other service companies that come into those outlets. And we continue to hear that we are delivering world-class, best-class, however you want to phrase it, service levels. And that's really what we continue to focus on with our service partners is maintaining that competitive advantage when it comes to performance around those core deliverables. And more so now than ever with the pressures that are on staffing and food service establishments, more so than ever, they want us to respond quickly, but they also want us to have the right part and get them back up and pouring. The other shift that's happened post-COVID is more business is going through the drive-through now than ever. So that operation of the equipment in the drive-through is more important than ever. And we need to make sure if 90% of their business is going through the drive-through, that we have that equipment up and running when they need it so that they can continue to make profits from our beverage. But when they succeed, we succeed as well.
Sarah - 00:18:42: And that was the final piece I want to talk about. You just mentioned in passing there, which is. The role of having really strong marketing support because I'm sure that's applicable in a number of different ways, but it's also possible because of the success and the legacy of the brand, right? There are a lot of companies that are newer entrants to the market, not in your space, but just in general, or they are, you know, historically focused elsewhere, and now they're focused on growing service that don't have a lot of that support, at least to start, and that can be challenging. So you have that. What I wanted to point out is, again, that the way that collaboration takes place, but also how much of that is focused on insights that help both Coca-Cola and your service partners and your customers understand. Consumption, usage, trends, right? So that was one of the things we talked about. And I think that's really important to mention because those insights are very valuable to all three of those parties involved. Yeah. And that's just, it's a I think it sounds like it's a pretty sophisticated function that not everyone has. So that's why I just wanted to make sure we touched on that in the sort of strengths category.
Michael - 00:20:07: Yeah. If you think about the freestyle equipment that we have, that offers over 100 different beverages. And that really leverages the insights that you mentioned from consumers, right? So now we're able to provide a huge offering of different beverages. And based on consumption and usage at different concepts, we can create different marketing programs that are individual to either a chain location. We're able to create a customized beverage for the demographic that may be going into that particular establishment. Or on the flip side, if we see a particular blend of beverage, a particular recipe that consumers are dispensing from the freestyle. We've actually gone ahead and produced a bottle can package to have that available in a prepackaged form because that's what customers are wanting. So that piece of equipment has been huge for us from a marketing asset, a beverage innovation lab, if you will, in many of our customer outlets. But the other thing is it provides the consumer so many more options now than just your traditional eight head, eight valve fountain dispenser. So we've really leveraged that equipment platform in many different ways, but definitely on the consumption side and the insight side. And then leverage that with our customers.
Sarah - 00:21:41: Yeah. Okay, so these are all great things. And I want to shift gears and talk about some of the aspects where there could be question marks of, okay, like, and this isn't, there's no, to be clear to the listeners, these are not questions we have answers to. It's not like you're saying definitively, I think this is a risk, or I think this is an area of concern. It's more so. I think this healthy exercise of when you're in a company that has this type of legacy and has things working well to be asking these questions so they aren't just in the flow and not thinking about it. Because I think what we're really talking about here is there's areas where I'm sure you could revisit. You said you want to maintain the competitive advantage that you have through your service. So what that brings to mind for me is this idea of incremental improvement to maintain this success that you have. I think where the questions come in more is when we start to think about more disruptive innovation, right? Because that's where you get into not just tweaking or incrementally improving what's already working, but where you start to reflect on, okay, are there areas where we should make a more wholesale change and what would that look like? And I think those are important questions for anyone in any business, but particularly a business with a deep legacy to be asking. So one of the things you said is the business model has essentially been the same for 20 plus years, and it works really well. And I think that in and of itself is the potential challenge, right? Because when you have something that is a well-oiled machine, the inclination is never going to be to change it up or to try something completely different. But we know that at times that type of disruptive innovation can be valuable. So how do you sort of look at this question and reflect on how much you maintain that success versus how much you consider? When it might be time to do something more disruptive or different.
Michael - 00:24:01: Yeah, I think that's a great question. And it's a challenging opportunity, right? When you look at the way our service network is set up, because we have 11 large franchise bottlers, if you will, then we have another collection of smaller bottlers that have smaller territories, and then our independent network. And when you talk about something disruptive to the service organization, that's a lot of different entities that you've got to gain buy-in, but also develop a collaborative plan to get folks on board, which presents its own challenges. But one of the things that I think we try to do here at Coca-Cola is not those major disruptive activities, like that we need to revamp something totally, but what are the small components within different processes, different functions that we can make improvements. One of the areas that we're focusing on right now is AI, right? How can we use AI to improve the service that we provide to our customers ultimately? But also, how can we use it to support our service network? Our service network is facing many challenges when it comes to staffing. No longer do we have a very seasoned workforce. We've got a very green workforce, a lot of newer technicians. And one of the things that we're trying to leverage AI is to be able to provide that training information, that training on the job, if you will, through AI, whether it be a search by the technician when they're on site or providing predictive information based on customer equipment, service history, parts usage. We're able to take that data and then provide information to the technician to say, based on all of these factors, these are the most likely parts that are needed. And this is the troubleshooting steps needed to be taken to get that customer back up and running. And we're trying to do small disruptions in different areas so that we can continue to move the needle and move that big ship of over 600 different service providers to improve our service level to our customers.
Sarah - 00:26:31: Yeah. I think that makes sense. And I think reflecting on the way the business is structured, and you mentioned that your team specifically is supporting the partners that are delivering service. So I guess I'm thinking about two things. I think what you just described makes perfect sense. It isn't an area of complacency. It's an area of strategic continuous improvement, right? I think where the opportunities for more disruptive change could come from would be the direct line to the customers. I would always argue that is the best source of insight to indicate that there needs to be a bigger change, right?
Michael - 00:27:16: Sure.
Sarah - 00:27:16: And I think ultimately, if you have service execution that is consistently overachieving your set standards and you have high customer satisfaction. There isn't really an argument for disruption unless the company as a whole started to look at shifting the business model, right? Which is a completely different conversation. But if you were to start to hear from customers, like we would rather just pay a monthly subscription and that sort of thing. That being said, that's not gonna be a decision that takes place in your department specifically because you're focused on supporting the execution of the service model that's already in place, if that makes sense. But I think those are some of the things that it's really more making sure that you are maintaining that. Interaction with customers so that you start to sense, okay, maybe there would be benefit in doing this thing we haven't done before. So yeah, that makes sense.
Michael - 00:28:16: And we're hearing a little bit of that, Sarah. When I talked about comparing us to other companies, there are other companies that do really good work and have really good performance levels. And they're doing things that are innovative because they're a smaller company and they can change quicker and they can try things and it fails and then they can try something different. But some of the things that we hear from customers is we would need a higher level of service, right? Is there a better best? Is there a particular service level that from a response time perspective that you would guarantee service and things of those natures? And I think there's certainly an opportunity for that. I don't think it's widespread at this point. And the other thing I would say is because our metrics are relatively high in most of those categories, there's not a significant need for it. But when we are compared against other providers, those are some of the types of things that do come up. From a disruption perspective, that would definitely be disruptive. But the other thing I think of is it would also be an opportunity for potentially a revenue opportunity that we could charge more for that particular service level than what we're doing today. Because right now we're cost recovery, we're cost neutral, for the most part, against all the different categories for service, whether it be service execution, install parts, our own training department that we use to help train technicians in the field. All of that is pretty much cost neutral. And our customers don't necessarily feel the expense when it comes to service.
Sarah - 00:30:04: Yeah, that makes sense. And I agree. I think that that's a whole business model conversation, not a service delivery model conversation. And if you, as long as you're listening and understanding, like you said, is this getting more widespread? Should we think about what this could look like? Yeah, that makes sense. What about, we talked a little bit about this. You mentioned from a service provider perspective, it's become harder to staff, less experience, et cetera. Is there anything you kind of reflect on that maybe needs to change in how you work with those, providers as a result of the talent landscape as it is today?
Michael - 00:30:48: Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, we've added over 60 new providers into the service network just to fill in those gaps of where we have providers that are struggling with either hiring or retention, or maybe technicians were furloughed during COVID and they've had a hard time bringing technicians back. So we've had to be very strategic post-COVID to build our network so that we have the right capacity, the right capability to service our customers' needs. And that's probably the biggest challenge for us. Because our model is a little bit different, right? When it comes to our cost structure and labor rates and what we pay service providers, it's a little different, right? We're not necessarily paying service providers the street rate. And therefore, that can become a little bit challenging when you're trying to bring new people into the network. If there's a difference in what they're able to charge their customers versus what I may be paying them for service. But there's also a lot of other benefits that come with having Coca-Cola as part of their service portfolio. So there's definitely a balance there. But I would say that's the biggest challenge for us is making sure that we have the right providers providing the right service for our customers. And we still have markets where we challenge. We have challenges, to be quite honest with you. And we're still looking to expand and or help other companies expand into new geographies and stand up technicians in different areas.
Sarah - 00:32:32: Yeah.
Michael - 00:32:32: But that's harder to do. It's obviously much easier to find a company that has techs in bands with parts in bands and be able to add our service on top of that.
Sarah - 00:32:44: Yeah.
Michael - 00:32:45: There's a mutual benefit versus asking someone to go to a new geography and try to stand up from ground zero. So,
Sarah - 00:32:51: yeah.
Michael - 00:32:52: That's our biggest challenge.
Sarah - 00:32:54: Yeah, which then brings us back to the point you made earlier about another area of continued reflection on change is where can we add in technology to help alleviate some of that burden? So you obviously aren't going to introduce AI to the extent that you don't need those technicians. But if you can do so in a way that helps support technicians that don't have the same level of experience or are newer to service or newer to this industry, it just helps take a little bit of that pressure off, which makes sense.
Michael - 00:33:27: The other area where we try to reduce the calls that are going into the field is we have probably over 80 in-house senior technicians, call them the my co-techs, that are able to support our customers over the phone and or our field technicians where they need support, trying to reduce that. That truck roll by supporting customers over the phone and making sure that we can get their equipment back up and running, or if it's what we call a nuisance call and some we can ship out a small part and have them back up and running a lot quicker, that benefits everybody in the system and eliminates a truck roll. And therefore, we're trying to take calls out of the system, especially where we have capacity concerns.
Sarah - 00:34:12: Yeah, that makes sense. So talking about all of this. We get back to this fundamental question of how much do you agree with the mentality of if it ain't broke, don't fix it or not. So. Where do you feel you land on finding that right balance?
Michael - 00:34:35: So that's a great question. I think there's always an opportunity for continuous improvement. Even if you're delivering the metrics, there's also always underlying contributing factors, some low hanging fruit that you can take out of your process. One of the areas where we continue to have opportunity with customers and service providers is what we call dry runs, right? So if you're thinking about an install at a new location and we go to the location, we dispatch an install team, we have equipment on the truck, and we get there. And for whatever reason, that customer is truly not ready for an installation. And I think that's an example where there's little opportunities within different aspects of our business and how we can continue to approve and take costs out of the system, but also make that those technicians more productive. That ownership is on us, not the service providers, because we're ultimately paying them to show up there. But that's an area where we've got a lot of focus. It's a frustration point for our service network. It adds additional costs to the system. But I think if you ever get complacent in what you're delivering and trying to keep in touch with what the customer is looking for, that's where you start to fall behind. I don't want to say we did that, but I feel we got stagnant for a little bit. And now we're back on track to making sure that we've got a competitive advantage and that we're delivering against our customers' needs and expectations and adding value for our customers, which is most important for them. But again, when they win, we win. And we want to be their best partner in helping them grow their business. And when they grow their business, we grow our business.
Sarah - 00:36:31: Yeah, I think there's so much benefit in the practice of just asking yourself these questions, right? You don't have to have all of the answers, but reflecting on these things, like you said, looking for, okay, we just did this. What's the next pain point we can address? What's the next problem we can solve? What's the next? Area of value we can explore, right? Like just slow and steady going after what's the next thing, what's the next thing instead of just getting comfortable, I think is the difference that we're talking about. I recently did a podcast with Tim Spencer and he talked about that idea of the way that he's introduced a lot of innovation into the different companies he's worked in is just by constantly asking that question. Okay, we solved that problem. What's the next problem? What's the next pain point? What's the next problem? And if the solution is incremental. That's where it will lead you. If the solution requires something bigger or more, that's where it will lead you. But no one needs to disrupt just for the sake of disruption. It's just about constantly asking the questions of what do our customers need? What do our service providers need? What do we need to do next? What problem is there to solve next? That will get you where you need to go.
Michael - 00:37:50: Sure.
Sarah - 00:37:51: Yeah.
Michael - 00:37:51: And the other thing I think, and I think Tim mentioned it in his podcast, right, is that he doesn't have all the answers. I don't have. We've got a vast network of folks that have been in this service business for a very long time, a lot of successful independent service providers that have leadership in this food service space. How do we leverage those collective ideas and collaborate so that we're creating the best solutions and it's not one person that comes up with an idea and tries to force it into the system where it maybe doesn't fit, but more of that collaborative approach. I like to call it collaborative problem solving.
Sarah - 00:38:35: Yeah.
Michael - 00:38:36: Collaborative and creative problem solving. And I think that's really where the wins are. You leverage your team or you leverage the network, you come up with much better ideas and much better solutions. And a much better and easier opportunity to implement those solutions because you got more buy-in, more ownership, more accountability, and everybody feels that they're part of the solution. And I think there's a lot of value in that as well.
Sarah - 00:39:02: Absolutely. Makes sense. Michael, in your 25 years at Coca-Cola, what would you say is the biggest lesson you've learned?
Michael - 00:39:11: I think the the biggest lesson that I've learned in 25 years at Coca-Cola has really been about learning from other people and asking a lot of questions and having that ability to want to learn, but also leveraging relationships. We feel that we've got a lot of great people that work at Coca-Cola and leveraging those relationships has really, it's been humbling for me but it's also been something that has helped me in my career is being true to who you are, wanting to learn and then building your own relationships with other people and then trying to pass those things along to the next generation. So I'm excited about what I've learned, where we're at today, where I think we're going, the support of our service network and our bottling partners. So it's been a real privilege for me to be at Coca-Cola for over 25 years, but relationship building and collaboration, I would say would be the biggest thing that I really value about working at Coca-Cola.
Sarah - 00:40:20: Yeah, I always say, especially in this day and age, when you talk to someone who's been with a company for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, that it's a good organization that has given them opportunities to learn and grow and feel fulfilled. Otherwise, people don't stay in one place that long anymore. So I think that's great. Really appreciate you coming on, Michael, and sharing your thoughts and your perspective with us. So thank you very much.
Michael - 00:40:50: Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
Sarah - 00:40:52: You can find more by visiting the home of the Unscripted podcast at https://futureoffieldservice.com. We will put in the show notes the links to the Whirlpool episode that I referenced, as well as the episode with Tim Spencer. So keep an eye out for those. The podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at futureoffieldservice.com. As always, thank you for listening.