Question

Your assignment will be about a publicly traded company in UAE that you admire.

Required :

1. Write about at least 1 example that shows what you consider to be a good ethical decision this company has made in the past or is in the process of making/considering today. Make sure to tell why they made this decision (What prompted them to make it? What do they hope to achieve by making it? Etc). Also, make sure to tell why you consider this a good ethical decision.

2. Write about at least 1 example that shows what you consider to be a poor ethical decision this company made in the past or is in the process of making/considering today. Make sure to tell why they made this decision (What prompted them to make it? What do they hope to achieve by making it? Etc). Also, make sure to tell why you consider this a poor ethical decision.

3. Write about their marketing and distribution strategies. Please provide examples to support your statements.

4. Write about their operations. Again, provide examples to support your statements.

Note : the Answers should be computerized ( written in word format ) and in details - please do not copy and paste

Answer 1

1. Write about at least 1 example that shows what you consider to be a good ethical decision this company has made in the past or is in the process of making/considering today. Make sure to tell why they made this decision (What prompted them to make it? What do they hope to achieve by making it? Etc). Also, make sure to tell why you consider this a good ethical decision.

The decisions leaders make are key in defining who they are and where they stand on critical issues. When tasked with making choices, many seek to make ethical ones, establishing themselves as individuals with values and morals. When individuals find themselves in the position to make decisions, they should first consider some of the guidelines associated with ethical decision-making, and keep these in mind throughout the entire decision-making process

Integrity

To make an ethical decision, the decision-maker must feel largely autonomous. If he does not feel free to make the decision himself, but instead feels that he must make a certain choice as a result of outside pressures, he is more likely to make a decision that is unethical. When a decision-maker does not feel he has autonomy, the choice he will likely make will not be his own, but instead one that he is influenced to select. This could perhaps lead him into unethical territory, as whoever is exerting pressure may have a hidden agenda. The decision-maker has to recognize this as the situation, then be guided by his integrity, allowing this to supersede any insecurities he may have about lack of autonomy.

Consideration of Impact

When making decisions, the decision-maker must first consider the impact that her decision will have upon others. By considering the lasting impact of her decision, she can improve her chances of making an ethical decision in which all affected individuals' needs are met to the greatest extent possible

Legalities

Often laws and regulations must play a part in the decision-making process. If an individual is making a decision with legal ramifications, he must first ensure that he understands the laws and other rules that should necessarily impact his choices, so that the choice he makes is in line with these laws.

Nonmaleficence

Some decisions have the ability to cause harm. If an individual is making a decision that could prove harmful to others, she must reconsider and choose the option that is least damaging to others.

Fidelity

If the decision-maker has made a commitment in the past, he must remain faithful to it. If he makes a decision that is contrary to this commitment, this will be likely be perceived as unethical, as he would have essentially gone back on his promise. For example, if he agreed to stick with one supplier for a set period of time, then switches to another before the stated time period has elapsed, the ethics of his decision may be called into question.

Fairness

Decision-makers should put effort into not allowing bias to influence their decisions. If, for instance, an individual allows her feelings for a particular person or group of people to influence her decisions, her decision may not be an ethical one.

Input Receiving

Generally, ethics dictates that decision-makers should take the wants and needs of others into consideration when making decisions. For optimal ethical decision-making, decision-makers should give others a voice and consider the concerns or needs expressed before arriving at an ultimate decision.

1. Write about at least 1 example that shows what you consider to be a poor ethical decision this company made in the past or is in the process of making/considering today. Make sure to tell why they made this decision (What prompted them to make it? What do they hope to achieve by making it? Etc). Also, make sure to tell why you consider this a poor ethical decision.

Ethical employees may make poor ethical decisions when they are overconfident, do not understand the complexity of the issues, and when corporate governance structures are weak or non-existent. While it’s important to be confident in business, don’t let overconfidence lead to illogical rationalizations or overlook the complexity of problems or issues. Because weak or non-existent governance structures can lead to poor ethical decision-making, ensure proper business controls and oversight at all time. Just look at what happened to Enron – their lack of corporate controls and oversight led to questionable business transactions, leading to the eventual downfall of the company.

1. Write about their marketing and distribution strategies. Please provide examples to support your statements.

                  In today’s fast paced world, distribution by a company can be an enormous competitive advantage to the company. Most companies target their customers far and wide. Because of the rising costs, companies are trying to expand in various markets so that they have a higher turnover and hence a higher margin.

To reach far and wide, you need the right distribution strategies in place. You cannot market a product and then not deliver the product to the end customer. This is a sheer loss of money as you waste money on your marketing and the opportunity loss is also huge. Not to mention, the loss to the brand when the customer wants to purchase the product but cannot find it.

Thus, there is a lot of importance given to making proper distribution strategies for a company. This is also the reason why Place (Which majorly consists of distribution) is one of the major 4P’s of the marketing mix. Place is considered in case of products as well as services.

Distribution strategy is mainly decided by keeping the top management in loop because it affects overall operations. This strategy can be summarised with 3 main points.

1) Indirect distribution

Indirect distribution is when the product reaches the end customer through numerous channels in between. For example – The product goes from manufacturer to C&F, then to the distributor, then to the retailer and finally to the customer. Thus the chain is long.

2) Direct distribution

Direct distribution is when the company either directly sends the product to end customer or when the channel length is very less. A company selling on an e commerceportal or selling through modern retail is the form of Direct distribution.

3) Intensive distribution

When the company is having a mass marketing product, then it uses intensive distribution. Intensive distribution tries to cover as much of the market as it can. Typical FMCG and consumer durable products are best example of intensive distribution strategy. You can read this detailed article on Intensive Distribution.

4) Selective distribution

A company like Armani, Zara or any other such branded company will have selective distribution. These companies are likely to have only limited outlets. For example – In an urban city, Armani might have 2-3 outlets at the maximum whereas Zara might have 4-5. You can read this detailed article on Selective Distribution.

5) Exclusive distribution

If Zara has 4-5 outlets in a city, how many outlets would a company like Lamborghinihave? Probably one in a region of 5-7 cities. That’s exclusive distribution for you. If a company wants to give a big region to one single distributor then it is known as exclusive distribution strategy. In some cases, a distributor might be appointed for a complete country. There would be no one other then that distributor operating in that company. You can read this detailed article on Exclusive Distribution

4. Write about their operations. Again, provide examples to support your statements.

Whether you’re starting a business or trying to improve an existing one, you have to understand how things are going to get done.

What tasks do you need to do? Who needs to do them? What are the best ways to approach these tasks?

Working out how these questions can be answered is the first step toward systemizing your business. The creation of processes and workflows will define the way in which your day to day activities function.

One popular approach to this is the creation of standard operating procedures. The simple definition provided by IBM for standard operating procedures is:

…a set of instructions that describes all the relevant steps and activities of a process or procedure.

Simple.

But how do we create these SOPs? What we need are standard operating procedures for creating standard operating procedures. And that’s what we’re going to give you.

We’ll look at:

• How to create a set of standard operating procedures
• Some advanced techniques for improving your SOPs
• Why Process Street is a useful tool for both mapping and following your standard operating procedures

Step 1: Understand how you are going to present your SOPs

There are a number of formats you can choose from when defining how you’ll structure and present your standard operating procedures. The international standard you probably use if you work in a large company is ISO-9000, or some variant of that.

As we go forward with the article, we’ll be keeping things broadly in line with ISO-9000, but we’ll also build off that foundation. A solopreneur might want something a little different, and as good as the ISO method is for documenting SOPs, it has limitations in regards to how actionable it is. We’ll look to improve on that with the use of tools and tech!

For anyone who wants to stick as closely as possible to the ISO-9000 structure, I’ve built this structured template below which you can start using right now.