Case Study on "Report on Corporate Responsibility for CEO"
Case Study 14 pages (3842 words) Sources: 14 Style: Harvard
[EXCERPT] . . . .
Products and Services That the Company Outsources From Other CountriesThe problems facing our supply chain
Remedial actions to solve the supply chain issues
Human rights abuses and perceptions of inequity
Poor government structures
Competitive advantage through improved and streamlined supply chain process
Environmental problems
The information that needs to be given to the stakeholders
Explain the actions that you think the company should take to address these issues
Recycling
What information do you need to make available to stakeholders?
What opportunities might environmental issues create for your company?
This is a case study of a food manufacturing company that is headquartered in Yorkshire in the North of England. The company underwent a merger and is experiencing problems with its value chain process. The supply chain management department is also in chaos. In this paper we analyze the problems and the solutions to the company problems with an aim of improving its competitive advantage.
The products and services that the company outsources from other countries
The worldwide food industry has experience a rapid growth as a result of various factors. There has also been an increase in competition among the players. This has therefore prompted most of the companies adopt various strategic measures aimed at increasing profitability through the strategic outsourcing of some of their major resources. T
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The products and services that the company may outsource from abroad
Due to the nature of the food business, the company may outsource the following services from other countries;
As a result of the complexity of the value chain process in the company, it is necessary for the company to have strategic business partners in order to improve the efficiencies of the company in all of the countries of operations. The need to outsource some of the global activities of the food giant is motivated by the need of concentrating on core competencies and delegating the non-core competencies to other firms. Three main reasons acted catalysts to the adoption of outsourcing of certain activities in the firm. These include, the need to gain more leverage, the need of quick adaptation to the relatively new environment in the new markets of Middle East and Africa and the need to be quickly engaged in a fair share of corporate social responsibility. These make it necessary for the company to outsource logistics, machines and raw materials. In order to improve in the level of on-time delivery, the company may need to restructure its logistics through a third party in order to include a single but efficient Load Control Center (LCC). This will not only improve the efficiency of on-time delivery but also stabilization of costs as well as the reduction in the number of necessary carriers. This is because without the existence of LLC system, the company losses the control of deliveries in its logistics as well as lack a method of gauging its own performance. The application of technology as well as the installation and deployment of special software such as RedPrairie can help in the management of deliveries in a real time and more centralized and organized fashion.
The perishable nature of some of the inputs used by the company makes it extremely necessary to rely on freshness of the products. This makes it necessary to outsource the raw materials for time and cost efficiency. This makes the harvest to manufacture transfer process to be shortened. The purchasing function is also designed at operational and strategic level. This means that the suppliers must be selected and evaluated through a rigorous process of contract negotiations as well as the streamlining of other key elements of the value chain process. The machines to be used in the manufacture of company products are also to be produced by others. The firm must be outsourced in order to allow for the leveraging of custom designs as well as functionality to meet the needs of the company as illustrated by Demetrakakes (2004).
The problems facing our supply chain
In order to survive in any global business venture it is necessary for every company to become competitive through the use of faster, better and cheaper techniques of producing goods and services. The concept of project management is one that should be utilized in order to improve the capabilities of an organization objectives (Kerzner, 2002).This is necessary for the improving the success rate at the firm. Unfortunately, our company is dogged with a number of supply chain problems such as human rights abuses, perceptions of inequity, environmental issues, poor government structures, lack of legal enforcement, boycotts as well as other negative publicity issues. These issues negatively affects the performance our business since it means that our rating on the triple bottom line assessment for evaluating the social, economic and environmental dimensions of the company. As Heizer and Render (2006) pointed out, supply chain management is the process of integrating all of the activities that are necessary for the procurement of all the materials as well as services for later transformation into goods and products to be used by customers. Our project management department lacks the necessary manpower and skills necessary for successfully organizing the supply chain process seamlessly. The inefficiency of the supply chain makes the firm to lose competitive advantage as their competitors continually gain it with an ever increasing demand from the customer base. The situation is worsened by the fact that the company experienced a merger that kind of interrupted some of its core operations. The change that comes with the merger results in job cuts and other effects that interrupt the supply chain process and hence reducing its efficiency.
Remedial actions to solve the supply chain issues
The supply chain issues identified above can effectively be mitigated in order for the firm's operations to be streamlined for maximum efficiency and profitability. The solutions are however unique to the different problem types.
Human rights abuses and perceptions of inequity
The elements of human rights abuses as well as perception of inequality that emerged as a result one of our key strategic partners located in Brazil's source of raw materials (firms) was very damaging to the reputation of our company. This extremely damaged our reputation and triggered massive boycott of our products and services globally. The strategic partner in question employed child labor in its farms with massive exploitation of human labor by grossly underpaying the workers (even the underage ones).In order to mitigate the effects of this, our company decided to cut links with the concerned company that caused the breach and then embarked on a massive corporate social responsibility (CSR) drive across different parts of the world. We stated activities such as monthly tree planting drives in major cities, erection of medical clinics in most of the low income regions the world in which we had major market. Our company acknowledges and publicly issued a statement of apology to the affected individuals. They were also compensated in a bid to rebuild the brand loyalty. We also employed a celebrity endorser in order to act as our spokespersons and hence help in creating a clatter in the bad publicity noise and hence diverting the attention of the customers. Sherman pointed out that celebrity endorsement works by standing out from the ensuing clutter. The result is an improvement in the process of communication by the elimination of unnecessary noise.
Poor government structures
In order to improve the level of corporate governance, it is necessary to carry out a performance audit of the company's governance and appropriately act on the deficiencies. What is best suited for this problem is the total restricting of the firms organization structure and a focus on change leadership.
Competitive advantage through improved and streamlined supply chain process
Wilding (n.d) pointed out that a streamed supply chain and collaboration are two very effective ingredients for creating a competitive advantage. This is illustrated in the diagram below
Source; Wilding (n.d).
The engagement of CSR activities are also important t for gaining competitive advantage as pointed… READ MORE
Quoted Instructions for "Report on Corporate Responsibility for CEO" Assignment:
Background
Food Company
You manage an international food company with headquarters in Yorkshire in the North of England. The company started over 100 years ago making baked sweet goods �*****" cakes and pies. In the course of the last 25 years you have taken over five similar companies in Switzerland, Denmark, France, Germany and Belgium creating a large portfolio of biscuits, chocolate and sweet baked goods, many of which are local brands to only one or two countries.
A high profile merger three years ago between your company and an American food company that specialises in canned fruit, fruit juices and baked products containing fruit has expanded your operations outside Europe. The merger has helped you access markets in the Middle East and Africa. Your company is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Most of your brands are household names; brands that customers expect to see in most supermarkets and smaller shops. You have also started to supply some low cost supermarket chains with their own brand products from one of your factories in Germany.
Revenues in 2009 were $16bn split as follows:
$bn
Cakes and pies (baked treats) 2.9
Breads 1.4
Biscuits/ Cookies 3.2
Chocolate/Candies 2.8
Canned goods 3.2
Fruit juices and concentrates 2.5
% of Revenue
USA/Canada 52
European Union 37
Developing markets 11
2010 revenues have held steady as people buy low-cost stay-at-home treats but there is pressure on your cost base from retailers.
You have slightly in excess of 10,000 employees
UK 2,000
USA 4,000
EU (except UK) 3,000
Other 1,000
Food company websites you might look at to get a greater understanding of the business:
www.nestle.com www.kraft.com
Q1
--Identify products and services that your company might source from various places around the world
--Identify and outline potential problems you might face in the supply chain, e.g. human rights abuses, perceptions of inequity, environmental issues, poor government structures, lack of legal enforcement, boycotts or other negative publicity
--Write a short note on action your company could take to address each of the issues identified keeping in mind that it is probably not feasible for a large company to suddenly source all products from Fairtrade sources
--Could any of these actions be a source of competitive advantage for you?
--You will probably want to revisit this piece of work at the end of the workshops as you may then spot additional issues.
Q2
--Document the top environmental problems or impacts for your business detailing why they are the most important environmental issues
--Explain the actions that you think the company should take to address these issues
--What information do you need to make available to stakeholders? e.g. local community, consumers etc.
--What opportunities might environmental issues create for your company? e.g. sustainable development, marketing, new ways of doing business
How to Reference "Report on Corporate Responsibility for CEO" Case Study in a Bibliography
“Report on Corporate Responsibility for CEO.” A1-TermPaper.com, 2011, https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/products-services/54333. Accessed 28 Sep 2024.
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