Proctor and Gamble - Contemporary Issues in Business - Coursework Example

Contemporary Issues in Business 23/08/14 Contemporary Issues in Business 0 Introduction 1 A brief History of the Company 2.0 Viability of Business and Sustainability 2.1 Profit making 2.2 Competent Staffs 2.3 MBAs Managers 2.4 Handling Challenges 3.0 Ways of Operation in the Society 3.1 Resource Allocation 3.2 Minimum Expenditure 3.3 Location Strategy 3.4 Online Marketing 3.5 Maintaining Experienced Employees 4.0 Conclusion 1.0 Introduction I am a third year student pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in partnership with the Lancashire Business School. I have been requested by my instructor to write a report on sustainable business in a sustainable society. My company of choice is Proctor and Gamble. 1.1 A Brief History of Procter and Gamble Procter and Gamble is a multinational fast moving consumer good firm that deals with food products; it was founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble hence the companies name Procter and Gamble. The firm’s headquarter is in London, united kingdom, but the organisation has spread its production wings to all parts of the world. The firm is known for its commodities that they produce mostly for human consumptions (Dyer, et al., 2004). The firm also produces food for the animals as well as chemicals that are used in farming. 2.0 Viable future for business in becoming a sustainable business in a sustainable society The following are features of a sustainable business within a sustainable society. These features are necessary for the firm to have a sustainable future. 2.1 Profit making Individuals and corporate are motivated to engage in running a business to gain profit. Profit being the motivating factor; organisations that are run by the individuals, community and the government will try to balance between offering services that are vital for the community as a whole and collecting revenues to keep them in track for its sustainability (Raderbauer, 2011). They also look to compete with other firms whose primary objectives are to make profits. 2.2 Competent Staffs Several ways exist in which firms focus on to ensure they compete in the global markets. One of the ways that they employ is the acquisition of competent staffs. For example, the Procter and Gamble have the culture of employing graduates who are well trained, mostly the postgraduates in its managerial positions. 2.3 MBAs Managers There has been a debate that the postgraduates or individuals possessing Masters in Business Administration MBA are only considered to drive the organisation or a firm in profit making. The accusation has been proved wrong. The MBAs individuals working as managers are not only concerned in making profits, but they are also concerned in creating a good relationship with the community and their consumers. Their strategy to have a good picture in the community is a means of having an assured market in the community they operate. 2.4 Handling Challenges For any business to continue with its operations, it must be sustainable. Sustainability is the ability of the business to be able to handles all the challenges that face the business. The challenges may be those that are faced by any other businesses as well as those that may be faced by a single business. If the business or the firm do not have the capability of sustaining itself, it will automatically fall. One of the challenges faced by many firms is the poor management. If the managers of the firms do not create good policies that a business or a firm should follow in order to become sustainable in the future, the business will not move far. It is important for business owners to be smarter in setting the firm’s goals so they do not have to struggle on the way. They also need to have capable staffs that are creative and can give the firm or any other business a direction. Having a sustainable market for the commodities or services the firm produces is a sure way of ensuring that it has a sustainable future. Market is the main feature that keeps the business on the ground. This feature needs to be maintained each day and seek a way of expanding it so that the firm may expand (Willard, 2012). A firm can out do other firms producing similar commodities and enlarge its market share in several ways. One of the ways is to consistently do advertisement. Advertisement will make sure that some consumers of the commodities who never knew the existence of the product in the market now becomes aware of it. The new consumers will add to the existing consumers and the market share will enlarge. Other than the advertisement, the firm need to be creative in maintaining the quality of their products. High-quality products will always attract more customers in the market. Even though there may be other firms producing similar products, the competition will be easily won due to the ability if the firm to produce quality products. The quality of the product will also be able to make the population forming the market share be part of the long term asset of the firm. It means, therefore, that they will form a permanent market to the firm. Maintaining the market share is a great challenge as consumers will always have to make a choice on the available commodities in the market. Making choices will depend on the quality and attractiveness of the commodity. Therefore, firms need to maintain quality so that their consumers may be long term. Firms depend on various resources that are needed in the production for it to continue with its operations. These resources include expertise as well as the raw materials that producers need to enhance the production of commodities. The population of the world at large is multiplying at a very high rate. Therefore, the firms that depend on raw materials that comes from the land need to be very creative on the means they can utilise to continue having these resources. To enhance production given the limited supply of the resources, recycling becomes a major factor that most of the firms are considering. Recycling means making use of a particular item that have already been used. Most of the recycled items are the packing containers. Majority of the firms such as the Procter and Gamble, the Coca Cola Company and many others usually do recycle their packing containers so that they do not run out of hand. In addition, Recycling helps the firm to save on some production costs as they only use what had earlier been produced. 3.0 The way an organization of their choice should operate and for the society in which it exists To enhance sustainability in a sustainable society, Procter and Gamble should have unique operations that would enable it to continue enjoying greater market share. 3.1 Resource Allocation Some resources are automatically needed for the production of the commodity. Firms are considering various means of acquiring such commodities so that they can continue with their production. To maintain its sustainability in the society, the firms are considering to work with other firms or individuals in order to have access of the product. Food processing firms mostly depend on farmers to have the access of the raw materials. They, therefore, do collaborate with farmers who provide the raw materials to the firm for processing and production of various commodities (Shaw, 2002). For example, coffee processing firm will collaborate with coffee farmers for it to have the access of raw coffee. The firm will help the farmers have access to fertilizers as well as the chemicals that will enhance the control of pests and diseases. By doing so, the farmers will have an easier time in producing the commodity that the firm requires. The firm will then experience a continuous flow of the raw materials that will enhance its sustainability in the market. Procter and Gamble do collaborate with farmers in various countries where they operate in order to have a sufficient flow of the raw materials (Liddick, 2006). The process of collaboration has helped the firm to maintain its face for centuries and compete with other firms successively in the market. 3.2 Minimal Expenditure Most of the firm fails due to the high cost of production. The production cost mostly determines the final cost of the product. When the production cost is high, the final cost of the product will also be high, and the vice versa is true. Consumers will always have various options to choose the commodity they want due to the availability of the same products from other firms that have used little resources in production and therefore their production cost is low. As a result, the consumers will go for cheap products and leave the expensive ones (Azua, 2013). The firm producing expensive commodities will suffer a loss for their products do not attract customers. To avoid this challenge and other challenges that make the final product produces by the firm, the producers are coming up with innovative ways of production. One the innovation that is commonly observed is the setting of the production unit near the site of the raw materials or near the market. A firm that chooses to locate their production units near the raw materials considers a number of factors. One of the factor is that transporting the raw material to the industry will be expensive than transporting the finished product to the market (Nidumolu, 2003). Such cost may be incurred when the raw materials are very bulky. The raw materials could be undergoing weight loss during the production process and therefore it becomes easy for the firm to cut the transportation cost. A good example of the nature of the firms that carry their production in this manner are the car producing companies who sets their firms near the iron production other than the market. This is because it is easier to transport finished car to the market than the raw iron to the production site. 3.3 Location Strategy If the cost of delivering a finished product to the market is higher than that of delivering the raw materials to the firm, it will be wise for the firm to set their production unit near the market. The idea will lead to low cost of production and therefore lower cost of the commodity that will enhance the commodity to fetch a lot of customers (Ebben & Johnson, 2006). Procter and Gamble firm have been using the two theories to enhance its production and sale of the commodities they produce. The firm have spread its production units to various regions, nations and continents to enhance their sales. For example, the firm have some branches of production in every continent to enhance the production and sale of its products. 3.4 Online Marketing Another factor that makes any firm to survive in the market is the reaching out to consumers who may be very far away from the firms. Most of the firms are utilizing the process of online marketing to make sure that they reach most of the consumers. The process of online marketing involves displaying and describing the commodities in the websites and on the social media. Internet has become part of peoples, life in the society. They usually look for the commodity they want to buy through the internet and discover about their prices, quality and where the products are found (Zakaria, 2011). They then purchase the commodities online and pay via the online money transfer. This discovery have helped a lot of consumers to save a lot of time in moving from one place to another as members of the society have become busy and will want to conserve time. Procter and Gamble have utilized this modern means of marketing so that it can reach millions of the consumers around the world. 3.5 Maintaining Experienced Employees There have been some challenges that every firm that is taking place in production faces. The challenges entail the sustainability of the firms to make a profit. The firms are facing a lot of exodus of their well trained employees to other firms where they are promised a lump sum earnings. It, therefore, becomes difficult for the firms to let their top managers leave to other companies but to give them large portions as wages (Durning, 1992). Considering the large amount of salaries the managers are requesting from the firms, there have been a growth of the number of firms that are producing the similar product. These firms are offering a stiff competition to each other in the market. This competition have led to the decline in the prices of the commodities that are being offered to the market for sale. The decline of the commodity prices and the demand of high wages and salaries by the firm employees have led to the decline of the profits of the firms. The situation has led to the fall of many firms. Procter and Gamble has also been a victim to this challenge. The only hope that it have is to utilize its expertise in inventing new products that will enhance its sales in the market. Offering a good working environment is also a factor that the firm is utilizing to continue keeping managers in the firm. 4.0 Conclusion In conclusion, it has become difficult for a firm to sustain itself in the market due to high competition. It, therefore, calls for the Procter and Gamble Management to be innovative so that they can offer quality and affordable commodities to the market. Doing so will enable them to have a large market share and make profits that would enable them to be sustainable. References Azua, S 2013, Sustainable Strategies for the Future: Management, Innovation and Humanization, New York: Harvad University Press. Durning, A 1992, How Much Is Enough? The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth, New York: WW Norton. Dyer, D., Dalzell, F. & Olegario, R 2004, Rising Tide: Lessons from 165 Years of Brand Building at Procter & Gamble, London: Harvard Business School Press. Ebben, J. & Johnson, A 2006, Bootstrapping in small firms: An empirical analysis of change over time, Journal of Business Venturing, vol.10, no.6, pp. 851-865. Liddick, D 2006, Eco-terrorism: radical environmental and animal liberation movements, London: Praeger. Nidumolu, R., 2003, Top Sustainable Business Strategies from 2012, London: Santa Cruz. Raderbauer, M 2011, Strategic Sustainability-Strategic implementation of Sustainable Business practice in Viennese Accommodation, London: University of Exeter Press. Shaw, M 2002, Michael J. ShE-Business Management: Integration of Web Technologies with Business Model, New York: Springer. Willard, B 2012, The New Sustainability Case of Sustainability, New York: Praeger. Zakaria, F 2011, The Future of Innovation: Can America Keep Pace, New York: New York Times. Read More