Understanding & keep ahead of competition
The business may consider their competitive markets and may evaluate the competitive prices in order to provide a better service and better quality. They can use these strategies to meet the needs of their customers.
They need to have unique goods in order to stay ahead of competitors. For example a game shop can get the latest games so more customers can come there because no one else will have them. This enables a competitive edge and could result in more customers. Also if this business is the only one with the latest games then they could increase the price to make it more desirable and to take full advantage of the businesses situation.
Communicate effectively with its customers to satisfy customer expectations
The business will need to think of innovations, which they could use to help with communication between suppliers, contractors and customers.
There are a ways in which the business could communicate with its customers; this could be through the use of phone, fax and Internet. The better they communicate to their customers the more influenced they will be which may result in them trusting your company and/or being persuaded into buying the product.
Co-ordinate its functions to achieve marketing aims
Firms may need to diversify the way they operate in order to achieve marketing aims and objectives. Company may change the way they deal with the level of production in order to achieve higher and more efficient production levels. This could include the diversification of the work force and the diversification with the allocation of the resources available to the company.
Be aware of constraints on marketing activities
Be aware on the operations including the problems, which are associated with marketing activities and once evaluated then make sure they can change their marketing activities in order to achieve higher profit margins.
Why Companies will not act due to constraints.
There are many constraints and legislation that businesses must abide by when marketing is involved. A list of legislations and organizations has been put in place to prevent breeches of moral, ethical, lawful acts. I have briefly described these in Figure 1.
The reasons for companies not to act due to constraints is that they do not want to be fined and punished for breaking the law or morally disregarding their customers. Fines and law suits are expensive and businesses cannot afford to continuously breaking legislations and codes of practice. It will result in loss of revenue and a bad reputation which the public will pick up and to a more serious extent, a pressure group could emerge.
What is Ethics?
Definitions
Business Ethics
Business ethics is the application of ethical values to business behaviour. It applies to any and all aspects of business conduct, from boardroom strategies and how companies treat their suppliers to sales techniques and accounting practices. Ethics goes beyond the legal requirements for a company and is, therefore, discretionary. Business ethics applies to the conduct of individuals and to the conduct of the organization as a whole. It is about how a company does its business, how it behaves intrinsically.
http://www.revision-notes.co.uk/revision/853.html
Why/Why not be ethical
There are many reasons why businesses are ethical and are not ethical. Businesses need to understand who they are aiming for and for what reasons. Companies need to understand their market as much as possible to determine whether ethics is a major issue with the target customers, and should it be a big importance to businesses actions.
Many companies need to show their ethical and moral responsibilities to the community to dominate their market.
An example of this is the business Body Shop. This is because they do not test on animals and support projects in poor countries. They also use recyclable packaging materials. Another aspect is that they offer a percentage of the company’s profits to charity. This shows that ethics is of great importance to the company and their customers. This enables them to dominate the market.
In my opinion this shows that respect is gained when you put back what you have taken from the environment. Once the consumers of your market and the community in which you operate knows your business is contributing to the environment, they respect your business and are happy to purchase products that knowingly are ethically and morally except able.
There are reasons to be unethical when running a business. In some cases being unethical can attract more custom. French Connection is a company who knows their target group well. They came to the conclusion their target group is more unethical than they are ethical. They came up with an innovative idea to change their label to FCUK which very much looks like a swear word. They created T- Shirts etc with unethical slogans to attract attention. Of course they did do this and has been a great success. Even though a majority of the community disagree with the moral and ethical values of the company, they have made more profit selling the items than they have being fined punished, and paying for law suits.
Case Study on Unethical Values of the Ford Motor Company
The rush of the Pinto from conception to production was a recipe for disaster. Many studies have been concluded by Mother Jones on Pinto accident reports which have revealed conclusively that if a Pinto being followed at over 30 miles per hour was hit by that following vehicle, the rear end of the car would buckle like an accordion, right up to the back seat. The tube leading to the gas-tank cap would be ripped away from the tank itself, and gas would immediately begin sloshing onto the road around the car. The buckled gas tank would be jammed up against the differential housing (the large bulge in the middle of the rear axle), which contains four sharp, protruding bolts likely to gash holes in the tank and spill still more gas. Now all that is needed is a spark from a cigarette, ignition, or scraping metal, and both cars would be engulfed in flames. If a Pinto was struck from behind at higher speed say, at 40 mph chances are very good that its doors would jam shut and its trapped passengers inside would burn to death.
The financial analysis that Ford conducted on the Pinto concluded that it was not cost-efficient to add an $11 per car cost in order to correct a flaw. Benefits derived from spending this amount of money were estimated to be $49.5 million. This estimate assumed that each death, which could be avoided, would be worth $200,000, that each major burn injury that could be avoided would be worth $67,000 and that an average repair cost of $700 per car involved in a rear end accident would be avoided. It further assumed that there would be 2,100 burned vehicles, 180 serious burn injuries, and 18 burn deaths in making this calculation. When the unit cost was spread out over the number of cars and light trucks which would be affected by the design change, at a cost of $11 per vehicle, the cost was calculated to be $137 million, much greater then the $49.5 million benefit. These figures, which describe the fatalities and injuries, are false. All independent experts estimate that for each person who dies by an auto fire, many more are left with charred hands, faces and limbs. This means that Ford’s 1:1 death to injury ratio is inaccurate and the costs for Ford’s settlements would have been much closer to the cost of implementing a solution to the problem. However, Ford’s "cost-benefit analysis," which places a dollar value on human life, said it wasn't profitable to make any changes to the car.
This case study concludes how unethical and morally wrong this business was to their customers. They decided the dollar was more important than a life which means their ethical responsibilities are at their lowest. But as stated this may be morally and ethically wrong, but in the situation of the business, being unethical help Ford profit wise.
Information from; http://www.fordpinto.com/blowup.htm
In conclusion to this the question is raised, Should businesses be ethical? In my opinion to an extent such as the Ford Pinto being so unethical should be a criminal offense. Endangering other lives in order to gain money in my opinion is wrong. But I also agree with FCUK’s as a popular slogan for clothing. I regularly purchase items such as this and my opinion is that they are only words and are harmless.