The Company's Reputation - Assignment Example

Reflection Tesco’s Supply Chain Partnerships

A company's social corporate responsibility is strongly related to the company's reputation. A company's reputation portrays its capability in fulfilling the needs of various stakeholders of the company. When a company has attained a strong reputation, it can easily attract investors and new customers. A company that has a greater contribution to social warfare, it is more likely to have a strong reputation. Tesco launched a CSR based campaign based on the pledge it will shorten its supply chain and improve its relationship with farmers to ensure that instances of contamination of the meet are minimized, and the customers need are met (Fredenburgh 2014). CSR is an innovative marketing approach; Tesco CSR move will not only drive sales but also provide a lasting reputation for the brand.

Dell makes computer industry's first recycled computer

Customers play an important role in the successful implementation of a company project. In this case, to close the loop would refer to bringing the customer's voice into the organization. For Dell to be successful in the recycling process, they should incorporate their customers' sustainability concerns to ensure that their needs are also meet (Earley 2015). Incorporating the customers, Dell customers may be able to send the electronic to the recycle free, therefore, reducing Dell employee work of separating the waste. However, Dell recycling process may face numerous challenges because customers' attitude and participation will be vital to its success. Some customers may not cooperate in the free take-back program, and this will limit company effort in recycling. Some people have a negative attitude towards recycled products, which may reduce the profitability of the company's products.

Paper Recycling Technology

Today, many industries rely on technological innovations to solve social and environmental issues. Technology innovations are necessary to counteract environmental harm caused by growth in production and consumption. For instance, Epson's Paperlab helps the company to recycle old papers and thus minimizing the need to produce more papers. As a result, it reduces the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the environment. In addition, the new technological innovation allows the company to recycle their papers in the office because it is portable, thus minimizing transport costs of moving the waste to the recycler (Seiko Epson Corporation 2015). This new technology also uses less water, minimizing water wastage.

Nokia Sustainability

Green products and Services

A green product refers to one that has been designed to reduce its environmental impact during its entire product life cycle (Albino, Balice & Dangelico, 2009). For example, the use of renewable materials and nontoxic materials is strongly emphasized. Nokia has been on the frontline in protecting the environment as well as managing environment issues. Nokia focuses on several areas including energy consumption, waste management, and compliance with environmental laws.

Green Power

Nokia is committed to finding new ways of reducing energy consumption, to offer the best product to their customers. Nokia phones such as Asha have energy efficiencies efficient features such as power saving mode, automatic screen brightness adjustment, and chargers with low standby power usage.

Waste management

This allows the consumers to recycle their old phones where customers can ship their headset free to an authorized recycler to reduce the amount of waste generated in the environment, for example, Nokia Lumia 610 contain recycled metal (Nokia 2014). In addition, the packaging material is made up of half of the recycled waste, and user manuals are electronic to minimize the number of printed papers.

Compliance with environmental laws

Nokia has a system that tracks regulatory status of substances used to fulfill customer requirements. Nokia phones are also free from toxic substances such as PVC, BFR, and RFR. For example, Nokia Asha 311 contains bio plastics.

Review of Relevant Literature

Businesses are increasingly facing pressure to change and become responsible for both environment and social harms. Studies have also supported the assertion that consumers today prefer environmentally safe products (Mendleson & Polonsky 1995). However, in reality, it remains debatable. Firms may also be pressured by environmental strategies adopted by their competitors to provide green products and services. In future, Nokia will need to adopt sustainable practices if they want to retain legitimacy in offering green products and services.

The first step toward sustainability of its offering is compliance with environmental regulations. Environmental regulations can trigger innovations that will improve its offerings value while reducing costs. Innovation solutions will seek to increase resources efficiency, hence enhanced resource productivity. Nokia should that instill innovation both internally and by engaging with its stakeholders. For instance, cooperation with an external source of knowledge will be paramount for innovation performance (Chesborough 2003), integration of internal expertise, and incorporating customers sustainability concerns (Foster & Green 2002). For instance, Nokia collaborates with universities to undertake research on future radio technologies like cloud technologies, virtualization, 5G and environmental technologies.

Furthermore, Nokia should ensure that all aspect of marketing is integrated with environmental considerations. Nokia should not only work with suppliers and consumers but also other stakeholders such as NGO, community members among others to redefine business purpose as part of environment ecosystems. In other words, the company should emphasize on creating a shared value and delivering wider benefits of society. Nokia can collaborate with other stakeholders to participate in open experimentation to allow knowledge cross-fertilization (Moors & Vergragt 2002). Also, participate in developing a globally accepted standard of reporting in the environment. Nokia has been participating in OPERA-Net 2 aimed at developing standards for measuring the environmental impacts of network infrastructure (Nokia 2014).

Industry Benchmark

According to the 2014 statistical data, the largest manufacturers are Samsung, Nokia, Apple, LG, and Huawei. Samsung retained its dominant position with a market share of 27.7 percent by shipping 113 million phones, Nokia was second with a market share of 11.5 percent, Apple was third with a market share of 10.7 percent, LG came forth with a market share of 4 %, while Huawei was fifth with a market share of 3.5%. Samsung offers a great variety of products target different market segments including Galaxy music for music lovers, Galaxy S3 for those who appreciate innovative technology and Galaxy Note series that allows users to write. Apple, on the other hand, employs the latest technology with user-friendly software that allows users to customize the devices to match the consumer needs. However, iPhone is one of the most expensive smartphones. LG is headed towards a competitive showdown in the rechargeable battery markets. Huawei is also known for offering phones with a high-quality camera with different prices.

The above ranking uses market share, which is considered as an important metric today because it gives a general idea of the size of the company to its market, as well as a competitor. In other words, it tells us how relative Nokia is doing to its competitors. However, like any measurement, market share ranking may encounter bias, for instance, method bias and sample bias. For instance, total profit generated was not accounted in determining which company has the largest market share.

The Smartphone industry is highly concentrated by market share; it is clear from the above data that the industry is controlled by three main players, that is, Samsung, Nokia, and Apple. This means that competition is not very high. The actions of these major players have a strong influence on the price and competitors

Sustainability Benchmark

In compliance with international environmental standards, the amount of energy used at every stage of a product lifecycle must be measured, for example, production, distribution, product use, and disposal or recycling. Nokia has continued to reduce energy consumption and emission; as a result, it has reduced greenhouse emissions by approximately 6% compared to the previous year (Nokia 2014). The energy used in every stage of a product lifecycle can be quantified and the data utilized in reducing negative environmental impacts of our products. A Nokia mobile device uses approximately 210MJ total energy consumption during production, transportation, use and recycling and the total emissions are 12kg C02e.

Figure 1. below shows energy consumption of a Nokia mobile device at various stages of production. It is clear that most greenhouse gas is emitted (58%) during production, while the least greenhouse gas is emitted during recycling (1%) is used during recycling.

Figure 1. Nokia Phone Greenhouse Gas Emission

Figure 2 below shows a graph of LG phone carbon footprint. The graph shows that most greenhouse gases are emitted during production, while least greenhouse gases are emitted during disposal (LG 2014). However, LG emits almost a higher amount of greenhouse gases during distribution.

Figure 2. LG Phone Greenhouse Gas Emission

From the above data, Nokia should implement strategies to reduce these harmful gases during productions. Nokia may engage suppliers as well as research instituted to undertake study to identify energy efficiency improvement during manufacturing to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide. The data can be used as foundation for energy efficiency culture throughout the organization.

Conclusion

Nokia is one of the largest mobile phone manufacturers in the world. Currently, Nokia is ranked third with a market share of about 10%. It has been a leader in green engagement practices. Nokia green products have resulted in increased energy efficiency, use of recycled products and use of nontoxic substance to protect the environment. However, Nokia can improve sustainability of its offering by complying with environmental regulation standards and using environmental integrated approaches. Nokia should also engage its stakeholders to identify energy efficiency improvement, particularly during the production stage.