Question

1. What are the responsibilities of companies in this or similar situations?

2. What could Nestlé have done to have avoided the accusations of “killing Third World babies” and still market its product?

3. After Nestlé’s experience, how do you suggest it, or any other company, can protect itself in the future?

Answer 1

1. What are the responsibilities of companies in this or similar situations?

Are responsible for ensuring the environmental, social, and cultural differences on marketplaces where they promote its products, and to take proactive actions to stick to business and marketing ethics to avoid such disasters, as focusing on product only would lead to undesirable results that would be harmful to society and to the corporate itself, so deep and careful environmental, and cultural study for marketplace is and adopting to these factors is a must to avoid such sequences.

2. What could Nestlé have done to have avoided the accusations of “Killing Third World babies” and still market its product?

Nestlé should study and analyze cultural and environmental factors in new markets they penetrated to increase their market share, they should adopt their marketing messages to fit with low educated people in third world countries, and make it more educational with clear warning that formula feeding is not a substitute for breastfeeding, They also would adopt product itself to be more suitable with poor quality water, distribution channels would be changes also and be limited to pharmacies with nutrition doctors advise.

3. After Nestlé’s experience, how do you suggest it, or any other company, can protect itself in the future?

Nestlé and any other corporate should take care of cultural and environmental factors and cross-culture factors, and be more social responsible, they also should adhere to regulations, codes, and standards regarding product, industry, or market they are deal with, as focusing on financial and economic factors only would lead to such issues that may kick product or even corporate out of the game.