The local managers and employees have an important responsibility in taking part in the social and economic activity. Many act as school governors, directors of community projects or though close links forged with their local Chamber of Commerce or Business Link. They are familiar with the need of business owners to have association managers with business knowledge and the ability to take decisions based in their local High Street branches. By upholding their superior managers in branch positions, decisions are made rapidly at a local level, by experienced people with familiarity of the local trading environment.
There are many businesses and those that have a common interest in the well being of the business community. Partnership is the solution. By working in partnership at national, regional and local levels it can provide the clear focus and concentrated effort that will make possible the growth, employment and regeneration prospects the business community can provide.
Kellogg’s
The Sales function plays a vital role in the organisation accomplishing its short-term and long-term commercial objectives.
The complete Sales teams’, including those in head office based support and development roles, is focused on developing and implementing a business approach and plan for each their customers.
Their main objective is to exploit the development of the Ready to Eat breakfast cereals and Convenience Foods categories with all their consumers, and in that way they maximise the availability of Kellogg's brands to their customers. They work very personally with a large range of different customers including:- national multiple superstore and supermarket chains, regionally based supermarket businesses wholesalers, Cash and Carry outlet, impulse/convenience store operators, and a variety of Food Service customers.
Today, making the choice to eat a healthy balanced diet is very important for many customers. More than ever before people want a standard way of living in which the food they eat and the activities they take part in contribute equally to keeping them fit and healthy.
Investigation undertaken for Kellogg, as well as all-inclusive news coverage and growing public awareness, assisted its decision-takers to understand the apprehension of its customers. In order to meet these concerns, managers acknowledged that it was vital that Kellogg was part of the debate about health and lifestyle. It needed to endorse the message 'Get the Balance Right'.
Decision-takers also wanted to display Corporate Responsibility (CR). This means that they wanted to expand the organisation responsibly and in a way that was responsive to all of Kellogg's customers’ needs and wants, especially with consideration to health issues. This is more than the law linking to food issues necessitates. It shows how Kellogg notifies and supports its customers entirely about lifestyle issues.
Any procedure within a large company, like Kellogg’s, needs to support a business direction. This direction is revealed in the form of a broad declaration of intent or aim, which everybody in the company can pursue. A plan also helps those outside the company to appreciate the thinking and values of that business.
Kellogg's objective was to strengthen the importance of a balanced lifestyle so its customers recognise how a balanced diet and a good work out can improve their lives.
Business Environment
HSBC
“No company can succeed in a failed world - it is in the interests of all companies to ensure wealth creation is sustainable.” (Michael Smith, President and CEO
the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited)
HSBC supports practical measures and procedures to protect and improve the environment. They connect the needs of their business with those of the planet. They are committed to keeping the environmental impacts of its day-to-day work to a least amount by incorporating environmental management as typical business practice across all employee and bank activities.
The main points of HSBC environmental policies are;
- ‘To reduce energy consumption and improve energy efficiency.
- To conserve water and other natural resources, and use renewable or recyclable materials.
- To minimise or recycle waste.
- To dispose of waste in an environmentally responsible manner.
- To favour suppliers and contractors who adopt environmentally sound practices.’
To achieve these objectives, HSBC bank is implementing a wide range of ideas that provide practical solutions to the world’s environmental dilemmas.
Kellogg’s
The Kellogg Company's business environmental policy promotes and preserves environmentally responsible practices for the advantage of consumers, customers, employees and the community in which they function. They conduct and grow their business in a way, which protects the environment and demonstrates good stewardship of the world's natural resources.
Kellogg struggles for constant growth through the development of specific programs, which tackle the environmental costs and impacts of their activities, products and services.
This is being attained by:
• completing the applicable regulations and standards to which they give
• Supporting pollution avoidance and minimisation programs
• Using materials and energy resourcefully to conserve natural resources
• Minimising the emissions that contribute to climate change
• Reviewing environmental objectives and monitoring performance
• Co-operating and developing connection with the community, suppliers, contractors, government agencies and other companies busy with improving the environment.
As a worldwide food manufacturer, Kellogg Company is dedicated to design, manufacture, handle and distribute their products in such a way as to guarantee that this policy is met at all locations.
Kellogg often conducts thorough environmental assessments of its facilities, which includes two manufacturing sites in Australia, as well as sales and distribution facilities in each state.
These assessments are performed to evaluate each stage of the manufacturing operation, as well as the management, marketing and sales processes, to ensure fulfillment with Kellogg standards and with those established by central, state and local government.
Utilities administration programs have been brought in to measure the usage of energy, water and wastewater efficiency (against production output), as well as targeting improvements that may be made.
Waste management is also included in the program, with the observation and measuring of waste and by-products generated and transported from most manufacturing sites. To date, the Botany Plant (which is the key manufacturing plant for Kellogg's® cereals in Australia) has effectively reduced water and electricity utilisation per tonne of production, by 30% and 18%, respectively.
European Economic & Political Integration
HSBC
The SWOT analysis sums up the good and bad points of HSBC which contribute towards the impact of the global economy.
Strengths--
*International Finance.
Since HSBC is an international company itself, it is well-qualified to counsel other companies on aspects of international business. With offices around the world, for the international client, HSBC often cannot be beaten in this area. HSBC knows how to thrive in M&A and organic and effective growth-- it was mostly an Asian bank until it
took over a UK bank in 1992 and now has become the world's second-largest bank by profit.
*China.
HSBC is the "Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation" and it has 140 years of experience in China. Since China is the place to be nowadays for businesses and banks, HSBC is advantaged for being both an old Chinese company and trusted by the Chinese people. The best news for HSBC is that as other companies develop in China, it does, too, because it achieves new customers and new global prospects with each passing day. HSBC has major network of any foreign bank in China and thoroughly understands the Chinese market and customer. In a world that is all the time more going China's way, this is quite a benefit to HSBC.
*Listed in London.
HSBC is above all listed on the London and Hong Kong stock exchanges, which saves the company much grief in putting together the new American Sarbanes-Oxley laws. Many organisations have chosen to list on foreign exchanges other than America because of the expensive new policies.
*Record profits.
Last year, HSBC experienced the majority of profits ever for a UK high street bank, with profits of £11.5bn($20.97bn) for the whole year.
Weaknesses-
*Branding.
While it is surely a global business, HSBC was late on deciding to perform an integrated marketing strategy and take advantage of its global brand. Due to the set up of so many different banks in different countries at different times over a hundred year period, it set them up under different names-- Hong Kong Bank of Canada, British
Bank of the Middle East, HSBC Banco Roberts. Not even all of these banks, former to 1998, carried the HSBC logo. In 1998, they were all branded together, but the previous lack of branding and the name changes may have hurt HSBC in brand credit. Consumers may have thought that HSBC was taking over their local bank and not realised
that HSBC had already been helping them for decades. In any case, the re-branding was an overdue move that should have taken place before 1998.
*Record profits ending.
HSBC proclaimed in December 2006 that it was doing just as well as last year, but not as well in revenues. It announced that each year, its bad debt increases.
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Opportunities--
*The Middle East.
Other banks are running scared of this region. However, HSBC has run its district business locally and been rewarded for its hard work with many awards and honors for the Middle East market. HSBC is a trusted name there, and the organisation has taken advantage of Iraq's new democratic system by creating a presence in the country. HSBC is the largest international bank in the Middle East.
*Emerging economies.
In addition to the growing Chinese middle class, Brazilians and Indians are starting to come out as growing customers, and therefore growing customer spenders. Some residents of these countries before did not even own a bank account, but businesses like HSBC are moving in and taking advantage of the growing middle class in these areas. In places like Argentina and Turkey, HSBC experienced pre-tax profits of 50% last year. This is where it is growing the most. By investing in these countries, HSBC can make up for problems it may have as spending in the US and UK refuses.
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Threats--
*Downturn in American spending.
As interest rates increase and the housing boom ends, Americans are expecting to rely less on customer credit and more on their saving abilities to get by. The drop in American expenditure will be bad for the global economy, and HSBC will be affected. In 2005, HSBC pretax profits rose 5% to $10.64bn (£6bn) for the first six months of the year, largely on the rise in customer finance for growing customer spending.
*Employees striking.
Last year, British employees held a strike involving 1,500 staff at HSBC branches in London. At its twelve-monthly meeting, striking staff stood outside, handing out bags of nuts and saying that they are paid "peanuts" while HSBC experiences good profits. Strikes such as this, especially in union-conscious Europe, are bad for image reasons and HSBC needs to take action to ensure that its workers are happy just as its consumers are.
*Email viruses.
Last year, HSBC Group's CEO announced that HSBC received tens of thousands of email viruses a day and must spend great amounts of money to stop these from causing system wide harm. As most banking is done on computers, even one virus could destroy HSBC. On their worst day in 2004, the bank received 100,000 attacks.
*Identity theft.
HSBC has to remain on the front lines of security and shelter its consumers, at the same time comforting them that online banking is safe. In August 2006, HSBC was accused, despite its claimed airtight security, of having left its online consumers open to a security malfunction for two years without fixing. Researchers at Cambridge University claimed that any HSBC account could be broken into within nine attempts.
Kellogg’s
Kellogg has taken on a strong environmental strategy, representing their commitment to caring for their local public and protecting their environment.
There are a variety of ways they can help the environment, some which may include, supporting local management initiatives, helping charities, or volunteering for various community groups, these are all optimistic ways that they can help make a difference to the environment.
Kellogg identifies the need to make certain its processes are conducted in a way that leads to an enhanced quality of life for present and future generations. By acknowledging their impact on the natural environment and the broader community they dynamically work to ensure their company meets the sustainability needs of the present and future.
To better comprehend their main sustainability challenges, Kellogg are proactively working with government and industry groups to make out strategic areas of focus. Striving for a sustainable future is an essential part of the Kellogg business philosophy and their way of caring for the greater public in which they all live.
Since Kellogg originally began operating in Australia in 1924, the company has upheld a long record of environmental responsibility. It is astonishing to think that as early as seventy five years ago, Kellogg's® were already looking to further expand recycled content and to optimise the amount of carton and case materials that were able to be recycled, whilst preserving the manufacture of high quality products that exceed food protection requirements.
Kellogg's® are very proud of their long-standing dedication to the environment and of the ongoing focus that its employees have placed on keeping the company's environmental responsibility. In the past, Kellogg has continued to improve its environmental record, particularly in regards to its processes, waste management practices and packaging materials.
Conclusion
From the report I can conclude that both businesses, secondary and tertiary, differ in a variety of ways.
'The secondary sector of industry includes those economic sectors that create a finished, usable product: manufacturing and construction. This sector of industry generally takes the output of the primary sector and manufactures finished goods or products to a point where they are suitable for use by other businesses, for export, or sale to domestic consumers. This sector is often divided into light industry and heavy industry. Many of these industries consume large quantities of energy and require factories and machinery to convert the raw materials into goods and products. They also produce waste materials and waste heat that may pose environmental problems or cause pollution.’
However,
‘The tertiary sector of industry (also known as the service sector or the service industry) is one of the three main industrial categories of a developed economy, the others being the secondary industry (manufacturing), and primary industry (extraction such as mining, agriculture and fishing). Services are defined in conventional economic literature as "intangible goods". According to some economists, the service sector tends to be wealth consuming, whereas manufacturing is wealth producing.[1] Sir Keith Joseph in his lecture Monetarism IS Not Enough, contrasted wealth producing sectors in an economy such as manufacturing with the service sector which tends to be a wealth consuming sector. He contended that an economy declines as its wealth producing sector begins to shrink.’
The analysis of both businesses shows that their economies in various countries are up to different standards dependent on how their consumers respond to them and their success of their business environment.
Bibliography
Websites
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_sector_of_industry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_sector_of_industry