 'The single thing that keeps me up at night is arrogance," says Muhtar Kent, the chairman and chief executive of Coca-Cola. "arrogance was what almost brought us down in the 1990s." as Coca-Cola turns 125 today, there are reasons why the world's biggest beverage company might be forgiven a small smile of satisfaction.  The recipe for Coke hasn't changed since John Pemberton, a chemist, created it in atlanta, Georgia on May 8 1886. Its name and the distinctive lettering hasn't been tampered with since Frank Robinson, Pemberton's bookkeeper, came up with the ideas shortly afterwards. By the middle of the First World War, the company had agreed the design of its bottle after holding a public competition to come up with one (a sort of early experiment in social marketing). It would seem that the first instruction to anyone running Coca-Cola should be not to touch anything.  and that's why Coca-Cola's failed attempt to rewrite Pemberton's original recipe is so painfully etched in the company's memory. New Coke was introduced on april 23, 1985. 79 days later the old Coke - rebranded Coca-Cola Classic - was back on the shelves and the episode was destined to become a chapter in how not to do things for MBa courses across the world. a customer wrote to Roberto Goizeuta, the man behind the debacle, asking for his signature because the autograph of "one of the dumbest executives in american business history" would one day be worth something.  The Coke story is one of the business narratives of the past 100-plus years. Its success has made it both a poster boy for globalisation as well as a target for critics concerned by the reach and power of modern multi-nationals. From its humble beginnings to the giant it now is, anyone wanting to understand how global behemoths operate needs to understand Coke, a company not often given to throwing open its doors and seeking to explain its successes and failures. Last week the company invited media from around the world to its home in atlanta to do just that. The Sunday Telegraph was the only British newspaper in attendance.  For Goizeuta - who, the "new-recipe" episode aside, is generally regarded as one of Coca-Cola's best chief executives - didn't launch New Coke on a whim. He was losing market share in the US to an aggressive PepsiCo that had made Michael Jackson the face of a multi-million dollar advertising campaign.  The dilemma Goizeuta faced underlines the danger of taking anything for granted even if you do have a brand that was last year judged the world's most valuable at almost $71bn (?43.4bn), according to the consultancy Interbrand. Fast forward a quarter of a century and Kent, who joined the company in 1978 and has been at its helm since July 2008, faces a different but arguably just as exacting set of challenges.  Rather than ceding market share to PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and its rival both face a decline in the overall size of the carbonated soft drinks market in the US as more health-conscious americans choose to plump for energy drinks, teas and bottled waters instead. Outside america, and often thousands of miles away from its atlanta headquarters, Kent's challenge is to drive sales as rapidly as possible in the world's fastest-growing major economies.  "Coke is an iconic brand which people relate to and recently has done very well pushing the brand," said ali Dibadj, who covers the industry for Sanford C Bernstein. "Long-term, the question is: 'What will the next 125 years bring? Where else can they go in the emerging markets? How much more Coke can people drink?' " he said.  Selling abroad isn't new to Coca-Cola. Robert Woodruff, who led the company between 1924 and 1954, drove it into overseas markets, including China. Kent seems well suited to pick up that baton at a time when the company's growth is coming from outside North america, which accounted for 22pc of revenues last year.  The Pacific region, which includes China, generated 18pc; Europe accounted for 16pc; africa another 16pc and Latin america 28pc. Born to Turkish diplomats in the US, the 59-year old Kent ran Coca-Cola's Turkish and Central asian operations before becoming head of its international operations. It's that overseas experience that prompted Kent to gather Coca-Cola's top executives, as well as those who run its key bottling operations, in south Florida in 2008 to carve out a strategy for the next decade.  "We saw a number of things that would fundamentally and dramatically reshape our world and our industry," Kent told those who made the trip to atlanta. "Changes that were going to make the previous 10 years seem downright tranquil." These forces included a bigger middle class, major urbanisation, a rebalancing of the world away from two superpowers to several - and the rise of a much more engaged youth around the world. It is a list that is likely to sound familiar to those at the top of other large, global companies, where there seems to be a common conviction that the world is changing at a pace that has rarely, if ever, been matched in history.  Kent, who has a degree in economics from Hull University and a masters in administrative sciences from London City University, is convinced it is a world in which more brands Coke can be sold and that aim is central to "2020", the name of the strategy that executives journeyed back from Florida with. It calls for the company to double its system revenues, which include those of its bottling companies that are largely run on a franchise basis, in less than a decade from now.  "We had a vision of the '80s, we had a vision of the '90s or a vision even of the 2000s," Kent explained to the audience in a vast auditorium named after Goizeuta. "Those were corporate, company visions. What we tried to do in this new iteration of our vision, which we call 2020, was to create a vision for the entire system."  Those who have tracked Coke for years, say that Kent's experience of bottling operations in Turkey and elsewhere means he's determined to ensure their interests are aligned with those of Coca-Cola. "It's the day-today execution that really counts for Coke," said Caroline Levy, an analyst at Credit agricole. "They've got strong leadership in place."  It's a strategy that also carries radical implications for a company already, for example, facing up to $700m higher commodity costs this year because of the level of oil prices. The current volatility in commodity prices is not an aberration, says Kent. Coca-Cola has a team working on developing plastic bottles made out of renewable plant material.  The sweeping change described by Kent is distilled more bluntly by John Farrell, the company's chief strategy officer and a Coca-Cola veteran. "This is just basic macro-economics here," he said. "You've got 800m people coming into the world economy over the next 10 years. It's important to know where they are, who they are and that they've got some change in their pocket in terms of disposable income."  The profits from developing markets are uneven with Latin america - a traditional powerhouse for Coca-Cola - enjoying higher margins than China, according to analysts. The prospect of ever more Coke being drunk overseas is a prospect that alarms those who are campaigning against the soft drinks industry in the US, where anxieties about the effect on consumers' health have contributed to a shrinking of the market.  The volume of cases - a standard measure for the industry - of carbonated soft drinks sold in the US fell 0.5pc to 9.36bn last year, according to Beverage Digest, which tracks the industry. Volumes last went up in 2004 after enjoying annual growth of about 3pc throughout the 1990s.  That said, the US has delivered better news of late. It grabbed more market share from PepsiCo to widen its lead in the carbonated soft drink market to 42pc compared with its rival's 29.3pc, according to Beverage Digest. Meanwhile, its North american sales climbed 2pc in the first quarter of this year. The US consumer, along with the German and British, says Kent, is in a better position than 12 months ago, though Italian, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese consumers continue to struggle.  But the unhealthy headwinds in the US seem unlikely to go away. More than 30 states currently have a sales tax on fizzy drinks, and campaigners are looking for a tax that would see a penny charged for every ounce of liquid sold.  Given Coca-Cola, like arch rival PepsiCo, appears to be losing the argument, the company has been pushing new Coca-Cola, including energy drinks, waters, juices and teas. Coke Zero, a zero-calorie drink launched in the US in 2005 and now available in 93 countries, has proved a hit.  Before becoming chief executive, Kent had helped to drive the company's expansion beyond the stable of fizzy drinks that its success in the US had been built on. He helped negotiate the $4.1bn purchase in May 2007 of Energy Brands, the maker of VitaminWater, a vitamin enriched water drink.  Such drinks are proving a fierce new battleground with PepsiCo. Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo's chief executive, is aiming to turn the company's "good-for-you" division of products from a $10bn business into a $30bn business in the next decade. Her company remains bigger in energy drinks after its 2001 purchase of Quaker handed it Gatorade, the market leader in energy drinks. It is a market that is enjoying some of the strongest rates of growth, with Coca-Cola's sales in the final quarter of last year climbing 20pc in North america.  With a black can and use of the word zero, rather than diet, marketing has been key to Coke Zero's success in appealing to male consumers. Coca-Cola spent $2.9bn on marketing last year and it is arguably the variable that is most critical to the success or failure of its more than 500 brands.  "Coca-Cola is more than a drink," Kent explained in atlanta. "It's an idea, it's a vision, it's a feeling." Whatever you think of the marketers' language, the explosion of social media means that keeping the brand relevant is an increasing challenge.  Coca-Cola's Facebook page has 26m "friends" but for Wendy Clark, the executive in charge of social media, that's not the figure to focus on.  Rather it is the millions of people connected to that number.  Thanks to the technology, "there's a real referendum out there" from consumers that demands transparency, says Clark. "Companies are no longer controlling the message." It represents a significant change of attitude for a company that, like many others, has been used to enjoying total control of the brand.  If the ultimate brand is having to relinquish more control than ever before to consumers, its geographies are in as rapid a state of flux. Kent says he doesn't make predictions, so declined to forecast how fast China would ascend the company's rankings - it's currently the company's third-biggest market. But earlier this year Minute Maid Pulpy, a fruit juice, became the first drink developed by Coca-Cola just for the Chinese market to reach $1bn in sales. It will be interesting if Coca-Cola is still celebrating its 200th birthday in atlanta.  COCa-COLa LaNDMaRKS  May 1886: John Pemberton, a chemist from atlanta, Georgia, fashions the first glass of Coca-Cola after taking a caramelcoloured liquid down to Jacobs Pharmacy, where fizzy water is added. Frank Robinson, Pemberton's book-keeper, names the drink Coca-Cola and writes it up in a formula that is still used today. Pemberton, who died in 1888, did not r 