Marketing Strategy and Planning - Corporate Social Responsibility in Relation to Three Companies - Assignment Example

? MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLANNING Corporate Social Responsibility in relation to three major companies …………………. College/ ………….. of submission …………. Introduction ‘Business Ethics’ and ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ are perhaps the very common two buzzwords that have gained considerable attention and widespread debate among media, business and academic experts and the very general public in recent years. Modern corporations produce goods or services, foster innovations, that all in maximum attempts to satisfy consumer needs and wants, provide employments to millions and carry greater potential to advance societies. Nevertheless, large corporations and multinational companies face major distrust by the broad public, perhaps due to that the expectations of society at large regarding business and its activities have tremendously changed in the recent years. Until recently, the business of the business has been simply considered to be just ‘business’, but now, it is more than that and it should be able to contribute to social justice, community welfare, economic development and quality of social life as well. This piece of research paper explains the underlying concepts and modern aspects of corporate social responsibility in relation to the evaluation of social responsibility efforts made by three major companies, namely Apple Inc, Johnson & Johnson and Nestle. Corporate Social Responsibility The importance and the role of corporate social responsibility have been increasing continuously in the business contexts within the last few years and this is very evident from the fact that 90% of the fortune 500 companies have explicit social responsibility initiatives (Bueble, 2009, p. 1). CSR is discerned from three words, namely Corporate, Social and Responsibility, covering the relationship between corporations and the societies in relation to how they both interact. To be more specific, it includes the responsibilities that are inherent in the relationship between the corporate and the society (Werther and Chandler, 2006, p. 6). According to Kotler and Lee (2005, p. 3), corporate social responsibility is a commitment to improve community well-being through discretionary business practices and by contributing corporate or business resources. Business activities or community well-being efforts that are already mandated by the law or are generally accepted as moral and ethical are exempted by the term ‘discretionary’. The idea behind the concept of CSR is that all business organizations and their leaders must consider the impact of their decisions and activities on the community as a whole and they must be able to assume certain responsibilities that are expected of them. The social responsibility of a business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical and discretionary expectations that the society has of the organization for a given period of time (Sims, 2003, p. 43). A business organization is not only expected to meet customer needs and wants, but also to satisfy customer needs and wants in a way that are corresponding to the legal, ethical, social, moral and discretionary expectations of the customers and all other stakeholders. As part of the social responsibility, a business should be able to improve social life of the general public, foster economic development of the nation, improve the quality of the life of its people and enhance social and community well-being of the society at large. In order a business to be socially responsible, it has to fulfill the rules and regulations that are entrusted to them by the legal system and responsibilities that are expected of them by the society, function according to the ethical and moral aspects that the business has to meet. Pearson and Robinson (2004, p. 50) emphasized that there are basically four elements of the social commitments involved in the CSR, they are economical, legal, ethical and discretionary responsibilities. Holme and Watts’ view on CSR Many different views and definitions on CSR have emerged. Lord Holme and Richard Watts, in their work named ‘Making Business Sense’ published by The World Business Council for Sustainable Development defined CSR as “the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and the society at large” (Idowu and Filho, 2009, p. 395). According to this definition, corporate social responsibility is a commitment of the business to the community and society that it represent to satisfy customer needs and wants ethically, morally and for their well-being as well, to enhance quality of the life all the stakeholders that the business is concerned with and to contribute to the economic development too. As depicted in the figure, CSR involves responsibilities to various stakeholders, including general public, owners, consumers etc and to protect the environment that has been mentioned as ‘quality of life’ and ‘econmic development’ by Holme and Watt. When it comes to marketing, a marketing manager or the department is required to give extreme care and consideration to meet the social responsibilities in almost all the marketing functions. The moral and ethical aspects to be considered while the marketer functions in marketing mix, in conducting integrated marketing communication, in branding, in packing and packaging, in maintaining customer relationship and in all other marketing activities. The mission and vision of the business in relation to its social responsibility must be communicated to the public along with its brand messages or through any campaign or advertisements it conducts. According to the definition mentioned above, social responsibility of different firms may vary according to the customers it approaches, or according to the region or nation it belongs to, or according to the employees it works with, because, cultural aspects, ethical values and moral standards may vary from place to place and people to people. Based on the above definition, corporate social responsibility involves: The capacity of building sustainable livelihoods, Giving respects to cultural differences and finding business opportunities in building skills of employees, Giving back to society what it get from it, Promotion of gender equality, respect for industrial relation, promotion of workers’ participation through consultation, development of vocational skill, respect for health and safety, promotion of social rights, emphasis on fair-trade, protection of intellectual property and avoidance of infringement etc, especially in global business environment (Matei and Dinu, 2010, p. 446). The CSR initiatives of Apple Inc Apple Inc has emerged to be one of the top fortune 500 companies and has grown to become one of highly successful technology companies of all times. The tech-initiatives made by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in the early 1970s have eventually paved ways to a large number of very different products and services as widely known as Apple, Mac, iMac, iPhone, iTune, iLife, iPod, iPad and many more starting with ‘i’. When it comes to the initiatives of Apple inc in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility, Apple’s products and services have been designed and developed to ensure maximum satisfaction of the customers. Apple’s own-store retailing is one of the best example for that. Its retail-stores are friendly marketing zones where all of its customers, mainly Mac and PC users are allowed to play with and explore new technologies and thus to enjoy using Apple products and services (insidecrm.com, 2010). It shows how effectively and strategically Apple has developed its programs to ensure quality life and development to the community. Apple is consumer oriented as well as showing commitment to foster innovation and development. It doesn’t just make something to market and make profit, but is involved in discovering something new, bring innovative technologies with greater investment in R&D and market them with efforts to build stronger brand image and customer loyalty. Datamonitor (2010) illustrated that Apple’s investment in R&D has been critical for its success as it has strong focus on R&D in order to enhance innovative products and services. Its R&D expenses were accounted to be $1,333 million in 2009. The company has also been taking extreme care for protecting the environment by any possible actions. Emissions of greenhouse gas and sending many other pollutants to the environments are major issues for many companies, but Apple Inc has become a model by designing and developing a useful method for manufacturing, transportation and recycling as shown in the figure as depicted in the figure-2. As shown in the figure, it has spent much on developing a better-recycling to be aligned with its manufacturing system. The CSR efforts made by Johnson and Johnson Johnson & Johnson is a large multinational health-care company, headquartered in New Brunswick, operating through more than 250 companies in more than 60 countries. it manufactures and markets medical devices, surgical equipments, orthopedic products, medical lenses etc along with a large number of health-care products like talcum-powder for babies, baby-set, pediatric-drugs, clothes and other items. Corporate Social Responsibility has been an essential part of the of the company’s marketing strategies for years. The CSR credo of the company was written more than 60 years ago by its Chairman General Robert Wood describing the social responsibility of the company towards its customers, employees, shareholders and all other stakeholders (csrglobe.com, 2011). Its CSR philosophy was as follows: “We believe our first responsibility is to the doctors, nurses and patients, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services. In meeting their needs everything we do must be of high quality. We must constantly strive to reduce our costs in order to maintain reasonable prices. Customers’ orders must be serviced promptly and accurately…” (Pearce and Robinson, 2004, p. 57). As shown in the figure-3 above, Johnson & Johnson has given greater emphasis on various Social Responsibilities including access to health care, Children’s health, professional development and education and community responsibility etc. Its CSR credo includes the responsibilities it has specifically to 1) doctors, nurses, patients, mothers, father and all others who are its customers, 2) employees in all of its branches; 3) communities and 4) all other stockholders. This credo seems to be closely related and corresponding to the CSR definition given by Holmes and Watt. CSR initiatives of Nestle Nestle, founded in 1866 by Henri Nestle in Switzerland, is now world’s leading Nutrition, health and wellness company and No 1 in marketing baby food, coffee and bottled water etc. It employs more than 2,80, 000 employees throughout its branches in almost all different countries. The mission of the company is well known as ‘ Good Food, Good Life’. The corporate social responsibility philosophy of the company can be understood from its mission statement, ie Good food, Good life’. When it comes to Nestle’s CSR approach, it is not just the CSR activities as maintained by most other companies, but it strongly believes that the social impacts of every corporate activity must be considered and this consideration ensures a very natural fit between Nestle’s approach and the value chain analysis at the root of its framework. This is Nestle’s approach to creating Shared Value (Nestle, 2005, p. 7). As part of its Shared Value approach to the CSR, the company has been able to enhance environmental protection and to foster economic development that in turn helping the company achieve 27th World Environment Center (WEC) Gold Medal award for maintaining environmental sustainability (Nestle, 2011). Conclusion According to the view of Holmes and Watt, CSR involves business commitment to behave ethically and contribute to economic development along with a responsibility to improve quality of life of all the people involved in the stakeholders. In an analysis to the the CSR activities of major companies, it can be understood that they, more or less, have given more emphasis on ensuring quality of life by enhancing environmental protection. This piece of research paper has described the theoretical aspects of Corporate social responsibility and detailed the CSR initiatives of three major companies- Apple inc, Nestle and Johnson and Johnson. All these companies have been concentrating on improving quality and standard of life of the people they are concerned of, mainly by ensuring the quality of environment and protecting the nature. Apple’s recycling manufacturing system, Nestle’s shared value program to protect environment and J&J’s effort to ensure quality medical products and services show that ‘improving quality of life’ is perhaps the most significant element in the philosophy of social responsibility. 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